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A 600 home run club member, maybe had some help
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Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
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00:05Hello, I'm Chris Fowler for SportsCentury.
00:08In the spring of 1998, baseball's image, still tainted by a prolonged strike four years earlier,
00:14was dramatically improved by the game's most admired individual feat, the home run.
00:19Mark McGuire and Ken Griffey Jr. provided the early fireworks,
00:23powering homers at a rate even faster than Roger Marris and Mickey Mantle 37 years earlier.
00:28By mid-season, Cubs right fielder Sammy Sosa, who had never hit more than 40 homers in a year,
00:34had crashed the party with a record 20 in June.
00:37For the 10-year veteran, his emergence into the spotlight had come none too soon.
00:44Swamp on, tilted, left center field, back to the track, to the wall!
00:49Sammy waited his whole life for 1998.
00:52He wanted to be a great American superstar.
00:56Growing up a Dominican, it's kind of a strange dream, but I think he wanted that stage.
01:01Sosa sent it dry, deep tied right, oh baby, oh God!
01:06When that homerun chase took off, Sammy was in his element amid all this chaos,
01:11and he was really kind of a natural-born performer.
01:15One, two, three, one, two, three!
01:18This was the guy who was not only at ease in the spotlight, but he loved it, craved it, he
01:25wanted it.
01:27You've got to be kidding me.
01:29Into the stratosphere, Sosa's third of the night!
01:33I don't think at that time, anybody ever dreamed that this guy would be contending for being one of the
01:38greatest homerun hitters in the history of baseball.
01:41Sammy hits a high fly ball, all the way back to left!
01:45Can you believe it?
01:46Grand slam hit for Sammy Sosa!
01:50I do not believe it!
01:55From June through September, Sammy Sosa kept within striking distance of Mark McGuire,
02:00while throwing kisses to his mother with each homer.
02:03The nation responded joyfully to the David and Goliath Marathon.
02:07When we went across the country in 1998, people came there to watch Sammy Sosa.
02:14You know, sometimes 30,000 and 40,000 just to watch him take BP.
02:19We were getting presidents coming in the locker room, Muhammad Ali, they were all there to see Sammy.
02:24It was unbelievable.
02:26The press conferences, after every ball game, if he hit a homerun, if he didn't hit a homerun, why didn't
02:31he hit a homerun?
02:32The thing that really struck me was how calm Sosa was, and how much he kind of seemed to be
02:38enjoying the whole thing.
02:39Baseball has been very, very good to me.
02:43We're having a great time.
02:45I think people are really related to that, you know?
02:47It's like, this can't happen.
02:50These guys can't be friends, you know?
02:51They're battling.
02:52It's like, come on, yes, we can.
02:55Sammy always had the right thing to say.
02:57And he was always with a smile on his face.
02:58It was almost like he went to school and somebody had taught him how to act and deal with it.
03:04Strategically, he did a very smart thing.
03:05He deferred to Mark McGuire.
03:08He is the man in the United States.
03:09I am the man in the Dominican Republic.
03:13That made Sammy kind of the underdog hero to all the people.
03:17You're still having a great time, aren't you?
03:19Oh, what a country.
03:20There she goes.
03:22Number 62.
03:24Swag on back to deep-torn right.
03:27Sosa with a home run.
03:28Number 64.
03:30That's 66.
03:32This is going to be number 66.
03:35Sammy Sosa enters the new galaxy.
03:40Hitting his 66th homer on September 25th, Sosa edged in front of McGuire, if only for 45 minutes.
03:47Although he finished with four fewer homers than McGuire's record-smashing 70, the energetic slugger took MVP honors with 158
03:56RBIs, led the Cubs into the playoffs, and won the hearts of millions.
04:00Sammy Sosa!
04:02Sammy Sosa!
04:05He didn't want to miss a thing.
04:07He showed up at Yankee Stadium for the World Series.
04:09He showed up at the White House.
04:11They gave him a parade in New York.
04:13Sammy was on top of the world.
04:15I can remember writing a story about Sammy, and he was absolutely wild about the fact that he was on
04:21the cover.
04:22With Sammy, it really made an impression on him.
04:25I enjoy it very much.
04:27Every minute, every homer.
04:29I have a chance to play here and put my name in the tab.
04:32I mean, that's awesome.
04:34That's something that I really was looking for.
04:38So, he's really conscious of the perception of what everybody thinks of him as a major league player.
