The worlds of sports and entertainment are colliding again, right here in front of the Florida Marlins dugout. It is less than 30 minutes until the first pitch, but Preston Wilson, Ryan Dempster and A.J. Burnett aren't stretching or studying scouting reports, or even in uniform, for that matter. They've dyed their hair black, put on sunglasses, fake sideburns and loud costumes and are now doing outlandish impersonations of the pro wrestler known as The Rock, who is standing on the grass before them with his famous raised eyebrow.

These Marlins have been waiting all week to meet this man-plus the 45 minutes they've spent in the dugout, still in those absurd outfits, tolerating his tardiness. But there is something that even more resembles wrestling's carnival chaos right across the diamond from them. That's where a real sports star is emerging from the tunnel, trailed by 24 people, TV cameras circling him like bees around a hive, the tumult telling you who is approaching every bit as surely as that "Sosa" stretched across the back of his jersey and the "Sammy! Sammy! Sammy!" squeals that provide the sound track to his every step.

Sosa's sport is rotting in South Florida, dying a pitch at a time, but his mere presence, even with a team 11 games under .500, makes this hollow place feel more alive than it has all season. By himself, he has produced the year's biggest Florida crowd (35,140-more than double the average), and that kind of buzz, every bit as valuable as his bat, is what Sosa will put in his luggage and take to the team that trades for him. The moment Sosa steps into the South Florida sunshine, followed by a relentless swirl of questions and trade rumors and assorted scurrying people who want one minute, just one minute please, hundreds of fans rush toward his dugout through the aisles in a way that makes it seem as if God has reached down, picked up this entire stadium and tilted and shook it until everything in the place tumbles toward Sosa.

	After soaking up the spotlight in years past, Sosa has grown tired of the attention this year.

"His life is crazy like that all the time, every minute," Cubs shortstop Ricky Gutierrez says. "As soon as he walks into the clubhouse, he's attacked by people who want, want, want, want. He doesn't have any space. It's kind of messy."

That's as good a way as any to describe the turn the Sammy Sosa Story has taken-kind of messy. Once upon a time, that little hop he did out of the batter's box when he hit a ball just right was a metaphor, a jubilant ballplayer literally jumping for joy. But those 66 home runs changed everything. Changed the sport (along with Mark McGwire's 70). Changed his life. Even changed him a little, too, though not as much as it changed management's attitude toward him.

The home runs transformed Sosa into an icon. ("You should see the way mayors, congressmen and senators throw themselves at him wherever we go," says Sosa's brother, José?.) And the icon is suddenly too expensive for a Tribune Company that figures it could just as easily go the next century World Series-less without the icon's help or contract. So now Sosa is on sale, discounted in a way that feels as unseemly as when his memorabilia are hawked on the Home Shopping Network. One of the world's biggest superstars is available to the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets or Diamondbacks, if they would just pick up the phone RIGHT NOW and take advantage of this ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME offer!

Cubs management, marking him down, whispers that Sosa's defense and basestealing have declined since he muscled up and became addicted to the home run. The seamhead curmudgeons cite this home run obsession as sacrilege and harrumph about how "nobody is bigger than the game." But, sorry, Sosa is bigger than this broken game now, so much bigger that his ignored teammates on the Chicago Sosas spend most of their clubhouse free time either answering questions about him or getting autographs from him for their friends.

It was, of course, the hitting of the home run, not the hitting of the cutoff man, that inflated Sosa to this size, like a superhero on steroids. Manny Ramirez had more RBI than Sosa in 1999, but Ramirez wasn't invited to sit next to Hillary Clinton during the State of the Union address like The Home Run was. In 1998, Alex Rodriguez became the first 40-40 infielder ever, but A-Rod didn't start getting $250,000 for an autograph session and million-dollar endorsements in Japan like The Home Run did. The Home Run-not The Stolen Base, not The Defense, not even The Winning-is what helped heal Sosa's hurricane-ravaged homeland, the Dominican Republic. And even now, two years later, right on this South Florida field, you can see for yourself the kind of bigger-than-baseball pull Sosa has, as this pro wrestler with the famous raised eyebrow leaves behind those major leaguers who dressed up ridiculously just for him and heads instead toward the other dugout because he really, really wants to shake the hand of the biggest star on this field. It is a pretty cool thing to witness, The Rock making his way over to The Mountain.

