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.
Oh here we go.
Sosa not only hit 3 homers against the Milwuakee Brewers on June 15, 1998, but he actually victimized the same pitcher all 3 times. Poor Cal Eldred.
That's 1,245 feet of dingers over the span of 3 at-bats.
The bad news for the Cubs is that all 3 were solo shots, though they did end up winning the game 6-5 thanks to a Manny Alexander sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 8th to break a tie.
Even with the 3-homer game and in the midst of a huge month, Sosa had some work to do to catch up to Mark McGwire, who had 31 homers by June 15 that year.
Fun fact: Eldred only gave up 14 homers throughout the entire 1998 season, which means 21.4 percent of the dingers he surrendered came off the bat of Sosa in just one game.