⚾ Vintage Framed Autographed/Signed Sammy Sosa 35x39 Chicago Blue Baseball Jersey JSA COA – Hand-Signed by the Man at the Center of the Summer That Baseball Needed Most, the Chicago Cubs Slugger Who Hit 60 Home Runs Three Different Times and Who Chased Roger Maris' Record in the 1998 Season Alongside Mark McGwire in a Race That the Sports World Has Not Stopped Talking About, Preserved in a 35x39 Framed Display and Confirmed Authentic by James Spence Authentication

⚾ The summer of 1998 is one of the most discussed chapters in the history of Major League Baseball, and it is discussed primarily because of what Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire did to the home run record and to the sport's relationship with its own audience during five months of baseball that the game has never fully replicated. Professional baseball was still recovering from the damage done by the 1994 players' strike – the work stoppage that cancelled the World Series for the first time since 1904 and sent casual fans toward other forms of entertainment with a disillusionment that had not fully healed four years later. What Sosa and McGwire provided in 1998 was not a scheduled event or a planned marketing campaign; it was two of the most extraordinary individual offensive performances the sport had produced in the same season, simultaneously chasing a record that had stood for 37 years, and the competition between them was exactly the kind of story that reminds people who have stopped paying attention why they ever cared about baseball in the first place.

⚾ Samuel Peralta Sosa was born November 12, 1968, in San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic, and came to professional baseball through the Texas Rangers organization before the Chicago White Sox acquired him and eventually the Cubs traded for him in 1992. It was in the blue of the Chicago Cubs that Sosa built the most significant chapters of his career, developing from a toolsy outfielder with promising power into one of the most dangerous home run hitters the National League had ever seen. His first 60-home-run season came in 1998 – the year that made him famous beyond the sport – when he hit 66 in the same season that McGwire hit 70. The final tally meant McGwire won the home run title, but Sosa won the National League Most Valuable Player Award because his Cubs reached the playoffs as the National League Wild Card and he was recognized as the more complete contributor to a team that was competing for something in October.

⚾ What made Sosa unique beyond 1998 was what he did when the cameras of the national home run race narrative moved on. He hit 63 home runs in 1999. He hit 64 home runs in 2001. Three separate seasons of at least 60 home runs – a total that no player in the history of the sport has matched. The blue Chicago Cubs jersey he wore while producing those numbers is one of the most recognizable uniforms associated with one of the most prolific power-hitting stretches any player has put together in modern baseball history, and the JSA-authenticated signature on this 35x39 framed jersey connects the piece directly to the player who wore that blue and those numbers into the record books.

✍️ This 35x39 framed Chicago Cubs blue jersey carries Sammy Sosa's personal signature, confirmed authentic by James Spence Authentication (JSA), one of the most widely recognized third-party authentication services in the sports memorabilia industry. The 35x39 framed format preserves the jersey and the signature in the display style that collectors use for the most significant autographed baseball pieces, presenting both at a scale that honors the career the name on the signature represents. Condition: NOS.

⚾ Sammy Sosa. San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic. Chicago Cubs. 609 Career Home Runs. 1998 NL MVP. 1998: 66 Home Runs. 1999: 63 Home Runs. 2001: 64 Home Runs. Three 60-Home-Run Seasons. Framed 35x39 Blue Baseball Jersey. JSA COA. Hall of Fame Sports Memorabilia. Condition: NOS.