Andre Dawson has been in Sosa's position, literally and figuratively. He too played right field for the Cubs, and he too won an MVP with the Cubs, and he too finished in last place with the Cubs. He was an awfully beloved Cub, Andre's Army bowing to him in the bleachers, just as Sosa's fans do now, and he especially earned his money and fan support in 1987, when he hit 49 home runs and drove in 137 runs after giving the Cubs a blank contract and telling them to fill in whatever dollar amount they pleased. Dawson played in a lot of pain for the Cubs, his knees so bad that they'd cramp during dinner and car rides and flights, and eventually became altogether immune to the healing powers of cortisone after enduring more than 50 shots. His next-to-last year in Chicago, Dawson led the team with 31 home runs and 104 RBI, back when those numbers meant something, but then his contract expired and he wanted an extension and ...

"Here we go with the Tribune Company again," says Dawson, who now works in the Marlins front office, shaking his head as he watches the Cubs shop Sosa. "It's more about his salary than any squabble with the manager or clubhouse problem. He should retire a Cub, but I don't know that winning is a priority to the Tribune Company, because they know they're going to get their attendance anyway, with or without Sammy. That's sad, but that's the reality of it. They go after just enough talent to get by. It wasn't about putting the best team on the field when they didn't re-sign me and Greg Maddux, and it's not about that now."

It's one thing for the Cubs to be okay with being merely okay, Dawson figures. That's their choice, he says. But it angers Dawson, a pillar of class throughout his playing career, to hear the smearing whispers suddenly sprout up now about all of Sosa's alleged weaknesses. "Now they harp on the fact that he's 31 years old," Dawson says, who won his MVP at 33. "This doesn't ride real well with me. It's time for him to be paid. Sign him or let him go, but don't start knocking him or looking for the negative. Be professional. Reasons are starting to pop up now for why he should be traded. Rarely do you get the obvious reason-that he costs too much."

You relay Dawson's words to Sosa, and he nods up and down and laughs as he hears them, but adds, "I can't say anything like that." Despite the baseball-has-been-berry-berry-good-to-me smile and charm he gives the American public in accented English, Sosa is exceptionally smart about his image. Sit beside him in front of his locker (he pulls out the chair for you) and ask him about being paid $250,000 for an autograph session, and he touches you on the knee and, speaking in Spanish, says, "You aren't going to put that in there, are you?"

He doesn't want to talk about the five luxury cars and the boat he has in the garage of his Dominican home, either, because it doesn't look good juxtaposed with some of his homeland's poverty. Not wanting to offend the blue-collar Chicagoans who pay his salary, he hasn't once mentioned publicly how much money he wants to stay with the Cubs, saying instead, "It's not about money. It's about respect. I want to make that clear." Asked if he would like to remain with the Cubs, Sosa says, "Definitely. Always." But in the next breath, when asked why he wouldn't, as a 10-5 player, just exercise his right to veto any trade if he wants to stay in Chicago so badly, he says, "My agent deals with all situations. You have to talk to my agent." He adds through a smile, "Wherever I go, I'm going to hit. Wherever I go, I'm going to bring people out to the ballpark." Asked by a stranger if it bothers him that the Yankees seemed to make him their second choice after Juan Gonzalez, Sosa says, "Nothing bothers me, big guy. The only thing that bothers me is if I can't play today." Asked by another if he is having fun, Sosa says, "Every day, bro. I'm just happy to be alive. I've been having luck all my life." Sosa has a politician's touch, making a lot of eye contact, smiling and laughing a lot, perpetually giving fans a thumbs-up and a tap on his heart, calling reporters "buddy" and politely asking if they mind if he eats while they talk. He says things like, "The fans have really, really been showing me love," and, "I feel very proud when I think about where I came from as a shoeshine boy to where I am today," and, "I'm just an employee." In Spanish interviews, when he can speak with a more complete command of the language, he is forever thanking God and reminding kids to love their mothers and talking about remaining humble and giving back.

