Sammy Sosa Should Have Always Been Allowed Back

Sammy Sosa's PR statement will finally allow him back in the good graces of the Cubs organization.

Even in 1998, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa’s home runs were slightly sketchy.

In August of that fateful year, when McGwire had broken Roger Maris’s record in a homerun chase with Chicago Cubs star Sammy Sosa, veteran writer Steve Wilstein observed a bottle of androstenedione in McGwire’s locker room. In front of everyone in plain sight next to his picture with his kids, androstenedione, or “andro”, was an anabolic steroid created by organic chemist Patrick Arnold. It’s meant to increase testosterone, reduce fats, and maintain a better sexual performance. At the time, it was available to be purchased from the counter at any drug store. It was legal, and despite the fact that the Olympics had banned andro for their games, Major League Baseball had not yet prohibited it, so when McGwire had it in his locker room, Wilstein noted it but it was not anything to write home about. McGwire wasn’t on anyone’s naughty list for having andro in the locker room. How could anyone even criticize him for it? The vibes of the homerun chase, a phenomenon that happened after the disastrous strike-shortened 1994 season, were too powerful and delirious to question. “Big Mac” and Sosa were saving baseball, much to the chagrin of Giants slugger Barry Bonds. Like every generation that thinks they invented sex, drugs, and music, people think that cheating in baseball started in the Steroid Era. It didn’t. It had only been thirty years since players were using “greenies”, otherwise known as amphetamines. Just like Jim Crow and the South, Greeks and philosophy, and the Romans and decadence, cheating and baseball are synonymous. Even someone who sleeps with a glove next to him in bed knows that baseball has a history of cheating. Indeed, it is used as an example of baseball’s eccentricities. Here is this sport, that is methodical and unsuccessful in nature, constantly having white lies and small scandals that feed fans mythology and history that they can tell their kids about. Usually, it is the players that get blamed for this cheating, as if there is a greed and a startling hunger pre-disposed in a baseball player that makes them want to cheat. The truth is more complicated than that. To give you an example: The White Sox betting scandal of 1919 is often used as a finger-wagging tale of players’s laziness and avarice, but what is almost always glossed over is the pompousness and greed of Charles Comiskey, the famous owner of the Chicago White Sox. Old Man Comiskey was notoriously cheap, making players pay for their washed uniforms and stripping them out of bonuses that were agreed to in their contracts. Despite the stain of the “Black Sox Scandal”, one would not be erroneous to suggest that Comiskey’s fascist rule was a factor in the White Sox players meeting with Sport Sullivan. To see cheating in Baseball is to see a web of history.

I used to watch highlights of Sammy Sosa consistently throughout my life. I was two years old when he began the chase for Roger Maris’s record but it’s the style of baseball that I just missed, so it is fascinating to me — like a Young Thug fan that is obsessed with Lil Wayne. It’s somewhat odd of me to do this, considering that Sosa, and to a lesser extent McGwire, were national league players, and have nothing to do with the New York Yankees, my favorite baseball team. Plus, Griffey was better; Bonds was better. Those guys were the coolest players. Junior, with his backwards cap and wide smile, was the Magic Johnson of baseball, allowing fans of all stripes to get in on his celebrity. Bonds was the stubborn and cold genius, with the autistic knowledge of the strike zone, who embodied the disappointment and racism that his father and godfather told him about the Jim Crow south. On YouTube rabbit holes that are as powerful and time consuming as ketamine holes, I would watch Sosa’s home run in Game 1 and Game 2 of the NLCS, or all the homeruns from his infamous 1998 season. (A great call by disgraced announcer Thom Brennaman adds to the insanity of the home run in the second game of the NLCS: “Sammy’s playing long ball — and I mean, LONG BALL!”). Wrigley Field is a capitalist scene, populated by an intense amount of rich and white Illinois residents, but it would seem like heaven when Sosa launched them. The famous backstop never looked better than when Sosa was launching bombs. You know what his infamous stance was: a crotch with his buttocks standing out as if he was getting ready to jump on a trampoline. It was like The Grinch’s stance as he was packing the Who’s food and presents. The bat would connect and he’d hop with glee, a child-like euphoria to the sound of his rocketing home runs. Now that all of us know that it was a fake, it feels shocking that the initial excitement still exists. The Steroid Era in baseball was like the big boom, an amusement park, the opposite of the meticulous details that George F. Will wrote about in his book Men At Work. Bonds had lamented, jealous with his girlfriend after a game against the Cardinals, that fans only wanted to see a cheating McGwire play because he was white. (It was after this season when Bonds decided he had to use performance-enhacing drugs. If McGwire could captive America, imagine what he could do, Bonds thought). What made Sosa the epitome of the Steroid Era was how his hitting feels a direct result of the steroids, a clear instance of the steroid changing the entire career trajectory of a player. Bonds was a genius who became a cyborg. McGwire had big seasons in Oakland as a “bash brother”, and despite how huge he got while being with the Cardinals, he was someone with excellent bat skills, a short, compact swing that was minimalist and aesthetically pleasing. Sosa, however, came out of nowhere to be a solid player, then was suddenly a mammoth star because of the wonders of science. How could you possibly revere Sosa after that, who quickly skyrocketed to his fame? Most writers consider Sosa to be outside of the hall of fame; his statistics have been muddied by the drugs that made his body artificial.

