It’s been nearly twenty-one years since Sammy Sosa played his last game for the Cubs. But when he took the stage Friday night at the 2025 Cubs Convention at the Sheraton Grand Riverwalk Hotel in Chicago, Sosa ran to his place the same way he did when he took right field every day at Wrigley Field for thirteen seasons.
He even carried an American flag, like he did in September 2001 for the Cubs’ first home game since the 9/11 attacks. One of many moments that ingratiated Sosa so strongly with the Cubs fanbase. Sosa might best be remembered for hitting 60 home runs in three different seasons, the only player in baseball history to ever do that, and the incredible summer of 1998, when he was locked in a race with Mark McGwire to beat Roger Maris’s single-season home run record.
Though Sosa was never confirmed to have used performance enhancing drugs, the question of whether or not he did hangs over his legacy, and that’s why it has taken until now – two full decades since he last played for the team – for Sosa to be welcomed back by the Cubs organization.
Team chairman Tom Ricketts held to the position for years that Sosa would need to apologize before he could come back, despite a growing sentiment among the fanbase that it was high time for Sosa to return and that whether or not he used PEDs was not worth excommunicating him from the Cubs organization.
On December 19, Sosa seemed to have given such an apology, issuing a statement acknowledging “mistakes” he had made during his playing career. But faced on Friday with the question of whether those mistakes were PEDs specifically, he demurred.
“No, I’m not referring, for example,” Sosa said. “Look, 21 year out. I had the fans that loved me very much. I had to apologize to them because I mean […] they see me play so many years.”
Public sentiment about steroid use in baseball was a lot different two decades ago. Back then, there was some degree of intolerance for it and a desire to root PEDs from the sport. But by now, most fans aren’t particularly concerned about which players used PEDs in those days. It’s generally acknowledged that many of them did, and like other substances in previous eras – take amphetamine use in the decades prior to the steroid years for example – fans are willing to accept that this is a part of the game and can still appreciate what they are watching and root happily for their favorite players.
There was no mistaking how fans felt about Sosa when he was brought on stage Friday. The familiar cheers of “Sammy! Sammy! Sammy!” echoed throughout the ballroom of the Sheraton, starting even before he came out from behind the curtain.
Sosa got his first chance to give back some of the love fans have sent his way for such a long time when he was introduced as one of the players to be inducted into the Cubs Hall of Fame later this year, along with Derrek Lee. Then again later, when Cubs alumni were introduced, Sosa did a lap around the stage holding his American flag, reminiscent of the sprints to right field during his playing days.
“Fantastic,” he said, describing the feeling of being in front of the Cubs faithful again. “The fans deserve that I put on a show today. Everybody was happy. I see a lot of smiles on a lot of faces. I think that today was a perfect day. They’re happy for me to be back here.”
Whether or not it should have required a public apology for Sosa to be allowed to return, his reunion with Cubs fans finally came. Sosa said when he issued his statement in December he wasn’t sure what the reception would be or how long it would take for the Ricketts family to respond. He was surprised at how quickly they welcomed him back and invited him to be at the Cubs Convention, calling it “a perfect storm.”
The way Sosa talks about it, his decision to come (sort of) clean happened because enough time had passed for him to let go of whatever had been holding him back.
“It’s twenty-one years. I mean, people say you grow up, and that’s what happened to me. I believe it,” Sosa said. “Me making that first step to get that statement out, I think it was the right time for me. The support right away was incredible. That’s what I need, and the door is open.”
He said he also felt like the fans deserved it. After so many years of support during his career and the same level of support during his exile from the team, Sosa wanted fans to hear from him and connect with them again.
“That was something that I wanted to not dismiss,” he said of the need for some kind of apology from him. “I wanted to do it because they deserve it. They’ve been supporting me for years. And also I was happy to see a lot of former players. A lot of faces I haven’t seen in a long time. I’m here, and I’m back. And I’m looking forward to the good things happening ahead.”
