Cubs' Sosa still hungry after four plentiful years

MESA, Ariz. -- While players milled about the batting cage, a few dozen fans lined the rows of seats behind them, asking for autographs.

No one paid much attention to batting practice until Sammy Sosa stepped into the cage. But with the first THWACK! of his bat, everyone turned to watch.

CRACK! One ball clanged off the batter's eye in center field.

CRACK! Another sailed over the left-field fence, sending fans running for the ball.

The fans oohed and aahed, but the Chicago Cubs' star didn't react. He just dug in and got ready to swing again.

"I don't really feel satisfied with what I did last year," he said. "I've just got to stay hungry. That's what makes me go out there and play hard every day. I don't want to lose that. The day that I lose that is the day I'm going to retire.

"And right now, I'm still hungry."

Sosa has put together one of the most impressive stretches by a hitter over the past four seasons. He's the first player to hit 60-plus homers three times, and he led the NL with 50 the fourth year.

He's done it while hitting .310 with a .662 slugging percentage. He also led the league with 160 RBIs and 146 runs scored last season.

And he's become a more savvy hitter, too. He lowered his strikeouts from 174 in 1997 to 153 last season while his walks climbed from 45 to 116.

But all of that is ancient history.

"Whatever happened in the past, I'm not thinking about it. It's over," he said. "I can't be thinking 1998, I can't be thinking 1999 or whatever it is. We're in the year 2002, and this is a new year."

It's why he has a gym in his offseason home in Miami. While some other players take the winter off, Sosa works out and watches what he eats. When he comes to spring training, he's ready to play from the start.

He puts in extra work with hitting coach Jeff Pentland. He's one of the game's most durable players, too, missing only two games last season.

No game is meaningless for him, no matter what month it is. On Wednesday, he turned what probably would have been a double into a triple, hustling around the bases in a game that won't mean anything come Monday.

"He still wants to be the best," Cubs manager Don Baylor said. "Watch him play spring training games. You can tell the way he runs out a single or double and how he plays. That's him. He plays one way."

And at 33, he's not showing any signs of slowing down.

"I think so," Sosa said when asked if he's in the prime of his career. "I've learned how to play the game because I never played the game when I was a kid. I started when I was 14 years old.

"I feel so confident right now. I feel like nothing is missing in me or in my body."

The only thing Sosa lacks is a championship. A Cub since 1992, he's been to the playoffs just once. He didn't stay long, either, as the Cubs got swept by Atlanta in the first round in 1998.

The individual accolades he's piled up are nice, but he'd like a shiny World Series ring like Fred McGriff and Moises Alou -- the other two-thirds of Chicago's nasty 3-4-5 punch -- already have.

"When you've got a good team, you cannot go out there and be selfish," Sosa said. "You've got to be together with the team. And that's what I'm going to do this year.

"I've got to go out there every day and what happens happens."

Expos cut Canseco

JUPITER, Fla. -- Jose Canseco will not reach his goal of 500 home runs with the Montreal Expos.

Canseco was given his release by the Expos on Wednesday after being told he would not be an everyday player.

Canseco, 37, hit .200 with three home runs and five RBIs in 14 spring training games.

The former AL MVP has 462 home runs, putting him 22nd on the career list. But Expos manager Frank Robinson plans to use other young players in the outfield.

Robinson said the Expos offered to let him play as a regular at Triple-A, but Canseco declined.

As a DH last year, he hit .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBIs in 256 at-bats for the Chicago White Sox.

Cubs acquire Alfonseca

MELBOURNE, Fla. The Chicago Cubs, desperate for a closer, got reliever Antonio Alfonseca from the Florida Marlins in a six-player trade Wednesday.

The Marlins sent Alfonseca and pitcher Matt Clement to the Cubs for pitcher Julian Tavarez and three minor leaguers -- pitchers Jose Cueto and Dontrelle Willis and catcher Ryan Jorgensen.

The Cubs had been searching for a closer since Tom Gordon tore a muscle in his right shoulder March 5, an injury they originally said would sideline him for three months. Chicago then tried without success to pry free agent Jeff Shaw out of retirement.

Alfonseca, 30 next month, was 4-4 with 28 saves and a 3.06 ERA last season. He was among the few players left from the Marlins team that won the 1997 World Series.

-- From wire reports