Sammy Sosa Hopes to Return to MLB
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Sammy Sosa is training hard for a hoped for MLB comeback after being out of the game in the 2006 season.
You remember Sammy Sosa don’t you? He played 13 of his 17 seasons with the Chicago Cubs and hit over 50 homeruns in a season 4 times, 3 of those being 60 or more homers.
He battled Mark McGwire in the 1998 season and ended up with 66 homers while McGwire set a homer record with 70 and in 1999, Sosa finished with 63 homers to McGwire’s 65. In 2001, after slacking off and only hitting 50 in the 2000 season, Sosa hit 64 homers in battling Barry Bonds who broke McGwire’s record with 73 dingers. While clubbing 252 homers in those 4 years, Sosa also averaged .311 over the same period.
But then, in years 2002 - 2004, his homer output returned to human dimensions with 49, 40 and 35 but his batting average dropped to .253 in 2004 and the Cubs traded him to the Baltimore Orioles where he only played 102 games hitting only 14 homers and he slumped to a .221 batting average. Sammy Sosa with 588 career homers in his 17 seasons, actually has more homers than McGwire who has 583 homers in 16 seasons.
Sports Illustrated reports that Sosa appears serious about returning to baseball;
“I feel like I did when I was a rookie,” Sosa told The Associated Press. “I have a lot of spirit and a desire to return. I think I can play three or four more years in the form I am now.”
Sosa hit the ball out of the park 15 times while training at a field in San Pedro de Macoris that is operated by the Japanese league’s Hiroshima Carp.
The 38-year-old slugger said he had received calls from teams interested in signing him but declined to reveal their names.
He has not played since his 2005 season with the Baltimore Orioles, when he hit .221 with 14 home runs and 45 RBIs.
Sosa feels that baseball has since turned its back on him, calling it a “blow” to not have received offers to come back during this year’s season.
The only team that has publicly expressed interest in the Dominican’s services were the Washington Nationals, who offered a non-guaranteed $500,000 contract that Sosa rejected.
“I want the chance and I believe one is going to appear. This time I will accept an offer like the one with the Nationals because I want to get back to the majors,” he said.
Sosa, who won the National League’s most valuable player award, played 17 seasons with the Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox and Cubs and finally with Baltimore.
A year away from the game wouldn’t shake him, he said.
“Ted Williams went to war and lost a couple years. More recently, Barry Bonds stayed away for more than a year and came back, and the same happened with Frank Thomas because of injuries,” he said.
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January 30th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
[…] Sure it’s been exciting to watch Mark McGwire, and as previously written, I believe that McGwire belongs in the Hall by virtue of having broken the season homerun record by a mile. And Sammy Sosa was great to watch — trying to keep pace with McGwire in 1998 and as the only player in MLB history with three 60+ homer seasons. And yes, the same holds true for Barry Bonds and his 73 homers in 2001 although the steroids hystrionics that came after it in subsequent years have been distasteful. […]