Growing up in the poverty-stricken town of San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic, Sammy Sosa shined shoes and washed cars to help buy food for his family. For fun, he learned how to play baseball with an empty milk carton as his glove and a wooden stick as his bat. By the time he was 16, he was scouted and signed by the Texas Rangers. And in 1998, Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs joined Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals in breaking the legendary Roger Maris' 37-year-old record of 61 home runs in a single season, changing the history of baseball. Sammy Sosa's amazing story is an inspiring tale of a phenomenal talent, the likes of which hasn't been seen since baseball greats Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio.
-- Baseball has seen a resurgence in popularity as millions of fans watched Sammy Sosa make sports history and become a beloved household name everywhere. In 1998 he hit 66 home runs, and then hit another 63 in 1999. Sosa was named the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1998.
-- Over the past two years, Sosa has become a daily fixture on the nightly sports highlight reels and has made appearances on late night talk shows. Sosa is a national commercial spokesman for McDonald's and Montgomery Ward.
-- Marcos Breton is the winner of the Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award given by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and is the coauthor of the book Away Games: The Life and Times of a Latin Ball Player (Simon & Schuster, 1999), which received critical raves from KirkusReviews. He is a senior writer at the Sacramento Bee.
-- Perfectly timed with Father's Day, "Sosa: An Autobiography" makes an ideal gift for baseball fans everywhere.