Sammy Sosa opens up about his broken relationship with the Cubs

With the Cubs' newfound success and plethora of rising stars, it's somewhat easy to forget that Sammy Sosa was a mega star and the face of the Chicago franchise during the '90s and early 2000s. Since his retirement in 2009, Sosa has rarely been seen or heard from around the world of baseball.

He was one of the most fearsome hitters in the league and his home run chase with Mark McGwire in 1998 is often credited with "saving" baseball, so why is he remaining so out of sight? Why hasn't he been seen at all during the Cubs' deep playoff run? After all, the team has invited plenty of familiar faces back to Wrigley throughout the postseason.

In a piece this week from the Wall Street Journal, Sosa says that he hasn't heard from anyone within the Cubs organization for about three years. No check-ins, no first pitch invites or offers to sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." Nothing.

His tenure with the team didn't end on the best of notes, as he requested to sit out the final game of the 2004 season and left Wrigley shortly after the start of the game. He didn't even put on the Chicago uniform, and he never would again.

But Sosa has since apologized for that day and says that he's not to blame for the broken relationship with the team.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” said Sosa, via the WSJ. “I played almost 13 years in Chicago and the only thing I did was play good, play hard and give everything I had for the fans. If they don’t respect that, if that’s not good enough, hey, so be it.”

Some have suggested that speculation of steroid usage is contributing to the team's disassociation with Sosa, who was reportedly on a list of about 100 players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003 -- a list that was supposed to be kept anonymous. Cubs owner Tom Ricketts has alluded to this when talking about "amends" that the Dominican slugger needs to make before the team will welcome him back.

But Sosa never admitted to using PEDs, nor did he ever fail an official drug test on record throughout his career. Guys like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire have still been embraced -- and even employed -- by Major League Baseball, so that can't be the only reason that Sosa has been exiled.

Either way, it seems that Sosa doesn't really hold any ill will towards the club these days. He seems quite content to live his retirement in the shadows, though he said he would happily accept an invitation to return to Wrigley if one ever came from the team. In the meantime, he's rooting for the Cubs to win the World Series, even if it might help push him into further obscurity.