The Sad Saga of Sammy Sosa

Sosa in the final years of his once
brilliant career. Photo from user
shgmom56 on Flickr - her second
straight on our blog. She's good.

By Jordan Guinn

In these troubled times of rampant unemployment, massive federal takeovers of banks and private industry and Iran's sham of an election, it makes perfect sense for the New York Times to report that Sammy Sosa tested positive for steroids in 2003.

This is the most shocking revelation in the pages of the Times since it endorsed Barack Obama for president.

Since I am the resident steroid expert on our desperately under-manned staff, it falls on my shoulders to write something on the Times' earth-shattering revelation regarding Sosa's use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Sosa went from being the most beloved Cubs icon since Ernie Banks to the most reviled person in the North Side of Chicago. Even former mayor Richard Daley and his son don't incite as much vile hatred in Illinois as Sosa does.

And Chicago fans are justified in feeling this way. Sosa duped them. He duped all of us. For years, we thought of Sosa as the energetic guy with the wide smile and kind eyes. We even tolerated his infantile finger-kissing-chest-thumping ritual. The media even did its best to portray it as charming.

But things started going downhill for Sosa on June 3, 2003. It was on that fateful day that Sosa broke his bat and cork sprayed across Wrigley Field's infield and forever changed the way Chicago, America and baseball itself viewed him. To his credit, Sosa's excuse was a fine one: That he mistakenly grabbed the bat he used to put on a show for the fans during batting practice.

Brilliant.

Too bad everyone but naive Cubs apologists saw right through it. Sosa came back to Wrigley after an eight-game suspension to cheers and fanfare, but the damage was done. Never again would Sosa be the favored son of Chicago. His reputation continued its free-fall in subsequent years and culminated with his abandonment of the Cubs on the final day of the 2004 season, when he left the stadium well before the game had ended. Sosa said he didn't leave, even though security footage showed his car exiting the garage while the game was still being played. He was traded to Baltimore after the 2004 season.

But corked bats and team abandonment would pale in comparison to what waited on the horizon for Sosa: a Congressional hearing. The St. Patrick's Day hearing in 2005 featured Mark McGwire's legacy-murdering testimony, Rafael Palmerio's finger-wagging and Sosa, ahem, forgetting how to speak English.

Sosa had a dismal 2005 with Baltimore and had to take 2006 off because no one wanted to risk signing him. In 2007, the organization he broke into the majors with, the Texas Rangers, inked him to a minor-league deal. Sosa made the team and went on to hit his 600th career home run. Had Sosa played a little bit longer, he could have broken Reggie Jackson's all-time record for strikeouts. Sosa's career ended 291 k's short of the record. It should be noted that Jackson played for 21 years and Sosa only played 18.

But Sosa thinks his career .273 batting average, copious strikeouts and zero Gold Gloves have punched his ticket to Cooperstown. In an interview with ESPNDeportes on June 4, Sosa said, "I will calmly wait for my induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Don't I have the numbers to be inducted?"

No Sammy, you don't.

Oh, before I forget, Commissioner Bud Selig did not make an on-the-record comment regarding the New York Times' report in Tuesday's paper. My birthday is just chock-full of surprises.