Fed City Flashback: 2006 – Sammy Sosa And The Nats
By Ricky Keeler
In today’s Fed City Flashback, we take a look back to the year 2006. With Spring Training on the horizon, the Washington Nationals had made an offer to one former superstar player to help with their outfield as they awaited to see if Jose Guillen would heal from his shoulder injury or whether or not the team’s new acquisition, Alfonso Soriano, was going to even play the outfield for the Nats in ’06.
The player that they turned to was former Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa. On this date in 2006, Sosa told the Nationals and general manager Jim Bowden that he would decline the one-year, $500,000 non-guaranteed offer he was presented with the week prior.
By declining the deal, it effectively ended the career for the outfielder that hit 609 home runs over the course of 19 years. In 2005, Sosa did play for the Nationals’ beltway rivals, the Baltimore Orioles. With the O’s, he hit .221 with 14 home runs and 45 RBI’s in 102 games.
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You would have to think it would have been tough for Slammin’ Sammy to accept a deal worth less than $1 million after he received $17 million from Baltimore during that ’05 season. While the power wasn’t what it was when Sosa hit 60+ home runs on three separate occasions for Chicago, he wasn’t too far removed from making the All-Star Game with the Cubs in 2004.
Adam Katz, who was Sosa’s agent on the time, commented about how the Nationals offer was not the reason why his client chose to not play baseball in the Nation’s Capital in 2006:
"“The Nationals were very respectful throughout this thing. Was the money fabulous? No. Was it part of the decision-making process? Absolutely. But it basically came down to the expectations Sammy sets for himself.” (h/t: ESPN.com)"
The Nationals were heading into their second season at RFK Stadium and coming off of a 81-81 inaugural season in Washington (last in the division) and an offense that scored the fewest runs and had the worst batting average in all of Major League Baseball.
At the time, it was thought Sosa was going to retire, but that ended up not being the case. In 2007, Sosa came back to the game as he signed a one-year deal with the Texas Rangers. During that season, he hit .252 with 21 home runs and 92 RBI’s in 114 games.
As for the Nationals in 2006, their run production moved up from dead last to 23rd in baseball that season with the batting average jumping up from .252 to .262. The power department also went up as the team’s home runs increased from 117 to 164, largely due to the 46 homers by Soriano.
While Sosa’s career ended up being marred by the corked bat incident in 2003 as well as a guy who said he couldn’t speak in English when testifying to Congress about steroid use in 2005, he was still a player who could have brought more buzz to Frank Robinson’s offense, if healthy.