Growing up, my favorite Cub was Andre Dawson. He was an exciting player to watch, maybe because you knew that on any given day, his leg could come off at the knee. In the Hawk's final year as a Cub, there was another exciting outfielder on the team. Sammy Sosa. Mr. Sosa hustled, to be sure, and he hit the ball hard, but let's face it: he was never Andre Dawson.

He was never the Hawk for one simple reason: Andre was a team player. Sammy believed that you couldn't spell "team" without "me." Sammy was concerned with his massive homeruns, he was concerned with his stolen base totals, he was concerned with the amount of money he was making, and only after all that was he concerned about winning, if at all. But, while Sosa was playing for Chicago, he put up Nintendo numbers. Here, go and look: Sammy's career numbers.

This (possibly almost certainly steroid-fueled) monster averaged almost 61 homeruns and 149 RBI while batting .310 over a four year period. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we will never, ever see production like that again for as long as we live. And he did it as a Cub.

I'm sure that we could all tell stories about some of the exciting homeruns he hit that we got to see. We could also commiserate about the slow decline which started in 2002, which reached its' sad ending in the last month of the 2004 season. Based on the selfish, absurd behavior he displayed at the end, it is very easy to agree that Sammy Sosa is no hero.

On the other hand, he quite possibly is one of the five best Cubs to ever play the game, although he'd get dropped off the list pretty quickly if attitude played a part in the decision making. But, Sammy really was the face of the team for more than half a decade. Granted, you could point out that "Sammy as the face of the team" is an excellent example of everything that's wrong with Cubs baseball, but the point remains. Sosa should have his number retired. As long as they don't outright bust him for steroid abuse, he should be a diplomat for baseball.

But no, to answer my own question, it is not yet time to forgive Sammy. There were a lot of reasons why the 2004 season collapsed into a massive pile of feces, but one of the biggest reasons was the offensive collapse of Sammy Sosa in September, followed by his outrageous antics during the last day of the season. As a fan who is still angrily waiting for a return to the World Series, I have to admit that I still feel bitter and betrayed whenever I think about how that otherwise exciting season ended.

Therefore, no, it is not time to forgive Sammy. This is the stage of the metaphorical breakup where the two sides should be sending each other bland EMails which say nothing of substance, where the two parties should be leaving messages on each other's answering machines that vaguely - but with hope - allude to a point in the future where they can be friends again.

But as far as Sammy Sosa the player should be remembered ... I think three words sum it up: exciting but selfish. You may disagree, but I think that that says it all.