Chicago ? Sammy Sosa was in a jovial mood when he limped into the Cubs’ clubhouse on May 19 for the first time since he was sidelined by back spasms, joking to reporters that he felt 95 years old.

Everything was going swimmingly until the end of the group interview, when I inadvertently made the mistake of asking Sosa if he planned to stick around for that night’s game and be on the bench with his teammates.

“You want me to stay here with my back (messed) up?” Sosa shot back. “That’s not a good idea. You know that. C’mon. What’s wrong with you? What kind of question is that?”

After the cameras were turned off I went up to Sosa and asked why he was so upset. He told me to never ask him a question again.

“I wish you were in my body for one day,” he said, stalking away.

Dealing with Sammy Sosa has been an unenviable task for managers, teammates, reporters, media-relations personnel and even parking-lot attendants at Wrigley Field, at least the ones who refused to go fill his car up with gas when directed to.

During the last several years, Sosa’s rise to larger-than-life status has turned him into one of the most difficult athletes anyone should have to deal with. This is the same guy who in that glorious 1998 season came across as one of the most accommodating, media-friendly superstars in sports.

What happened?

Only Sosa knows the answer. But there’s little doubt he has burned his bridges in Chicago, with the Cubs’ front office, with Cubs fans and with the local media. Sosa’s churlish attitude this year made him persona non grata with the Cubs’ media-relations department, the same people who helped build his image in ’98 and covered for him during the corked-bat episode last year.

It all started when he lost the services of personal assistant Julian Martinez in spring training after commissioner Bud Selig ordered stricter restrictions on clubhouse access for non-baseball employees. The BALCO controversy involving Barry Bonds and his personal trainer was the reason for Selig’s action, but Sosa chose to blame the Tribune for asking Cubs management about Martinez’s status in the wake of the crackdown.

Sosa’s decision to cut off all media, save one reporter, left him on an island to fend for himself in 2004. No matter how much money and fame he had, Sosa was lost without his advisers. When he was widely criticized for his premature hop that turned into an out at second base during a playoff-race game in Pittsburgh, Sosa lashed out, claiming the gaffe was irrelevant.

Sosa had started hearing boos as his second-half performance declined. As the booing intensified last month, Sosa began telling friends he wanted out of Chicago. The Cubs told him they’d try to accommodate his request if he would be willing to restructure his contract to make him easier to trade. Sosa blew up again.

On his first day in spring training this year, I asked a smiling Sosa if he thought he’d be a Cub the rest of his career.

“Why not?” he replied. “I’ve been here all my life. Don’t tell me they’re going to get rid of me after next year, right? But you don’t know what can happen, so let’s see what happens.”

Now we’ve seen what happened, and if Sosa is gone it will be nobody’s fault but his own.