Sammy Sosa almost single-handedly brought the Cubs back to national relevance and was one half of the duo that pulled Major League Baseball back from the brink following the strike that truncated both the 1994 and ’95 seasons. With all due respect to his teammates, Sosa was a bona fide supernova for five seasons beginning in 1998 and was worth the cost of admission all by himself.
And I mean that literally, since the Cubs went from about middle of the pack in 1999 to the highest average ticket prices in the National League by the time Sosa departed a few years later.