For Latino Fans, Sosa Puts the ‘Home’ in Home Run

From a press box perch at Qualcomm Stadium, Tijuana sportswriter Rafael Gonzalez Martinez pondered the continuing twists in Sammy Sosa’s remarkable duel with Mark McGwire for the single season home run record.

Despite McGwire’s 63rd home run on Tuesday, which put him on top once again, Gonzalez knows how his countrymen south of the border want the tale of these dueling jonroneros to turn out.

“Mexico hopes Sosa does it because he’s Latino,” said Gonzalez, who covers sports for the respected weekly newspaper Zeta. “He reflects well on Latin people.”

Though a world away from Sosa’s homeland in the Dominican Republic, the border with Mexico is proving an auspicious place for the Chicago Cubs slugger to turn up this week during one of the final legs of the frenzied race. Interest in Sosa is cresting among California Latinos and in sports-crazy Tijuana, where Sosa T-shirts are showing up and many are trumpeting their heartfelt pride in a fellow Latino who has carried himself with grace and good humor under intense daily pressure.

“Everybody wants Sammy, Sammy, Sammy,” said Paulo Aguirre Cortes, who hosts a sports talk show on a Tijuana radio station.

Of course, nearly everyone at this week’s Cubs-Padres series is hoping, above all, to catch a glimpse of history in the making. (Sosa struck out four times Monday, a day after tying Southern California-bred McGwire at 62 home runs. After McGwire hit No. 63 Tuesday, Sosa again went homer-less.)

But no other U.S. big-league ballpark sits closer to Latin America than the Padres’ home field and few offer a better vantage for watching how a mere home run race can serve as a prism for culture and nationalism--not to mention the universal glee in seeing records smashed and smashed again.

At jammed news conferences as the four-game series opened here this week, nearly half the questions were delivered to Sosa in his native Spanish--an unusual number and a sign of how Sosamania has taken hold among the Spanish-language media and among Latinos in general.

“It’s huge,” said Enrique Morones, a Padres official who directs an aggressive marketing campaign to lure baseball fans across the U.S. border and draw Latinos from San Diego to Padres games. “If you ask [Latinos] who they would like to see win this race, it would be Sosa.”

The ethnic breakdown of the crowd for the Cubs-Padres series was not known, though Morones said about 25% of ticket-buyers generally are Latino.

Sosa was a big hit among the Spanish-language media for soft-spoken answers cushioned further by repeated expressions of gratitude for being able to live in the United States and by continued praise for McGwire. He answered most Spanish questions in Spanish, and some of them in English.

One Mexican reporter wanted to know to whom Sammy Sosa would dedicate a record-setting home run (answer: Sosa’s mother). Another asked if Sosa could achieve the hallowed status of the late Puerto Rican-born Roberto Clemente, revered as a baseball icon in Latin America. (Sosa said he already has.) Yet another queried whether Sosa felt cheated that his record-tying 62nd homer Sunday got less hoopla than the McGwire home run less than a week earlier (Sosa said he did not).

For the journalists covering Sosa on behalf of Spanish-speaking viewers and readers on both sides of the Mexican border and far beyond, the Cubs slugger is equal parts sports hero, immigrant success story and source of Latin American regional pride.

Jaime Garcia, a Los Angeles-based television correspondent for Univision, said Sosa has shown dignity and generosity even before the home run derby. Many were moved by Sosa’s emotional hug of congratulations for McGwire when the St. Louis Cardinals slugger hit No. 62. “He’s a very kind person. He has been very accessible during all his time in the United States,” Garcia said. “It shows that when the opportunity is given, we can succeed.”

Major league baseball is well-populated with Latin megastars, each a giant in his nation of origin. The Mexican press pays especially close attention to Oaxaca-born Vinny Castilla, the Colorado Rockies slugger who is a big draw for Latino fans when his team visits Southern California. But even that adulation has been matched, at least for now, by the admiration being heaped upon Sosa by Mexicans, U.S. Latinos and many others.

Sosa was the subject of speeches Tuesday on the floor of House of Representatives, where Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said the slugger “has excited people all over the world, especially in South America.” Gutierrez said Sosa, who as a child shined shoes in the Dominican coastal city of San Pedro de Macoris and was signed by the Texas Rangers in 1985, rivals Kate Smith for the number of times anyone has said “God Bless America” in a single year.

Sometimes, Gutierrez said, it takes someone who came to the United States from elsewhere to recognize America’s greatness.

The House proceeded to pass resolutions praising both Sosa and McGwire.

Some say Sosa’s special appeal to Latinos across boundaries of national origin stems in part from a perception that he has been given somewhat short shrift by a mainstream U.S. media captivated by McGwire, who is white.

“All the focus of the media--radio, newspapers, television and Internet--all focused on Mark McGwire,” said Aguirre, the Tijuana radio host. “This is in part racism of the United States. They don’t want a person of color, a Latino person. They prefer the American, white and blond.”

But support for Sosa was apparent among fans of all hues at this week’s games, and the groans of disappointment at his strikeouts were as abundant as the flashes of hundreds of cameras a moment earlier.

McGwire has his own following south of the border, where baseball fans have tracked his career as a big-time power hitter for a decade.

“He deserves it. He’s been consistent since he started,” said Walter Manjarrez, assistant manager of a store that sells Padres merchandise in Tijuana.

Among the possible outcomes of the now-daily home run drama, Gonzalez, the Tijuana sportswriter, sees happy results for both sluggers.

“Everybody admires McGwire--McGwire broke the record,” he said. “And if Sosa breaks the record--how good for baseball, how good for Latin America.”

See more about the home run race, including audio clips, statistics and photo galleries, on The Times’ web site. Go to https://www.latimes.com/homeruns

* HOWARD ROSENBERG: When the home run race ends, which athlete will win the endorsement derby? F1