McGrath: All Hail, His Samminess, Back in the Glare

His Clancyness, si. His Samminess, no.

The Tribune — where I was the sports editor at the time — chided “His Samminess” for his diva-like behavior, most notably his demands for a renegotiated contract, one commensurate with his status as baseball’s biggest star, despite the fact that he was already one of the highest-paid players in the game at more than $10 million a year. Or failing that, he wanted a trade, and never mind those proclamations of undying love for Chicago.

...Sosa splits his time between Miami and his native Dominican Republic these days and has pretty much left Chicago to fend for itself. Articles like the current one are just about a semiannual occurrence. He likes to be heard from occasionally, likes to remind us that he’s out there in all His Samminess, ready for and receptive to another standing ovation.

The frequency of Sammy sightings will increase as 2013 approaches. That’s when he’ll be eligible for the Hall of Fame, and he fully expects to get in, even if the steroid cloud continues to hover. People would be more sympathetic if he went the Andy Pettitte route and owned up, talked about his impoverished childhood, maybe, and how his desperation to escape it influenced his decisions.

Sammy is more likely to emulate Blago. He’ll invoke Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. and suggest he is the better man.