Sammy Sosa, as is usual with deities, is in the details. So, we start with Sosa’s first plate appearance of the spring, a semiofficial at-bat for the Lumber Company, a designation not often used on the Cubs other than for Sosa. The game was an intrasquad affair between coach Rene Lachemann’s Lumber Company and manager Don Baylor’s Bears.
“What is a lumberjack?” Sosa asked.
“Strongman,” I said. “In baseball, it means home run hitter. Pittsburgh once had the Lumber Company. You would be the foreman, the top lumberjack.”
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Sosa nodded. “I understand,” he said. I did not explain Bears, which is a much more complicated and audacious name because it means grown-up Cubs and these Cubs are far away from that.
Kyle Farnsworth’s first pitch to Sosa arrived prompt and fat. Sosa swung and missed, the force of his swing bringing groans from the scattered witnesses. The next two balls were low and outside. If Sosa could bat against Farnsworth, or the rest of the Cubs’ staff every game, 70 home runs would be more than just a soft drink fantasy.
In batting practice, Sosa had whacked every other ball over the fence, many over both fences and over the small hill behind left field at HoHoKam Park. Sosa drove one ball off the center-field scoreboard, which stopped it from going 500 feet if an inch.
Baylor had watched Sosa attentively, as he seems to do everything that happens in this camp. Baylor’s as well as Sosa’s eyes followed each ball, and Sosa would not get ready to hit the next pitch until the last one had landed.
“I look to Sammy to hit bombs to win ballgames for us,” said Baylor, applying priority to common sense.
Before I go any further, I would like to apologize to Baylor, and to the Cubs and to Sosa himself. As far as I can tell the plan is to submerge Sosa into the Cubs, to reclaim him from his place among the demigods and friends of the famous, to make him just another player, to de-Sammy Sammy, and here I am in my first spring training column nattering on about mighty Sosa swings and bashing scoreboards.
I understand that the last two seasons are to filed away, like old yearbook pictures, to be reviewed when less vital, instant nostalgia, which is usually the Cub kind. In short, Sosa is no longer to be considered special.
“I am not special,” Sosa said, not inviting an argument, but of course he is. It is too late for Sosa to be anything else. He either will continue to be a special somebody or a special failure, if he, say, hits only 50 homers instead of 60, if he turns from open joy into grumpiness. Somewhere the middle ground has been removed for Sosa and the only way is straight up or straight down, no resting among the commonplace. Messing with the essential Sosa is a dodgy business.
“I don’t want him to be separate from the team, or the team separate from him,” Baylor said. “I want him to be a leader, to be looked up to, not to be excluded.”
In other words, Baylor does not want this season to turn into another Sosa-McGwire home run race, as fascinating as the last two have been. He does not want the goals of one to damage the ambition of all. The only sure way to make this happen is to win, as the Cubs did when Sosa hit 66 and did not when he hit 63. Winning is not a given with the Cubs, and seldom a fact.
“I have seen the megastars,” said Baylor, “and they are always part of the team, Elway, Gretzky, Jordan. They never separate themselves.”
A device Baylor has chosen to keep Sosa infused in the team to make Sosa one of four Cub captains, which is at least three too many. Sosa appreciates the gesture, if not the motives for it.
“It shows respect for all of us,” Sosa said. “But I get along with everybody. I want to be treated like everybody. I came to do my part and win the division. It is not up to one guy. I expect everybody to have the season I am expecting to have.”
Farnsworth’s fourth pitch to Sosa strayed low and outside and Sosa reached for it, losing his power in the lunge. The ball wafted indolently to right field, ignoring Sosa’s intent and oblivious to the fame of the man who hit it. The ball fell harmlessly into the glove of Corey Patterson.
Nothing special. A fine beginning.