The Chicago Cubs still insist on excluding Slammin’ Sammy Sosa from their history given how sketchy his legacy has become.
Since leaving the team in 2005, Sammy Sosa has had no public presence with the Chicago Cubs. Not an invite to Wrigley, no inclusion in team festivities, not even a bobblehead.
And according to owner Tom Ricketts, that seems likely to continue.
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Ricketts, according to the Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales, “simply glared” when a reporter brought up the irony of Sosa’s absence from the Cubs while at the same time hiring new hitting consultant Manny Ramirez.
“Nothing really new on Sammy,” Ricketts said. “Nothing’s really changed or new to report. I’ve always said Sammy was a great player,” he added. “Regardless of anything else, he was a great player. But at this point, nothing new to report.”
Sosa, whose 609 career home runs rank eighth all-time, left the Cubs on bad terms in 2005. The infamous corked bat incident didn’t help his public image or standing with the team, and he requested to sit out the last game of the 2004 season, which further annoyed the Cubs, who shipped him to Baltimore in the offseason.
In the years following his departure from the team, stories about his steroid use have come out, revealing that he was one of the many ’90s sluggers to use performance-enhancing drugs. Sosa didn’t help his image with his appearance in the Congressional hearings on steroids in baseball (remember those? Why did that need to happen?), in which he pretended he couldn’t speak English in order to avoid answering questions.
The Cubs have continued on as though Sosa was never there. You won’t see him at any Wrigley Field events or functions; they famously excluded him from last year’s 100th anniversary celebration of their storied home field. Ryan Dempster was there, but not the franchise’s all-time home run leader. His number 21 also remains in circulation, indicating that they have no plans to retire it.
No one’s saying they have to hire him as the manager or anything. But, steroids or no steroids, Sosa was a beloved member of the franchise, a key contributor to their best team of the past 100 years, and one of exactly two reasons why people watched baseball in 1998. Denying that Sosa is a part of Cubs history is a disservice to the fans who watched him play. Pete Rose got a standing ovation from Reds fans last year; do we really think Sosa wouldn’t get the same at Wrigley?
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