Reunion with Sosa in the works: 'I can't wait to see Cubs fans again'

Twenty years since he last patrolled right field at Wrigley Field, Sammy Sosa and the Cubs are working on a reunion.

After the seven-time Chicago All-Star and 1998 National League MVP put out a statement on Thursday in which he apologized and acknowledged that, “I made mistakes” during a playing career dotted with allegations of performance-enhancing drug use, Cubs executive chairman Tom Ricketts extended an invitation for Sosa to attend the 2025 Cubs Convention, which runs from Jan. 17-19, 2025.

“We appreciate Sammy releasing his statement and for reaching out,” Ricketts said. “No one played harder or wanted to win more. Nobody’s perfect but we never doubted his passion for the game and the Cubs.”

In extending the invitation to the club’s annual fanfest, Ricketts said, “We are all ready to move forward together.”

Sosa broke into the big leagues with the Rangers and White Sox and finished his career with the Orioles and Texas again, but he will forever be remembered for his charismatic years with the Cubs from 1992-2004. He hit 545 of his 609 career homers in a Cubs uniform, 66 of them during the summer of 1998 when Sosa and the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire captivated the country with a friendly competition to break Roger Maris’ single-season home run record. McGwire wound up pulling away from Sosa to finish with 70 homers that year, but Sosa led the Majors in RBIs and total bases and took NL MVP honors.

That started a four-year run from 1998-2001 in which Sosa averaged 61 homers and 149 RBIs with a .310 average and a 1.058 OPS. All told, Sosa amassed 1,414 RBIs as a Cub (third in team history), 873 extra-base hits (third), 3,980 total bases (fourth), 1,245 runs (sixth) and 58.8 bWAR (sixth). His .569 slugging percentage and .927 OPS with the Cubs each rank second in franchise history.

McGwire later admitted using PEDs but Sosa denied it, even when his name was linked to anonymous survey testing in 2003, reported by The New York Times. He was named on 12.5% of Hall of Fame ballots in his debut year of eligibility in 2013, far short of the 75 percent required for election, and that number then dropped to single digits until 2020. In 2022, Sosa’s final year of eligibility, he appeared on 18.5 percent of ballots.

Now, however, the door has been opened to a renewed relationship with the Cubs following Thursday’s statement via a PR agency.

“I left it all on the field for the Cubs and Cubs fans because I wanted to win and make the fans happy,” Sosa said in the statement. “I loved to see the fans at Wrigley in the right field bleachers every home game.

“I understand why some players in my era don’t always get the recognition that our stats deserve. There were times I did whatever I could to recover from injuries in an effort to keep my strength up to perform over 162 games. I never broke any laws, but in hindsight, I made mistakes and I apologize.

“We accomplished great things as a team, and I worked extremely hard in the batting cage to become a great hitter. Cubs fans are the best in the world, and I hope that fans, the Cubs and I can all come together again and move forward.

“We can’t change the past, but the future is bright. In my heart, I have always been a Cub and I can’t wait to see Cubs fans again.”