Wearing shorts and a T-shirt, his forearms rippling, Sammy Sosa worked up a sweat Monday in the indoor cage at the Texas Rangers’ Ameriquest Field. He is close to signing a deal that will give him a chance to hit home runs through a long, hot Southwestern summer, assuming he still has them in him.
Sosa, out of baseball since hitting .221 for Baltimore in 2005, won’t get any guarantees from the Rangers, the team George W. Bush presided over when it traded him to the White Sox in 1989.
But after watching him smash balls in the batting cage, longtime hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo doesn’t believe the 38-year-old Sosa will need any guarantees.
“I thought he was real good,” Jaramillo said by phone Tuesday. “It was just drills–BP, but he hit against live pitching. …
“He thinks he can play, and he wants to play at the big-league level. I’m in his corner.”
“The young man has been humbled,” Jaramillo said. “I was impressed–the way he spoke, the way he said things. He has been humbled.”
– – –
STAT COLUMN
588
Sammy Sosa’s career home run total. He hit only 14 for the Orioles in 2005.