Last week, Sammy Sosa made a statement acknowledging mistakes made during his career. It was a public mea culpa. “I never broke any laws, but in hindsight, I made mistakes and I apologize”, said Sosa. (It’s funny how banal the statement is. Sammy might have written this at gunpoint). Despite all of the home runs and cheers, Sosa has not been back to Wrigley or any related Cubs events since his retirement from baseball. It’s as messy as it looks: Sosa, once proudly dark Black Latino, has bleached his skin. One could reason that it might have something to do with his exile. It’s sad, seeing Sammy Sosa have skin like a flamingo. “I no black, papi”, was always the joke that my family and I would make to criticize Latinos, usually Dominicans, who wanted to believe that they weren’t Black like we were. It’s a shame that Sosa is in that group now. The Cubs are a historic organization — never for winning — that puts a premium on its former players because that is where most of the legacy is. They’re career losers, most of them, but the charm is in their excellent play in the face of the losses they took. Whether you’re Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, or Kerry Wood, you are a Cubs legend if you showed up and worked hard. The losses are not on you; they’re part of a generational curse, a supernatural way of losing that only the sharp brain of Theo Epstein could defeat.

Sosa was part of that. The Cubs never won anything when he was there, but the fans got their hot dog, their memories, and ownership got their money. What’s the biggest sanctimony of the steroid era? To me, the hypocrisy of the steroid era is one of anti-labor — despite the obvious stardom that Sosa, “Big Mac”, and other users gained. Commissioner Bud Selig knew that the drug use would bring fans back to the park after the strike had upset fans enough to legitimately stop coming, especially in midwest markets, in places that already struggle to sell out if the team isn’t very good. The Cardinals had struggled with attendance in the years after the strike, a proud franchise grasping for people to care again. Sosa and McGwire did that, and then suddenly, baseball was a pastime again, the traditional, American sport that could only be knocked off by the violent masculinity of American football. I’m not advocating for players to take steroids again, they’re health concerns in that and the level of play should be more balanced, but the hypocrisy of a league wanting players to bring back fans and then punishing them for it when they do bring fans back feels like a misunderstanding of what the values of baseball actually are. All baseball history is based on sketchy circumstances, pure cheating, and backroom deals. It’s the national pastime.

Sammy is going to be welcomed back to Wrigley. It’ll be a nice afternoon. The polish hot dogs will have a great taste; the cheers will be loud. Sure, the fans could use a day to celebrate him, retire his jersey, and allow him to run out to right field again, but seeing Sosa apologize for giving people memories was sad. It was he who took steroids so he could give the fans memories, so he could be on the billboards that inspired people to come to the ballpark again. Indeed, Sammy should have been allowed back to Wrigley the minute he retired. Without our memories, our accomplishments — born out of a need for attention, a need for success — we are merely passing through history.