04:45That's what he lives for.
04:47Sammy Sosa makes his usual sprint.
04:50The Bleacher pool, caught him in wildly in right field.
04:55He's added a dimension of entertainment to the fans that no other player's done.
04:59And I'm sure there's guys that question that, too.
05:01You know, what a hot dog.
05:03How can he do this?
05:04I think some people believe that it's a bit of an act with Sammy Sosa with the great smile.
05:09Is this really Sammy?
05:11Sammy knows how he's perceived, and Sammy knows what sells.
05:15Sammy is all about selling.
05:16He's out going in the locker room, you know, obviously, as well as he's out in the outfield.
05:21So, for me, I don't think it's an act.
05:24I mean, if it was, it's a pretty good one, because that's the way he is all the time.
05:30There's another Sammy Sosa who's quite selfish in some ways, who's a prima donna, who I've
05:38seen at times treat people badly.
05:41When Bruce Kim took over as manager of the Cubs and got the team together, the message
05:47was basically, I'm going to treat everybody the same.
05:50Nobody's different in here.
05:51Well, Sammy stands up and he says, hold on a second right there.
05:55I'm a superstar, I'm not getting traded, I'm not going anywhere, let's be straight about
06:00that.
06:01And that's Sammy.
06:02There's a real edge to him.
06:03He carries himself with kind of a regal air and has a temper and has all the things that
06:10human beings have, but that he prefers not to show publicly.
06:15Sammy is the famous guy, but he's still a hard guy from the streets of the Dominican.
06:20There is a tough exterior that he's never lost.
06:25As a national holiday yourself, how do you feel about the brewers of Guinness petitioning
06:29to make...
06:30You have to see Sammy Sosa, somebody who grew up incredibly poor in the Dominican Republic.
06:35He sees everything about Major League Baseball and America as heaven, because this is the
06:41place he has ascended to from the hell where he grew up.
06:44It's like stepping back in time, particularly out in the country where Sammy was from, extreme
06:49abject poverty, family sort of living hand to mouth, no electricity, no water, no indoor
06:56plumbing.
06:57Born on November 12, 1968 in Consuelo, a small sugar cane farming town not far from the baseball
07:04mecca of San Pedro de Macariz, Sammy, at age six, lost his father to a brain hemorrhage.
07:10His mother, Luz Gracia, was left to care for Sammy and his five siblings.
07:14Ay, eso fue terrible.
07:16It was terrible.
07:17I struggled with my children.
07:19I worked.
07:20I sold lottery tickets and I kept us afloat.
07:23We just having a hard time to, you know, pull food on the table.
07:30Right now, I don't have a chance to be a kid because I always was working.
07:35Pero siempre tenÃamos la mira de que tenÃamos que ayudar a nuestra mamá.
07:38We always knew we had to help our mother.
07:40The boys went to school in the morning and in the afternoon they always lived with their
07:44shoe shine kits to see what they could earn.
07:46They would stand in the main plaza of town and just look for business people where they
07:52could shine shoes.
07:53He and his brothers would take the money back to their mother.
07:56He would never forget a mother's day and he knows that her mother smoked and he worked
08:03that day so hard to buy one cigarette, not a whole package, just one cigarette.
08:09Although they were poor, they were very together, there's always been a lot of love in their
08:12family with money or without money.
08:16When he wasn't working, Sosa was searching for a way out of poverty.
08:21In his early teens, he transferred his dream of a successful boxing career to baseball.
08:27I remember some time when he used to talk about, you know, that he's going to be a star,
08:30he's going to be to the major league, you know.
08:32And I used to look like him.
08:35We were dreaming.
08:36Montreal Expo came to the Dominican Republic.
08:38Hey!
08:39To see Sammy and some other players.
08:41I'm pretty sure.
08:42Sammy was the smallest guy and the youngest one.
08:45We signed the other kids that came to the tryout.
08:48The only guy we didn't sign was Sosa.
08:50They used to work for the Yankees organization and we take a look at Sammy Sosa and he is nothing.
08:58Nothing.
08:59I mean, he can throw, he don't hit.
09:02I spent about two or three weeks with the Yankees and they fired me.
09:07And when I was taking my uniform off, I said to Mr. Naranjo, you will remember me one day.
09:15You will see my name in the major league one day.
09:19And he laughed.