Just this morning, he spoke on the phone with a dying boy who wept at the sound of his voice and said he'd be taking all those home runs with him to heaven. Then he went to Miami's Calle Ocho, where he put his hands in concrete to go with a sidewalk star while hundreds of Latin fans swarmed him. Then he got word that his charitable foundation, under investigation for mismanagement of funds, had been cleared, and said, "A lot of mistakes were made by people handling my foundation. I wasn't there. I wasn't around. When everything came out, the only name on it was my name. Everything is clear and clean. I don't play with Uncle Sam -- When my career is over, I want to be remembered for being a sweet person, not a person who hit 60 or 70 home runs." All of this is why his recent outburst against his manager, Don Baylor, was so uncharacteristic. Baylor has been talking publicly since spring training about making Sosa a more complete player, a reasonable request from a leader trying to make his men and his team better. But Sosa felt slighted after reading an article in which an anonymous Cubs official (Sosa figured it was Baylor) was quoted as saying Sosa may drive in a lot of runs but he also lets in a lot with his glove. Sosa accused Baylor of having "no class," and added, with uncommon arrogance for a man who has always extolled and exhibited the virtues of humility, that a superstar who had been "carrying baseball" the last two years deserved better than this. Ask Sosa if he was wounded by the events of the last month, and he says, "I don't want to revisit it because what I said before had too much impact. It was time to say, 'Enough.' It was time. That's all. I did it with a lot of class." Asked why he would do it so angrily, Sosa adds, "It's just like Jesus Christ. He went into the house of his Father and saw people playing dice. He saw women and wine in his Father's temple, and He started to break things. He explained his anger afterward by saying, 'Underneath all of this is a man.' " Sosa waves a hand over his uniform and his muscles.

"Underneath all of this is a man too," he says. "If Jesus Christ was an angel, perfect, and got mad, why can't I?"

Sosa stops here, still stinging from the criticism, and says, "What more can Sammy Sosa do? How many more home runs do you want?"

Says Sosa's teammate Glenallen Hill: "If there had been an open line of communication privately, even with the criticism of his game, Sammy would have been fine because you can talk to Sammy about anything. But Sammy's business wasn't kept in-house. Sammy has more pride than you can ever imagine. He knows when he is in right field that he is representing Sammy Sosa, and he knows that all eyes are on him because people don't start watching him just when he grabs a bat. You think he doesn't want to be playing good defense with all those eyes on him?"

Baylor? He doesn't want to talk about any of this. He is exceptionally old school, a hardened former player who would jog to first base with no reaction whatsoever when hit by a pitch, not giving the pitcher the pleasure of seeing his pain (except for that time against Nolan Ryan, when he waited to get to first base before keeling over). It has been reported that the Baylor-Sosa relationship soured when Sosa and centerfielder Damon Buford collided on a fly ball, and when Sosa got the E, he asked Baylor to call the press box and get the call changed. But that doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would upset Baylor, seeing as how, 11 days earlier, the manager had called the press box unsolicited and had the scorer change an error call on a Sosa at-bat to a hit.

"Some of the stuff is comical," Baylor says of the Sosa rumors. He is standing on the field but you can barely hear him because Sosa has just walked by and the "Sammy! Sammy! Sammy!" squeals from behind the dugout are overwhelming, as usual. Sosa and Baylor laughed and joked around the batting cage in South Florida, but then Baylor, speaking to a small group of reporters about team injuries and updates, was asked about being quoted, in reference to Sosa, as complaining that sometimes a manager has to "coddle" a superstar nowadays. Rather than elaborate on this, Baylor suddenly said, "See you, guys," and walked away in mid-question.

All the Cubs are tired of talking about Sosa. Second baseman Eric Young refers all questions to catcher Joe Girardi, who says he doesn't want to answer them either. General manager Ed Lynch would be happy to discuss Sosa's fame, calling him "the biggest international star in the game" and talking about "the riot he almost caused among fans in Venezuela." But ask Lynch about Sosa being selfish or any trade updates, and he suddenly becomes a mime.

"Sammy is a team player," Gutierrez says. "You struggle, fingers start pointing, and blame starts at the top, which is where he is. He stole third in Atlanta and then got thrown out at home on a grounder by Hill. You could see the anger on his face. It wasn't the anger of someone playing for himself." Says Cubs bench coach Rene Lachemann, "You can pick anybody apart. Shaq is league MVP, All-Star MVP and playoff MVP, and what do they talk about? His free throw percentage. This is just about the magnitude of Sammy. When you become that big, any chink in the armor is going to get bigger too."

Sosa shrugs this off easily, as a product of the fame he has always coveted and still enjoys (except when he has to eat his dinner off a paper plate on a massage table in the trainer's room to avoid interviews for a few minutes). Where will his journey end? Probably with the team that gives him the most respect, which he'll count in dollars. Bigger than the Cubs, bigger than the Yankees, bigger than baseball, he can and will veto anything he doesn't like, which means the Sosa standing before you now, even if his defense and baserunning aren't quite the same, even if his team isn't winning, is remarkably similar to the Sosa of 1998.

He still has, as the scouts say, overwhelming power.

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