Happy return for Sosa, but Cubs waited too long to make it happen
When was the right time for Sammy Sosa to return to Wrigley Field? Why did it take so long? What was the holdup?
No one seems interested in answering those questions. Sosa made a long-awaited happy return to the Friendly Confines during Friday's 6-4 loss to the Seattle Mariners.
This was Sosa's first visit to Clark and Addison since the final game he played for the Cubs, roughly Oct. 2, 2004. Maybe he went back the next day to clean out his locker. Doesn't really matter.
Here's a verdict on the whole thing: The Cubs waited too long.
He should have been basking in the adulation of fans during the 2016 World Series. People should have made Sosa comparisons with Javy Baez, not Pete Crow-Armstrong.
By this point, 21 years later, Sosa's highlights were eclipsed by the World Series team. His three 60-home run seasons aren't forgotten, but now they're more of a footnote in Cubs history. Before 2015 the Sosa years were among the best the team had seen — at least post-1945.
Sure, baseball's steroid era was complicated and carried plenty of hard feelings. But the Cardinals welcomed round-trip rival Mark McGwire back into their dugout 16 years before the Cubs let Sosa wave from a luxury suite. How much sense does that make?
As usual, Sosa stayed friendly and cooperative when he spoke to reporters Friday. It didn't feel much different from his “Flintstone vitamins” spiels in the late 1990s.
Asked if he wished this reunion happened sooner, Sosa replied: “The time was right. That time is perfect. So this is the right time for me and for everybody else. I'm here now.”
The Cubs treated it pretty much the same as they do with any returning star. Between the third and fourth innings, a tribute video plays, then the scoreboard feed flips to that player waving from a suite. Usually, it's Ben Zobrist or Kerry Wood. This time it was Sosa.
The best moment of the day, which was replayed on the Marquee Network, happened when Sosa met Pete Crow-Armstrong outside the Cubs clubhouse Friday morning. Crow-Armstrong was wearing a “Step Brothers” T-shirt with his and Seiya Suzuki's faces pasted over the movie poster.
On Thursday, that T-shirt was draped over the back of the chair in front of Crow-Armstrong's locker. Someone asked who made it. “I have no idea, someone just put it there,” Crow-Armstrong said. And now he was wearing it.
Crow-Armstrong broke a Sosa record the previous day, reaching 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases faster than any player in team history.
“I believe he could have a 30-30, 40-40, you never know,” Sosa said of PCA. “He has the capability. He's a very smart hitter, he uses the whole field and I think he's going to be tremendous.”
Sosa isn't new to any of the current Cubs. His reunion tour began at the Cubs Convention in January, when he was on stage with the entire roster. He also made an appearance at spring training in Arizona.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell had a nice handle on the day's events.
“Sammy was a true entertainer, and he is a true entertainer,” Counsell said before the game. “If you play a lot, you're trying to succeed at the game and learn the intricacies of the game. But we're also here to entertain.
“Sammy was great at that, he understood that and he was phenomenal at it. I admire him for that.”
A Sosa appearance in 2016 would have been just that, quality theater. For whatever reason, the Cubs passed.
Now it's too late.