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CHICAGO — There are certain Chicago teams who are synonymous with certain athletes. The Bears can’t be mentioned in the same breath without Walter Payton, the Blackhawks without Patrick Kane…the Cubs without Sammy Sosa.
A legendary baseball player on the North Side and one of baseball’s all-time great sluggers sat down with WGN’s Jarrett Payton Friday in what was Sosa’s first return to Chicago since 2007, when he and the Texas Rangers travelled to Chicago to play the White Sox from April 17-19, nearly 17 years ago.
For Sosa, the memories of the Windy City came flooding back the moment his plane landed at O’Hare International Airport.
“Right away, right out of the plane,” Sosa said of when the memories started triggering. “I’ve never seen something like that. Then I have like 20 guys already waiting for me to sign [autographs] right out of [the plane].”
Up until that moment on the tarmac, Sosa told Payton he has spent his retirement catching up on lost time with his family and getting closer to God.
Sosa’s been happily married to his wife Sonia for 34 years and the two now call Miami home, where Sosa prays three-to-four times a day and spends as much time as he can with his family, especially his kids.
“When I was playing, I didn’t have that time every father has to be with his kids every day, and I missed that,” Sosa said. “Now, I stay home all the time. I wake up about 5:30 in the morning … Prepare the lunch for my kids and you know, pretty much that’s my case.
“I want to stay home [and] at least, I want to see them see me everyday. For me, doing that, it’s like getting back when I wasn’t there, but now I’m here.”
That’s the standard 24 hours in the life of Sosa these days — Time with family and devoting himself to Christianity — which he said has led to him developing humility, and losing the ego he had when he was amid his playing days.
That, combined with the love he’s received from Cubs fans, is what Sosa said prompted a renewed interest in a reunion with the Cubs.
“I remember when I used to run to right field,” Sosa said. “And not only that, but when I would go 0-3 or 0-4, I would always hear somebody say, ‘Don’t worry Sammy, you’ll get it next time.’ They pumped me up most of the time and I have a great relationship with them, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve been missing it for so long.”
“Now I’m here so, they’re going to see me more often.”
‘Now I’m here’ — an intent to be genuinely present — was a dominant theme throughout the interview with Payton, and will continue to be so in his interactions with the Cubs as the two sides work to mend their relationship, according to Sosa.
He told Payton he has talked with Cubs owner Tom Ricketts several times and called him “a great guy” and their conversations have been “so far, so good.”
“Me coming to Chicago, I think it’s going to open a lot of doors,” Sosa said. “I’m going to come back here often, like I said, and we’ll see what happens.”
Payton then pointed toward a 2015 quote from Ricketts.
“Players of that era owe us a little bit of honesty, too,” Ricketts said at CubsCon in 2015. “I feel like the only way to turn this page is just to put everything on the table.”
Up until his return to Chicago and this interview, the relationship between the Cubs, Ricketts and Sosa had been rife with tension.
In the past, Sosa was excluded from anything related to the Cubs — Games, spring training, special events, conventions, the whole nine yards — at the behest of Ricketts, who felt like Sosa needed to apologize for the allegations that tied him to performance-enhancing drugs, before he could return to the organization after his retirement.
“Do you feel like you owe Cubs fans or the organization, an apology?” Payton asked Sosa.
“In the past, maybe like everybody else, I made a lot of mistakes,” Sosa replied. “You know, now I recognize my mistakes. I don’t have an ego anymore … Right now it’s different times. I see things differently now.”
Sosa agreed with Payton that no one is perfect and that he, like most people, has regrets where he wishes he could go back and do things differently. But the difference now is that Sosa knows he’s a free man. There’s no one that can control him and when he wants to do something — like find a way to repair the relationship between him and the Cubs — he’s not going to ask anyone to do it for him.
That wouldn’t be the current version of Sosa, according to him.
“I just want to be here now,” Sosa said. “You know, we changed everything. I think this is a good message for the whole City of Chicago and like I said, let’s see what happens.”
It’s not like Chicagoans don’t want him back either. When Payton walked the streets of Wrigleyville with Sosa Friday, it was astonishing how many people stopped to shake his hand, or say, “We just want you back,” according to Payton.
“Time will determine everything. I’m here now [and] this is the first step,” Sosa said.
Sosa hit 545 home runs as a Cub (609 total, ninth-most all-time) and is the only player in major league history to smack 60 or more home runs in three consecutive seasons. When asked if he believes he deserves to be enshrined in Cooperstown, he’d say yes, but he would also say that being immortalized as a Cub in the City of Chicago means much more to him.
“The numbers don’t lie, but you know, this is my hall of fame — My people,” Sosa said of Chicago. “A lot of hall of famers have a plaque in the hall of fame, but they are no where to be seen. The love that I’m getting everyday and what I’ve done in my career, that’s good enough.
“Sunday, if it happened, Fantastic! But if it don’t happen, it’s okay because I’d like to be in the hall of fame in heaven, and the hall of fame here.”
When asked if he believes he’s been treated unfairly, Sosa deflected. He said he views himself as a man in an arena, and is one who’s not going to gripe about the opinions of others.
“I’m a gladiator. I don’t complain,” Sosa said. “I’m not that type of person. I’m taking it one day at a time. I have people, they’ve seen me play many, many times when I was playing here. They saw that I gave my heart everyday.
“If someone wants to say something different, it’s okay, it’s a free country. I’m not going to be pointing fingers on what they’re saying or that I want you to treat me better. No, no, no, no, no, no. I’m living my own life, I am a free man.”
For now, that free man is in Chicago, where he said his legacy lays, and he believes the relationship between him, Chicago and the Cubs, will blossom once more.
“My legacy is here. That’s what I want — To continue coming back here because this is the city that gave me opportunity. They didn’t hand it to me because I was a pretty boy. I had to work hard for that. My number is here, it’s not in another place.
So, we have to find a way to come to the table and talk about that because this is too big just to wipe it up. I believe that it’s going to happen. God is working on it.”
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