NO MORE WINDY PITY

Sammy Sosa shifted back in his clubhouse chair and chose his words carefully as he lifted his right hand, pinching his forefinger less than an inch away from his thumb.

“This close,” he said, reflecting upon how near he came to becoming a New York Yankee earlier this summer in a made-for-TV blockbuster deal. “But sometimes the best trade is the one you don’t make.”

It has been a strange and stormy summer for Sosa, the Chicago Cubs’ all-star right fielder who with Mark McGwire rejuvenated baseball, courtesy of their record home run derby in 1998.

Beginning with an ugly and public war of words between the painfully sensitive Sosa and first-year Cub Manager Don Baylor, Sosa’s summer of discontent continued with a swirl of rumors that had him heading to Cleveland, Boston and, finally, the Bronx. It ended with an exhausted and frustrated Sosa telling the Cubs to take him off the trading block, lest he invoke his no-trade clause.

But while Sosa’s image took shots along the way, his game, as well as the Cubs’, is showing no ill effects of late from the dizzying turn of events that polarized Chicago and had some conspiracy theorists formulating hypotheses that would make Oliver Stone proud.

“I think that everybody in our clubhouse would agree that the environment is better,” Baylor said Friday at Qualcomm Stadium, where the Cubs were playing a four-game series against the San Diego Padres before coming to Dodger Stadium for three games beginning tonight. “There’s less tension in there, no trade talk. It dominated our clubhouse. It ran rampant in our clubhouse for seven weeks. One day it’s here and the next day it’s gone. The team is playing better and Sammy is relaxed, back to having fun.”

Sosa agreed.

“It was a tough situation and I . . . recommend nobody to be in that situation,” he said. “But it had to happen that way. It had to happen that way for both sides [Sosa and the Cubs, to appreciate each other]. The situation was where you can run but you can’t hide. You’ve got to deal with that situation. I didn’t want my teammates to get caught up in that situation.

“I feel great now because everything is over and I really found myself. I was really lost for a couple of weeks.”

He nearly found himself in pinstripes.

The Trade That Never Was

Sosa taking exception to Baylor’s comments about wanting to make the slugger a more complete player rankled Sosa and set the tone for the ensuing madness.

“From the first day he got here, he has been saying some negative things about me for no reason,” Sosa told the Chicago Tribune at the time. “He hasn’t really treated me the way I’m supposed to be treated. And that’s what I’m saying, he has got no class.”

A problem-solving skull session concluded with the two hugging and smiling for the cameras, insisting the trouble was behind. But it was just beginning.

Sosa’s agent, Santa Monica-based Adam Katz, said the trade talk began as Katz was seeking an extension for Sosa, who is signed through 2001 with a mutual option for 2002, on his four-year, $42.5-million contract. Katz said he went to Cub President and General Manager Andy MacPhail in mid-June--albeit when the Cubs were struggling--to talk about an extension for his client or, if that didn’t sound good, possibly moving him.

According to Katz, MacPhail’s answer took him by surprise.

“Fine, we’ll move him,” Katz remembers MacPhail telling him.

“There was already some acrimony between manager and player, and everyone’s feelings were hurt,” Katz said. “It was a very long process and highly public, disturbing. [Sammy] felt like he was being held hostage by the negotiations.

“Sammy’s an inherently happy man and very content and secure and happy in his life. It was very disturbing for him with the process of waiting for a trade. It detracted from his on-field performance.”

Speculation, as well as dollars and cents, had Sosa leaving the sub-.500 Cubs for the defending World Series champion Yankees.

The trade reportedly would have seen the Cubs receive a package of prized prospects--including third baseman Drew Henson, outfielder Jackson Melian and infielder Alfonso Soriano--while Sosa would head to the New York.

Said Katz: “Sure, there were things that were attractive about playing in the Apple.”

Had it gone down, the trade might have benefited the Yankees and their entrepreneurial owner, George Steinbrenner, even more in business than in baseball.