09:24There were other kids that had already been signed, stronger, with wealthier families that could take better care of them.
09:30And they saw Sammy, a shoe polisher, a boxer, and said, where do you think you're going?
09:34Go to the park, go pull your shoes, you're not going to be a ball player.
09:38He went into a restaurant one time when he was about 14 years old.
09:41And he had so little pairs of clothing that whatever he wore, he'd carry the sweat with him.
09:46One time somebody made fun of him and he said to them, that sweat is going to bring me a
09:51lot of money someday.
09:53And then he just went and sat at the table and then he began to cry.
09:56In 1985, Sosa's hard work attracted the attention of Texas Rangers scout Omar Minaya,
10:02who traveled to the Dominican Republic and signed the 16-year-old for a $3,500 bonus.
10:08He felt a lot of pressure to succeed.
10:11And succeeding for him in baseball was his family succeeding and coming out of poverty.
10:21When they signed him at the time, he got a bonus.
10:23With the $3,500 that he got, he bought a van for us to use as a taxi.
10:27He bought it thinking of my mom and us to make it easier to earn money for food,
10:30to get more money for the house.
10:32In 1989, my first time when I got to the Major League,
10:35I just saved about $40,000, $45,000.
10:39I went back, I hung Dominican Republic, I catch all of them, take it home,
10:45I bring all my family to the bedroom, and put the $45,000 in the bed and say,
10:49we're rich.
10:51Mommy, mommy, we're rich.
10:54You sure?
10:56Game!
10:57Meager beginnings in the Dominican Republic.
11:00Had a milk carton for a baseball club.
11:02And all of a sudden, really, just five, six years later,
11:04Comiskey Park, Chicago, we expect you to be a superstar.
11:09When Sammy Sosa was traded by the Rangers to the White Sox in July of 1989,
11:14he was heralded as a five-tool player with unlimited potential.
11:18But the early years in the United States had been lonely for the Dominican.
11:22Never speak English.
11:23Sometimes my friend wants me to go to the restaurant.
11:27When the lady came to me, he's, can I help you?
11:31I'm like, you know, I don't know how to say anything.
11:35At the supermarket, one day, his buddy's body, what they think is tuna,
11:40and they bring it back to their apartment.
11:41Sammy's just about to put the stuff in his mouth where this guy raised his hand,
11:45I was like, man, do you know you're about to eat cat food?
11:47Some of his friends were like 10, 12 years old at the time, too,
11:50because, you know, he just wanted to have friends.
11:53People don't realize that we come from a nothing to have it all.
11:56And that's the biggest adjustment we have to make when we got to the big leagues.
12:01His first time he got a check with the White Sox, he went and had a cash,
12:04put it in his pocket and played that night with the money in his back pocket.
12:08He says, I just want a cash, and I want to make sure I got my money.
12:10That's how naive he was.
12:12Hoping to find social stability and relief from his homesick blues,
12:16the 21-year-old Sosa married a U.S. citizen, Karen Lee Bright, in 1990.
12:24Some women would see that the young players came to the United States looking to earn money.
12:29The women would tell these players that they can get married, have money, a car, live a good life.
12:33So the players say yes, looking at it as the fastest way to get ahead.
12:37That's what happened to Sammy.
12:39Those first couple of years were really difficult for him,
12:41in the sense that Sammy Sosa, the player, hadn't really emerged yet.
12:45So it was just Sammy Sosa, the street kid, trying to make it in the States.
12:48The marriage lasted less than a year,
12:51ending bitterly with Karen Lee's unfounded charges of domestic abuse.
12:55But in the spring of 1992, Sosa tied the knot again,
12:59this time to a woman he met in a Dominican Republic nightclub, Sonia Rodriguez.
13:04They would have four children.
13:05Four.
13:06He does strike out a lot.
13:08And there is one more for him.
13:10While with the White Sox, the free-swing Sosa struggled at the plate,
13:14incurring the displeasure of the hitting coach.
13:16Walter Vinniak is a hard-bitten, tough throwback guy.
13:20And he wasn't real patient at times with some young players,
13:23if they didn't buy into his philosophy.
13:26I think Sammy really frustrated Walter.
13:29Sosa's fan 149 times, making it even 150.
13:33Sammy's swinging everything.
13:35Could have been a hot dog rapper, bubblegum rapper.
13:37If it was coming forward in white, Sammy was hacking.
13:401991, we had to send him to the mic.
