He Should Have Shown Sosa His Series Rings

By MARK HEISLER

July 12, 2000 12 AM PT

That Zenmeister stuff apparently isn’t as easy as it looks.

Cub Manager Don Baylor says his problem with Sammy Sosa started when he challenged Sosa in training camp, just as the Lakers’ Phil Jackson had challenged Shaquille O’Neal.

“I’ve been a Laker fan all my life,” Baylor said. “I’ve always watched them. When Phil came in and said, ‘We’re going to play defense,’ and when he told Shaq, ‘You’re going to improve your free-throw shooting,’ they didn’t take it as if he didn’t like them.

“Shaq accepted it and said, ‘I’m going to work on my game.’ And he ends up being the MVP.”

Sosa may wind up in another uniform.

Baylor said he wanted Sosa to lead more, steal more bases and play better in the field.

Sosa said Baylor had “no class.”

They say they have made up but the team still has Sosa on the market. And the Cubs are in fifth place, 15 1/2 games out.

Otherwise, it worked OK.

Trivia time: Who is the only pitcher traded during the season he won the Cy Young Award?

Where is everyone? The recent U.S.-Costa Rica women’s Gold Cup soccer game drew only 7,043 fans in Louisville, Ky.

“It’s not really surprising,” said Shannon MacMillan of the U.S. “We’re still in a situation where we have to promote and expose our sport to as many people as possible.”

In that case, suggests Rick Bozich of the Louisville Courier-Journal, they might think of cutting ticket prices. The cheapest seats were $20 for adults and $17 for kids.

No longer friends: The night after Roger Clemens had hit Mike Piazza in the head, the Mets told three Yankee players they couldn’t use the Shea Stadium weight room.

The Mets also scrubbed plans for their all-stars, Edgardo Alfonzo and Al Leiter, to share a charter to Atlanta with Manager Joe Torre and the Yankee all-stars.

Said a miffed Torre, “We like to conduct what we do with class and that’s the way I anticipate other people conducting themselves.”

Replied Met General Manager Steve Phillips, “I thought it was unprofessional that their pitcher threw at our catcher, so I don’t care at all what Joe Torre thinks.”

Add feud: Responded Yankee owner George Steinbrenner: “The big point of the series is that the Yankees won in pretty convincing fashion. But I don’t blame [Manager] Bobby Valentine and the Mets for doing what they did. They had to take the focus off the fact that they got their fannies handed to them.”

Trivia answer: Rick Sutcliffe, who started the 1984 season with the Indians and was traded to the Cubs.

And finally: UCLA basketball has no bigger booster than former Bruin star Bill Walton, but Walton’s family is another matter.

Even though he recruited his basketball-playing sons personally, and took them to meet John Wooden, all chose other schools. Nate is a senior at Princeton, Luke a sophomore at Arizona and Chris will be a freshman at San Diego State.

“Once they graduate from high school, they’re on their own,” Walton said. “You can give them advice, but you can’t tell them what to do.”