Losers’ Payoff Is One-Game Playoff

The flashbulbs darkened, the cameras no longer focused, the buzz gone silent, Sammy Sosa’s smile also momentarily disappeared.

“Fifty years from now, I hope people will remember me, too,” he said. “When they mention Mark McGwire, I hope they will also mention me.”

So do I.

But they probably won’t.

After giving the sports world three months of memories so equally thrilling and charming we will pass them along to our children, Sammy Sosa now needs something from us.

He needs to know that those children will not forget.

He needs to know that he will live through history as more than another agate line in a record book, more than another George Foster or Cecil Fielder, more than just somebody who hit a lot of home runs, who came close.

He needs to know that, darn it, those 66 home runs touched somebody.

It is something we probably cannot give.

As he pondered his future in a dank room in the bowels of the Astrodome on Sunday--four home runs down, one regular-season playoff game remaining--he wondered out loud.

“Hey, before they get to McGwire, they’re going to have to go through me, right?” Sosa asked.

That’s how it should be.

But that’s how it almost never is.

Who do “they” have to go through to get to Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak?

Who do “they” have to go through to get to Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point night?

We are a society that remembers only champions.

We tell our children it doesn’t matter who won or lost. But if we miss one of their soccer or baseball games, that is the first thing we ask them.

We say we love college football for its sweatered coziness. Yet every year until this one, we have howled about its inability to crown a true number one.

So 50 years from now--heck, probably 10 years from now--somebody will be talking about Mark McGwire and 70 home runs.

And we will forget it was Sosa who pushed McGwire there.

It was Sosa who reminded McGwire that he should not, could not, stop at 62.

It was Sosa who influenced McGwire to shed his protective coating and let us share in his joy.

It was Sosa who willingly played Roger Maris to McGwire’s Mickey Mantle, removing a little bit of the world from his shoulders, making that swing a little easier.

Would Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs without Sosa?

Would Wilt Chamberlain have been as great without Bill Russell?

Who knows?

But Sosa’s impact this summer was far too important, in too many diverse places, for him to just disappear.

Like you know he will.

“We are still living the Ken Burns myth where this father passes down stories of the great white game to his son,” said Dr. Milton Jamail, a political science professor at University of Texas and authority on Latin American baseball.

“Well, guess what?,” Jamail said. “A lot of these fathers are Latino. A lot of these kids are Latino. Sammy Sosa has given them something else to pass down, something that fits more with the future of baseball and the future of this country.”

Sosa has been the image of not only a great Latino player, but a great person, period.

It was he, not McGwire, who gave bats to fans in the stands during the game. It was he, not McGwire, who happily talked to his fans through the media every day during the chase.

McGwire reminded us of baseball’s awesome power. But, perhaps more important, Sosa reminded us of its humanity.

Remember what McGwire did on the night of his 62nd home run, showing the world a loving father and respectful son and classy winner?

Sosa did that sort of thing every day.

Of the reams of press releases printed during the chase, only one urged recipients to donate money to help the less fortunate.

It was dictated by Sosa.

You want myth, Sosa even delivered that.

Sure, McGwire hit his 61st homer on his father’s 61st birthday. But Sosa is the only one during this chase who actually called a shot.

Two of them, actually.

“[McGwire] will probably hit two more tomorrow,” he said Saturday.

Not that it matters.

Champions, remember?

Jamail was driving to Houston this weekend from his Austin home when he realized the subtle shoving of Sosa to the back seat was almost underway.

“It was a radio report of both Sosa and McGwire hitting their 66th homer,” he said.

“But they only replayed the home-run call from McGwire.”

You want to stop this before it starts? You want to make sure everyone remembers these things, those attitudes, this man?

Only one way.

While McGwire indeed set his record legally and overwhelmingly, give him an asterisk anyway.

Put a nice, big snowflake next to that “70,” with no explanation underneath.

When your grandchildren wonder about it, tell them about Sammy Sosa.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

San Francisco at Chicago

Pitchers: Giants’ Mark Gardner (13-5) vs. Cubs’ Steve Trachsel (14-8).

Time: 5 p.m.

TV: ESPN

Winner: Faces Atlanta in playoffs starting Wednesday.