13:42He gets sent back to AAA when his mother had just arrived to the DR for the first time.
13:49Finally, after years of struggling, you know, mom's going to come and see what a success her son is.
13:54At that point, there had to have been doubts in his mind as to whether this whole thing was going
13:58to happen for him.
14:03And Sosa crossed town to the Cubs.
14:06They say, we threatened you for George Bell.
14:10I'm like, you really?
14:11Yes, I say, thank you very much.
14:13You don't know what you do for me.
14:14Thank you very much.
14:15I appreciate it.
14:16I'm out of jail.
14:17I'm leaving.
14:18He had the innate ability, the speed to be able to do things, and the instincts to be able to
14:22do things.
14:23But he was a diamond in the rough that needed a lot of shining up.
14:28When you played against him, there were certain things that you knew you could get away with.
14:32It was a good bet he wasn't going to hit the cutoff, man, so you could go ahead and take
14:35the extra 90 feet.
14:37We're playing against the Expos.
14:38And he's playing center field.
14:40And Gary Carter is at third base.
14:42And a fly ball goes into center field.
14:44He catches the ball, and sure enough, Gary takes off.
14:46And he threw a perfect strike to Harry Carey in the press box.
14:51Despite moments of wildness in the outfield, Sosa settled in at Wrigley.
14:56And in 1993, he was the first Cub to join the coveted 30-30 club.
15:01Two years later, he did it again.
15:03But with success came criticism.
15:05After the first time he achieved the 30-30 goal, he showed up with a chain, a necklace chain with
15:1130-30 on there.
15:12It was almost like a license plate.
15:14I mean, it covered his whole chest, and it had 30-30.
15:16So, of course, that's kind of advertising what he did last year.
15:20But that was kind of what he was all about then.
15:23There were a lot of his teammates that didn't openly criticize him with words, but with their body language.
15:29And Sammy was very aware.
15:31Hi, everybody.
15:33Hey, fellas.
15:35How you miss me?
15:36You know, you're not going to like all your teammates.
15:38You're not going to get along with them.
15:39But the important thing is you respect him.
15:41And I think guys respected Sammy.
15:44So did the front office.
15:45In June of 1997, Sosa signed the third largest contract in the major leagues, $42.5 million over four years.
15:54But as the Cubs remained low in the standings, Sosa's critics stayed on point.
15:59People sort of saw his numbers as being hollow.
16:01And there came to be the phrase Sammy Sosa.
16:04He was a guy who, yeah, he hit well or whatever, but what did it mean?
16:08A big change came in 1997.
16:11The Cubs hired Jeff Pentland as their hitting coach in the middle of that year.
16:16Now, Sammy's the type of guy who doesn't really trust or warm up the people right away.
16:22But somehow, someway, he and Jeff Pentland hit it off.
16:25The thing that I went to Sammy about was to slow him down, put a little more finesse in his
16:30hitting.
16:31All of a sudden, he was starting to hit Greg Maddox.
16:33He was starting to hang in there against Curt Schilling.
16:35The big-name guys.
16:37And that was different than what we'd seen in the past.
16:39Sosa's home run totals and batting average improved dramatically.
16:44Meanwhile, a new public role was emerging for Sammy that made hitting a baseball seem simple by comparison.
16:51In the history of Latin players in baseball,
16:54really heralding the arrival of the Latin player to the dominant role that they are now,
16:58Sammy Sosa was the one who was sort of leading the way.
17:01Off the field, Sosa built a free clinic in San Pedro de Macariz.
17:05And when a hurricane pounded his homeland in 1998,
17:08he contributed to the disaster relief work.
17:11For far more than baseball, Sammy Sosa, you're a hero in two countries tonight.
17:17Yes, sir.
17:21Then, in 2002, a new challenge came at him, high and tight.
17:26Before a major league drug testing program was put in place,
17:30Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Riley approached Sosa about taking a steroids test.
17:35He had said that he wanted to be the first guy in line to be tested.
17:40So I came to him and said, why wait?
17:42He just flipped out.
17:43He said, who the hell are you to tell me to do this?
17:46I thought it was a very curious reaction for a guy that says, I'm not on anything.
17:51I think, you know, that person take advantage of my anything.
17:55Everybody know that I'm hardworking.
17:59He's a perfect target simply because of that before and after picture.
18:04You'd like to believe what he says.