While the Yankees have a brand name that is recognizable world-wide, they do lack individual star power on a national scale, save shortstop Derek Jeter, who also is seeking a contract extension. And through 26 games on the Madison Square Garden cable network, the Yankee ratings were at 2.93, down 28% from the same time in 1999.

Sosa would have tapped into the burgeoning Dominican market of New York City at a time when Steinbrenner’s fledgling regional cable network YankeeNets is in the process of trying to acquire broadcast rights as the club’s 12-year, $486-million contract with MSG expires at the end of this season.

And the total revenues created by his joining the Yankees would have exceeded the $15 million to $20 million a season Sosa was reportedly seeking, some sports-business experts said.

“Sosa’s real value is in appreciating the overall assets,” Neal Pilson, a sports business consultant and former president of CBS Sports, told New York Newsday. “He also might allow you to leverage a deal to build a new stadium. He still might be around in six or eight years as a [designated hitter].”

But Matt Freedman, editor of Team Marketing Report, a Chicago-based published report of sports business resources, said that while there would have been an immediate economic impact, he questioned the longevity of it.

“You’re talking about a team that has won three of the past four World Series so I doubt that their [television] ratings could go any higher in their own market,” Freedman said. “But whenever a team like the Yankees can add a superstar like a Sammy Sosa, it becomes a higher-profile team on the road as well.”

But, depending on the given perspective, the trade broke down because either the Cubs hesitated and wanted too many prospects for Sosa, or, Yankee management believed Baylor was right, that Sosa was not the same player he was during his most-valuable-player season of 1998, when he hit 66 home runs, second to McGwire’s record 70, had 158 runs batted in and hit .308. The Yankees, an aging team with plenty of cash, have only two position playing under the age of 31, Jeter and catcher Jorge Posada. And adding Sosa, 31, while losing prospects, wouldn’t exactly spur a youth movement.

When the Yankees picked up David Justice in a trade June 29, Sosa told the Cubs, through his agent, to break off talks and if they did attempt to ship him he would veto any trade.

The Yankees also picked up a pitcher, Denny Neagle, for the stretch run and Steinbrenner was seemingly satisfied.

“We made two good deals,” Steinbrenner said at the time. “But let me tell you something about that one big guy, Sammy Sosa. I think Sammy Sosa brings so much to the table. He has got a great attitude and a great personality. He’s a civic guy. I can’t understand why the Tribune Company wouldn’t want Sammy Sosa.”

Just ask the conspiracy theorists.

Conspiracy Theory

While Sosa was dangling in the trade winds, the Windy City was witnessing a war waged by the Chicago Sun-Times against the competing Chicago Tribune.

The conspiracy theory went something like this: With the Tribune Co. owning both the Cubs and the Tribune newspaper, it would make it easier for the paper’s writers to carry out a corporate-level ordered smear campaign on Sosa, the biggest sports star in Chicago since Michael Jordan packed up his Air Jordans. (The Tribune Co. also owns the Los Angeles Times.) The speculation went that if enough negativity was written about Sosa, the public’s positive perception of him would change and make it OK to trade him.

“Because you don’t want to pay $100 million to Sammy Sosa, you are using every resource in your domain--a manager with four-year security, a sports columnist who knows how to stay in corporate favor--to shred him up and make him look bad,” Sun-Times sports columnist Jay Marriotti wrote.

“The Tribsters love it,” he continued. “They want [Sosa] to rant and rave and blow up, so Cubs fans start to wonder if Sosa is as lovable as he seems, so that no one is too upset when the Cubs put him on the trading market as early as mid-July . . . it is a vicious, pathetic campaign.”

The accusations continued with Marriotti accusing Cub management of “using sinister methods to undermine Sosa’s reputation . . . Tribune Co. would prefer to wage an ungrateful smear campaign than reward a beloved player with a long-jackpot contract that ensures he will be a Cub for life. Finally, Sosa has been broken.”

Marriotti would later hint that the alleged smear campaign went so well that it scared off potential suitors such as the Yankees, backfiring on the Tribune Co.

Fellow Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander tried to explain the long-stretching tentacles of the Tribune Co. in an ensuing column.

