By the end of their 15-minute meeting late Wednesday afternoon, Don Baylor and Sammy Sosa had all but agreed to a theme song: “Give Peace a Chance.”
Just before the two men emerged from Baylor’s office after 24 hours of acrimony and machismo, they put an end to their rift with a ’90s style, Kleenex-inducing hug.
“We both can go home and sleep tonight,” a beaming Sosa said. “There will be no more problems. We agreed man-to-man, one-to-one, like father like son, we had to put an end to this.”
One day earlier, Sosa had loaded his ammunition and fired several rounds at Baylor, saying, “He’s got no class,” and asking, “Why does the person I play for keep saying things that are not appropriate?”
The comment that had taken Sosa to the brink appeared in the Tribune on Sunday, attributed to an unnamed Cubs official who mocked the right-fielder’s defense by saying: “Sammy might drive in 150 runs, but he might let in 45.”
Sosa still blamed Baylor for what he considered a pattern of disrespectful remarks made to reporters, and teammates were skeptical that the two could iron out their differences quickly.
“That’s a lot of pride in between [Baylor’s office and Sosa’s locker],” second baseman Eric Young said. “Hopefully this is something that won’t disrupt the team.”
There’s little chance of that happening in the wake of their cordial meeting following the Cubs’ 9-4 victory over Arizona. Neither party formally apologized, but both agreed to communicate more freely.
“I let off a little steam that was inside of me,” Sosa said. “There’s not going to be any more controversy between us. I have a lot of respect for him and, right now, everything’s smooth.”
