Sports Specialties signed an exclusive headwear deal
with Cubs RF Sammy Sosa to market three new commemorative
caps. The first, a "Season to Remember" cap featuring
Sosa's autograph and the tag, "1998 Season to Remember"
embroidered on the front, will be available for retail
delivery tomorrow and will be featured at Wrigley Field on
Sunday during "Sammy Sosa Day." The second will be a "Home
Run Commemorative" cap featuring Sosa's autograph and final
'98 HR total. The third product will be a Sosa "Collector's
Addition" cap, which will be available during Spring
Training '99. Sports Specialties will also incorporate Sosa
into its '99 "6-4-3" cap marketing plan, which will include
national marketing (Sports Specialties).
SECOND-HAND SAMMY? Hartford Courant Sports Editor Jeff
Otterbein, on the media's handling of Sosa's record run:
"Some people think Sammy has gotten short shrift, and to a
degree I think he did. I think he caught a lot of people
off guard, including [MLB]." N.Y. Times Sports Editor Neil
Amdur: "We ran a Sosa picture inside [the sports section]
because we could not (change) color that late at night. The
Mets were the bigger display, but Sosa still led the
section" (HARTFORD COURANT, 9/18). An NBC News/Wall Street
Journal Poll showed that 82% of those surveyed said that
they were "satisfied with media coverage" of the home run
race. Sosa was profiled last night on the final segment of
"NBC Nightly News," as Tom Brokaw said Sosa was "already in
the record books as a Hall of Fame good guy." NBC's Jim
Avila: "In Chicago, Sosa is second only to Michael Jordan
... with a personality that transcends color" (NBC, 9/17).
On "Good Morning America," ABC's Jon Frankel profiled how
the McGwire-Sosa HR race is creating a "welcome" diversion
from "a lot of depressing headlines." Frankel: "In a summer
in which stock market slides and presidential errors have
dominated the news, baseball has been the one story
everybody is happy to read about" (ABC, 9/19).