“The Cubs are an incestuous mix of media, sports, big business and entertainment,” Telander wrote. “Winning a World Series might be no more important than serving VIPs. The future decision to keep or reject Sammy Sosa, like the past decisions to lose Greg Maddux or not to pursue Randy Johnson, will be made by a conglomerate that has many things on its mind. . . . It is something when a single company can create, break, editorialize upon, and solve a national scandal.”

Dan McGrath, the Tribune sports editor, said the parent company has not made any attempt to influence Cub coverage but that it got uncomfortable with all the slings and arrows thrown the paper’s way.

“There hasn’t been one instance, either overt or covert, where they’ve told us how to cover them,” he said. “Really, they’ve left us to cover the Cubs on our own. But sometimes, perception is reality.

“It was almost silly. It really took on a life of its own.”

Sosa let loose with an uneasy laugh when asked if he thought he was at the center of a conspiracy.

“Well,” he paused, “No. But it was a tough situation.”

Out of the Funk

Sosa said he took out his aggressions and felt reborn at the all-star break in Atlanta, where he put on a show in the home run derby. Sosa brought the crowd to its feet with bombs that went as far as 508 feet. and outlasted Ken Griffey Jr. in the final.

“It felt good,” Sosa said of winning. “It took me three years to do that.”

Sosa continued his torrid hitting after the break and was selected the National League player of the month for July after batting .337 with 11 homers and 25 RBIs, with a .726 slugging percentage and a .448 on-base percentage. The Cubs excelled as well, winning 15 of 20 after the all-star break.

“When he’s happy, Sammy performs,” Cub second baseman Eric Young said. “The month of June was very emotional for him--the trade rumors, being unhappy, manager clashing--and, you know, he’s an icon. It’s not like he’s a regular player. He’s a superstar. And when that happens to your superstar, everywhere we went it was like a media circus, in a negative way.”

Young said he counseled Sosa during his beef with Baylor.

“I just told him that the manager wasn’t saying negative things about you in a way that he doesn’t want you, or he doesn’t think you’re a superstar,” said Young, who played under Baylor with the Colorado Rockies and endured a more tepid feud with Dodger Manager Davey Johnson last year. “In my eyes he was trying to push Sammy to be the best all-around player . . . to push Sammy to the status of being an MVP again.”

Sosa bristles when the subject of his supposedly eroding defensive skills comes up.

“Look at my stats,” he said.

Sosa’s current fielding percentage of .974 is his lowest since the .964 he had in 1996, but it’s still higher than his career fielding percentage of .971, but he is tearing it up at the plate. Through Sunday, Sosa was batting a career-high .321 with 34 home runs and a league-leading 100 RBIs. He was also among the leaders in strikeouts (117).

His 370 career homers ties him with Gil Hodges for 48th on the all-time list.

Even Baylor acknowledges that Sosa is doing all the little things that the Cub manager wanted to see in spring training--diving for balls, hitting the cutoff man, keeping runners from advancing.

“He’s played really good defense, but that’s gone unnoticed,” Baylor said. “I never have to worry about giving him a day off.”

If Wrigley Field fans had their way, Sosa never would want a day off from wearing his Cub uniform. And the way Sosa is talking, he may stick around, even if his contract is not extended in the foreseeable future.

“Right now we’re just in a holding pattern,” Katz said, adding that the proper time frame for further extension talks would be at the end of the season.

But Sosa, who is reportedly seeking a five-year, $85-million deal with the Cubs, was back to saying the politically correct things.

“I feel so relaxed that everything is over and I’m back on track, playing great,” he said. “In my mind, all I have to do is go out there and play baseball. It’s been nice. It’s been a tough situation, but I’m a strong guy, and I’ve survived and I’ve dealt with everything.

And as days pass, Sosa seems even more sure about his future.

“It’s going to work out here, no doubt,” Sosa said Saturday. “I was close to moving to a different team, but now I’m happy, they’re happy, everybody’s happy. No doubt I see my career finishing here.”