Sammy's Second Season

Into the sticky heat and brutal sunshine of a Saturday in Chicago charged Sammy Sosa, not with the loping insouciance of a professional but with the arm-pumping eagerness of a child. The first Cub out of the dugout, he sprinted to his familiar place in rightfield and banked left, like one of those sleek F-15s swooping above during the city's weekend Air and Water Show, and ended his high-kneed romp with a grateful tap to his heart for his sunburned supplicants in the Wrigley Field bleachers, many of whom even paused from draining their beers to cheer the greatest signature entrance in spoils since Ozzie Smith's flip. � Sosa is to Chicago what the queen's guards are to Buckingham Palace or Old Faithful is to Yellowstone. Both despite and because he has done so hundreds of times before, there is excitement to the ceremony. Sosa has become as much a part of Wrigleyana as ivy, brick, sunshine and the plentiful drinking of fluids, an intoxicating recipe that prompted 13-year veteran and first-time Cub Eric Karros to remark, "Every major league player should have the opportunity to play one summer in Chicago before he retires." � Never before, though, had Sammy made a run like last Saturday's. Never before had Sosa done so with the Cubs in first place this deep into a season—121 games. The last time a Cubs team was in first place this late, back in 1989, Sosa was a skinny 20-year-old kid playing on the South Side with the White Sox. � As if that alone wasn't enough to put a little extra spring in his step, Sosa also knows the satisfaction of recovering from the worst three months of his career. Other than getting hit with a helmet-cracking beanball, suffering through a toe injury that kept him up at night in pain, missing as many games as he did in the previous six years combined and being shamed and suspended for using a corked bat, April, May and June were a real hoot. � Since returning from that suspension on June 18, Sosa, as of Monday, had knocked in 51 runs in 54 games, batted .301, whacked 22 home runs (the most of any player over that period) and, as far as the fallout of his public disgrace goes, generally put a cork in it.

The notoriety that came with the suspension was unfamiliar to him. "It's a situation I've never been in before," he said before Friday's game, "with the way people said things about me. What I learned from it is it makes you stronger. I've put it all behind me. When you're strong mentally and physically, you don't let anything bother you. I knew when I got healthy, I could still do the things I've always done."

Sosa then pushed his team into first place in the National League Central by banging out three hits and knocking in both runs in a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers, backing a complete game by pitching prodigy Mark Prior.

These being the Cubs, however, a team that hasn't won a playoff series since 1908, success is a wet bar of soap. They dropped behind Houston into second place with Saturday's 10-5 loss and stayed there, a half-game back, thanks to Sunday's 3-0 defeat.

Sosa has hit more homers (527) without getting to the World Series than any player in history. He has been to the postseason just once—the wild-card-winning 1998 Cubs were swept by the Atlanta Braves in the Division Series—but says, "This is the best team I've played on because of the pitching and the balance on offense."

Chicago's staff is on pace to break the 2001 Cubs' major league record for strikeouts in a season (1,344). It is the franchise's most difficult staff to hit (opponents are batting .238) since 1914, back in the Dead Ball era. Again, however, these being the Cubs, the staff leader in strikeouts, Kerry Wood, did leave Saturday's sloppy start in the third inning with a strained back.

Wood and reliever Kyle Farnsworth are the only two Cubs to have played alongside Sosa since before 2000. The manager and 26 of the 37 coaches and active and disabled players joined the Cubs either last year or this year. But despite all the changes and the maturation of young guns Wood, 26; Prior, 22; and Carlos Zambrano, 22, the Cubs remain Sosa's team. Even with his resurgence, Chicago is a pedestrian offensive club, ranking 11th in the league in runs at week's end. "He's the key to the team's success, and we all know that," leftfielder Moises Alou says.

Sosa's troubles this season began with an April 20 beaning by Pittsburgh Pirates righthander Salomon Torres, though Sosa downplays any residual effect. "Lots of guys get hit," he says. Meanwhile, the sore big toenail on Sosa's right foot, which he says bothered him some last year, was getting worse. A few weeks later he walked into the clubhouse with such a worn look on his face that Alou said to him, "You look like you haven't slept. What's wrong?"

Sosa told him he couldn't sleep because of the pain in his toe.

"I couldn't hit like I normally do," Sosa says. Upon getting in the batter's box the righthanded-hitting Sosa typically digs a hole with his right foot to get a firm base. As he swings he pivots hard on the ball of that foot.