It’s a Different Kind of Chase Scene

CHICAGO —  Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds aren’t ever going to be happy homer buddies, posing for photo ops, mugging for the cameras, hugging for the fans, lugging the nation along for a giggle fest and home run record chase.

Bonds is not Mark McGwire. “It’s different between me and Mark and me and Barry,” Sosa said.

Bonds and Sosa chase the home runs for sure, but Bonds won’t be McGwire, a reluctant but ultimately companionable foil to Sosa’s “Let’s be friends” approach to the world, to the fans, to his teammates, to his opponents. “I’m older,” Bonds said, “and in baseball it’s the cardinal rule to respect your elders.”

He was kidding. Really. Sosa raised an eyebrow, then a second, when Bonds’ cardinal rule statement was relayed. “Who made up the rules, Barry?” Sosa said.

He was kidding. Really.

It was an uneasy pre-game probing of the psyches of baseball’s two best sluggers Tuesday. Sosa’s Cubs and Bonds’ Giants met at Wrigley Field--where earmuffs and two pairs of socks and mittens were de rigueur--for their first regular-season meeting.

This drew a pack of curious media because in spring training Bonds and Sosa had exchanged some curiously nasty words over what had seemed an innocent meeting.

Bonds told Sosa to go ahead and chase Bonds’ single-season home run record of 73. Sosa shared this challenge with Chicago reporters. Bonds read the replay of his conversation and suggested--kiddingly or maybe not--that Sosa should quit “running his mouth” so much. Sosa replied that Bonds was seriously testy and that maybe all those terrible things that had been said about him in the past were true. Bonds said Sosa was “childish.”

So if we can’t have our home run boys as best buddies, this would be fine, having them as bitter enemies, pushing each other to new and bigger accomplishments just to spite each other.

But Bonds sat in the visitors’ dugout Tuesday and complimented Sosa on his outgoing personality, his great desire to be loved, his wonderful talent, and then said that it was Sosa and Alex Rodriguez who might break the big record, Hank Aaron’s total of 755, and not himself.

“My time is done,” Bonds said. “It’s not enough time for me and that’s just reality.”

He had limped into Wrigley with a sore right hamstring that did not welcome the windy cold. So what, he said, if he had 575 career homers or that he had his best year in 2001? He turns 38 in July. He gets walked all the time. “I have four or five years left and that’s it, I’m done,” he said. “You intentionally walk me 100-plus times, that’s time I lost. I don’t have seven more years to make up the differences.”

So leave it to 33-year-old Sosa and his 457 homers, or to the young and powerful A-Rod to take up the chase, Bonds said. Leave him to chasing a World Series ring.

Sitting in the stands, all alone, wearing a leather jacket and a smile, was Ernie Banks, the 71-year-old former Cub great. Banks is mostly a Marina del Rey resident these days but he wouldn’t miss Sammy and Barry.

“No way,” Banks says. “Not two bashers like those two. This is fine.”

It is the show, Banks said, that he is sure we will all follow this summer. Banks rolled his eyes at Bonds’ apparent surrendering of the Aaron chase to others. “Barry’s just talking,” Banks said. “Barry’s still gonna chase.”

This introspective, gracious, thoughtful, complimentary Bonds still takes getting used to.

All day Chicago talk radio was filled with a debate about who is the better player. Even though the Blackhawks were going to be in a playoff game at the United Center, a big deal since the Hawks hadn’t been in the playoffs for five years, there was no discussion of hockey, only of Bonds and Sosa.

Chicago fans were fair. Most of them said Bonds was the better player right now. Since their Cubs are presently awful, since Bonds was batting over .400 and had two more home runs than Sosa (8-6) before Tuesday’s game, and maybe because the Giants were in first place and the Cubs were in last place, Chicago’s fans were feeling magnanimous.

But there is a longing for the ferocious back-and-forth battle McGwire and Sosa engaged in four seasons ago. That was fun, Bonds said. “I stopped and watched it every day.”

“I’m hoping both guys hit one out tonight,” Banks said, “and that the Cubs win. Then I hope they both come back and hit another out tomorrow.”

What’s interesting is that Bonds is becoming more like his rival. He appreciates the approval of fans and a less contentious, more professional relationship with the media. “It makes me feel good and enjoy things I do more,” he said.

Much as he was poked and prodded and led on a path to controversy, he would have none of it. He is here, he said, to win baseball games and not some battle of home runs, or words, with Sosa. Sosa said he’ll be friends with everybody. Even Bonds.

By the end of the night, Sosa had a two-run homer. It came with the Cubs trailing, 12-0. Bonds got hit by a pitch. Many of his teammates hit home runs instead. The Giants beat the Cubs, 12-4. The home run race is on. Bonds knows it. Sosa loves it. *

Diane Pucin can be reached at [email protected].