I returned to the ballpark after a few days off and headed to Sammy Sosa’s locker for a catch-up.
Sosa looked at me: “Where was you, Terry?”
Uh … nice to see you too.
I covered His Samminess (almost) every day from 2000-02. We didn’t get along as splendidly as, say, President Donald Trump and the One America News Network. But it wasn’t Trump and CNN either. Sometimes I poked the bear, but I never touched the boombox.
Sosa believes he had a great relationship with reporters. Asked Tuesday why he hasn’t received more Hall of Fame votes, Sosa said on
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WVMP-AM 1000’s “Kap & Co.”: “That’s something I ask myself because I was good with every reporter, I was good with everyone who asked me for an interview and today they treat me like … I don’t know.”Sosa was accommodating. He often was friendly. The problem came when people wrote something or asked something he didn’t like. Then he would treat reporters like … I don’t know.
Here are my five favorite/funniest confrontations with Sosa.
1. ‘I am not a loser.’
The clubhouse is giddy after the Cubs rally to beat the Braves at Wrigley Field in the 2000 home opener. With everyone in good spirits, I joke with Sosa about the official scorer doing him a solid with a “base hit” ruling on a grounder off Walt Weiss’ glove.
“You don’t think that was a hit?” Sosa asks. “You the official scorer now, buddy?”
I think he’s joking, so I play along. Yeah, I tell him. I report on the games and also decide what’s an error.
“You want to take a hit away from me?”
“Sammy, I’m just kidding.”
“I have no words for you.”
And with that, he walks away.
Postscript: A few days later, Sosa delivers one of my favorite Sammy-isms. Given that he’s a notoriously slow starter in cold weather, I ask if he basically writes off the first stretch of April games: “I am not a loser, buddy. I am not a loser.”
2. All those strikeouts.
It’s May 2000, and the Cubs are on pace to set the MLB record for team strikeouts. Not the good kind, by pitchers. Sosa leads the team with 34 whiffs, a number manager Don Baylor calls “alarming.”
I write a story under the headline: “All too often, baseball has become a non-contact sport for the Cubs; They’re the king of K’s.”
My editor selects photos of three Cubs, Sosa included, all whiffing.
As Sosa walks from the dugout to the field, he purposely spills his coffee near my shoes and says, calmly: “Nice article, (expletive).”
Hmm. Thanks for reading?
Outfielder Glenallen Hill approaches later to ask: “Why are you upsetting the big guy?”
3. Two lions meet
Things are tense in summer 2000, with the Cubs threatening to lose 100 games and trade Sosa to the New York Yankees for prospects. Sosa gets in a shot at his manager, saying: “One of the fans had a sign that said: ‘Sammy Sosa has 20 home runs, Don Baylor has zero.’ I thought that was funny.”
Sosa is ticked at me as well. Again. Perhaps I asked about a bad angle he took on a fly ball or wrote about him missing the cutoff man. Sosa was defensive about his defense.
Before a game in Denver, Sosa calls me over to ask why I’ve been hassling him. (I thought I was covering him fairly.)
It’s a cordial discussion. He wants to win me over. He talks about lions. When two lions meet, he says, they do not attack one another. They show mutual respect.
I agree.
To thank me, Sosa gives me a mini-scoop about Henry Rodriguez, his friend and lineup protector. Sosa says the Cubs should not trade him: “The guy has been hitting behind me and I’ve had a lot of success. We need two left-handed hitters in Wrigley Field, him and (Mark) Grace.”
On July 31, the Cubs trade Henry Rodriguez to the Marlins, netting Ross Gload.
4. The contract extension.
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In spring training 2001, I find out Sosa is on the verge of signing a four-year, $72 million extension, having told some Oakland A’s players: “Any day now.”
The next day Sosa, in a media scrum, points to me and says: “My friend here, he say I say something I no say.”
But that’s not even the most memorable line related to his extension. Asked how he could justify asking for almost $20 million a year when the average worker might make $50,000, Sosa replies: “A lot of people complain, but if they had my shoe they would want the same, maybe worse.”
5. The boombox.
As the miserable 2002 season nears an end, I get wind that Cubs catcher Joe Girardi has done the unthinkable: He turned down the blaring salsa music on Sosa’s boombox. It was the Cubs’ version of capture the flag.
“I just said, ‘I’m a little older and I don’t like the (loud) music. I have nothing against you playing it when you’re in here,” Girardi explains. “He was barking (at me) in the beginning because he thought someone was messing around. He didn’t realize that I turned it down because I thought he went outside.”
I don’t make a big thing of it, writing just 450 words. But the editors run it on the sports front with the monster headline: “Looney Tunes at Wrigley Field.”
Oof.
When I walk in the clubhouse, Sosa grabs my shoulder and demands: “What the (expletive) was that?”
Even Girardi, like me a Northwestern alumnus, is freezing me out.
I see Girardi a year later and ask if we’re OK. Absolutely, he tells me. Turns out people throughout baseball had called to give him props. Why? Because he stood up to Sosa.