18:06Weightlifting in the offseason, legal, nutritional supplements.
18:11During the offseason, he lifts an awful lot of weights.
18:13He works extremely hard to make himself strong.
18:15Nobody works harder than Sammy Sosa.
18:17He worked there, but he was definitely on PEDs.
18:20You can read the, you can read the box store.
18:24In 1998 and 2002, Sosa hit 292 homers, the most in baseball history over five years.
18:33Three, two.
18:34Bouncing ball up the middle.
18:36A run's going to score.
18:37Then, in June of 2003, his image was badly shaken.
18:41They're looking to see what's in the bat.
18:43Let's hope that it's just a spot that's rotten.
18:46As opposed to a spot that's corked.
18:49Part of baseball's most accomplished and popular players, Chicago Cubs Sammy Sosa, is accused of cheating.
18:56What is a corked back in the locker room?
18:58If you've seen his face, you can just tell that he really didn't know what to do.
19:02He broke down in the locker room because he felt so sad.
19:05That was a bat that I managed to use for EP.
19:09You know, bat in practice to make my fans happy.
19:14And, uh, I picked the room bat.
19:16You should have known better.
19:18I know what kind of cleats I'm putting on.
19:19I know what kind of glove I'm using.
19:21I know that I should and should not use what I'm pitching.
19:25So Sammy knows.
19:27It's a black mark for baseball.
19:29It's a black mark for Sammy.
19:30The fact of the matter is that we should never be talking about a cork bat for what?
19:35There's too little to gain and too much to lose.
19:3876 bats from the Cubs clubhouse and five more from the Hall of Fame tested negative for cork.
19:45After serving a seven-game suspension and apologizing to his teammates, the once bubbly Latino slipped on his glove and
19:52his patented smile and faced his public.
19:54How does this guy who has thrived on adulation, now he's going to Baltimore and a kook is coming out
20:00of the stands and throwing cork at him.
20:01Now he's going on the road to Cincinnati and getting booed.
20:04All that immediate hostility toward him, I think, really had a tremendous blow to the gut to him.
20:13That how can people think this of me?
20:17There was something like, I'm a criminal.
20:19Like, I almost killed somebody.
20:22And I'm like, wow.
20:24Some people make worse mistakes and it's okay.
20:28But the one that I make, I was like, you know, that's it.
20:32You finish.
20:35Following his suspension, Sosa hit 34 homers to finish 2003 with 40.
20:41As his numbers continued to drop the next season, his relationship with management deteriorated.
20:46In February of 2005, he was traded to Baltimore.
20:50A month later, Sosa was called to testify before a house committee about the use of steroids in Major League
20:56Baseball.
20:57I have never taken illegal performance enhancing drugs.
21:00I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything.
21:06He wasn't the highlight of the hearing.
21:08He won't be the lasting image of the hearing, but he was there.
21:10And for many people, that's guilt by association.
21:14After Sosa hit 14 homers and batted 221 in 2005, the Orioles chose not to exercise the option on his
21:21contract.
21:22The free agent market proved to be colder than a bat left out in the snow.
21:26And Sosa sat out 2006.
21:28Then the following year...
21:30Of course the guy wants to play terribly for the Orioles of all teams.
21:35He returned to the team that had given him his start, the Texas Rangers, for whom he provided one more
21:39thrill by becoming the fifth player to hit 600 homers.
21:43On a drive by Sammy right away, John Jones going back near the bullpen, and there it is, number 600
21:51for Sammy Sosa.
21:56He's got all the cumulative numbers you could ask for.
21:59I can't dismiss his career based on conjecture, speculation.
22:04Sammy Sosa was a joy to watch because he played the game with a smile.
22:09He was a symbol of so many things that were right.
22:13But it turns out, history may tell us, he was just another one of those guys that got caught up
22:17in the wash.
22:18And we'll never really know what was Sammy Sosa and what wasn't Sammy Sosa.
22:25The old expression, he didn't know his own strength, certainly applied to Sammy Sosa until he was traded from the
22:31White Sox to the Cubs in 1992.
22:34Sitting next to Ryan Sandberg, Sosa couldn't help but notice that his physique compared favorably with the all-star second
22:41baseman,
22:41who had hit 40 homers two years earlier, Sosa's horizons soon expanded.
22:46And today, he's the only player to have hit at least 60 homers in three seasons.
22:51For SportsCentury, I'm Chris Fowler.
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