Smile, Sammy, and Just Say ‘1998’

It’s impossible to be in a bad mood around Sammy Sosa. So don’t even try.

Sosa arrived at the Chicago Cub spring training complex here Monday. He was conked on the head with a baseball thrown over a fence by a fan who wanted an autograph. The fan got the autograph. Sammy responded with a big belly laugh--and more about the big belly later.

And then there was the Rod Beck fastball that Sosa took in the groin. Oops, Beck said. Or something like that. Sosa collapsed onto the ground and there was some real pain. Sammy laughed later.

“That was embarrassing,” he said.

There was no vacation in the off-season for baseball’s giggling ambassador. An unofficial list had Sosa making 25 stops on a tour that included a trip to Washington to sit between Tipper Gore and Hillary Clinton during the State of the Union address, and a stop in Caracas, Venezuela, where he took 14 swings at pitches thrown by Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez. There were six home runs hit and Chavez was once a pretty serious baseball player we were told.

“He even took warmup throws and everything,” one of Sosa’s aides said.

Gee, wonder what was more fun? Listening to President Clinton or batting against Hugo Chavez?

Sosa also went to Japan on a tour and to Los Angeles so he could pose with Mark McGwire in a ridiculous toga for the Sports Illustrated sportsmen-of-the-year issue. He was in Atlanta for Hank Aaron’s birthday and New York for the Espys to receive a humanitarian-of-the-year award.

He was back in Los Angeles to film a McDonald’s commercial and home to the Dominican Republic for rest, relaxation and to be appointed an ambassador from his country to ours which means, we think, that Sosa can have diplomatic license plates and park anywhere he wants.

That may be the best perk yet for being the 1998 NL most valuable player, for hitting 66 home runs, for easing the burden of breaking that home run record for McGwire just when McGwire seemed ready to burst from the pressures that mounted with every one of the 70 homers he clobbered.

As Sosa burbled on happily, answering every question, signing autographs before, during and after his first 1999 workout, as he laughed off questions about the little roll of something around his middle and playfully flexed upper arms that seem, well, McGwiresque, and saying that, yes, he might be carrying 12 extra pounds but, “They are all muscle. Can’t you tell?” he only reiterated the differences between himself and McGwire.

The moment the momentous 1998 season ended for McGwire, he rushed home to Huntington Beach, where almost no one but his family saw him. There was a vacation to Australia and one or two other appearances, but mostly McGwire went MIA.

He couldn’t help himself, Sosa said. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, say no. He enjoyed the State of the Union, the Espys. McGwire was invited to sit next to Hillary and Tipper for the State of the Union. He declined.

Sosa loved wearing a toga and a tux. He felt like a kid in all the parades he marched in, and most of all, he wanted to help bring financial aid to his country, the Dominican Republic, that was so devastated by a hurricane.

But how will this childlike enthusiasm for all things public translate into another baseball season?

There were some ominous signs of what might be in store for Sosa. He was asked about taking over for Michael Jordan as god of all Chicago sports. There is a void to fill in that sports-mad city, a desperate hunger for a sports positive, for a larger-than-life personality. Sosa says he will sign every autograph possible, will make every appearance for which there is time. If fans take time to come and see him play, he said, “How can I not take five minutes to sign for them?”

But it won’t be five minutes. It could be five hours if he keeps hitting home runs and the Cubs make another playoff run.

McGwire is “still the man,” Sosa said, adding that he has no intention of swinging for any fences or trying to hit 66 home runs again. He wants to hit singles to right, advance the runner. If he got fewer pitches to hit, he was asked, what would happen?

“I would be on first base with a walk,” Sosa answered. Smartly. And with a smile.

Most of all, Sosa said, he wants to play in the World Series. The three-game playoff sweep by Atlanta last fall?

“That was not fun,” he said, and it was the only time he said that something was less than wonderful. That the Cubs did pretty much nothing to improve themselves in the off-season was not even a negative for Sosa.

“We are a good team that plays together and likes each other,” he said. “Everybody got better in the off-season.”

So all is well in Sammy’s world right now. Will it be well in two months if he has only a homer or two and the Cubs have started out 2-12 or something?

That’s not going to happen, he said on this day that seemed to belong to the joyous 1998 season of magic and miracles. For Sosa, 1999 hasn’t started yet.

Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.