It's the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Sammy, when Sosa and Mark McGwire went toe-to-toe in one of the most exciting seasons in American sports history chasing after Roger Maris' home run record. All year, we're going to go homer-by-homer on Sosa's 66 longballs, with highlights and info about each. Enjoy.
Conventional wisdom would tell you that when a guy hits 66 homers in one MLB season, he must've gotten off to a heck of a hot start.
But that wasn't the case for Sammy Sosa in 1998, who didn't hit his first longball until the fifth game of the season and only had six dingers in the campaign's first month.
The first homer came courtesy of Marc Valdes and the Montreal Expos on April 4, 1998, a solo shot to the opposite field in the third inning.
That helped stake Terry Mulholland and the Cubs to a 3-1 victory. Sosa's first homer of 1998 traveled 371 feet.
Fun fact: Vladimir Guerrero was Sosa's counterpart in right field that game as the young Expos star (23 at the time) was just beginning his stretch of Hall of Fame seasons.
Fun fact Part II: Mark Grudzielanek was the Montreal leadoff hitter in that game, just a couple months before he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Grudzielanek then became a member of the Cubs for the 2003-04 seasons.