If former Chicago Cub and White Sox Sammy Sosa tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, is anybody really shocked? From all the cries of, "Sammy, say it ain't so!" you'd think people weren't paying attention back in 1998 when Sosa and St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire chased Roger Maris' record of 61 home runs in a season.
To The Hound, both those guys looked pretty bulked up back then. McGwire eclipsed the Maris mark, while Sosa finished with 66 round-trippers that season. The next year Sammy blasted 63, then 50 in 2000, 64 in 2001 and 49 in 2002. Remember the "Cork Bat Affair" in playoff year of 2003? He hit 40 that year.
Sosa testified before the House Government Reform Committee investigating steroid use in Major League Baseball in 2005 stating, "I have been tested as recently as 2004, and I am clean. To be clear, I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs." The New York Times report of Sosa testing positive for the drugs said it happened in 2003. Heck, if he was taking them then, he should have hit 60 homers and led the Cubs to a World Series berth, right?
Instead he did a salsa dance before the congressional committee, choosing his words and dates carefully. If he took 'roids back then, it's history. The idea is to stop current players from using them.
And, if a handful of names have leaked from this anonymous survey some government bureaucrat has, let's see all of the names. The Hound wants to know who are all the 104 players who allegedly used performance-enhancing drugs. Let's get beyond this latest taint on Major League Baseball and give us the names.
It's much safer for the owners, publicists, players and other hangers-on, to reveal the names of palyers who are finished or nearly finished with the game. When Sosa and McGwire were in their duel for the record, people knew that there was something 'off' about both players, but nobody wanted to actually attempt to test them for performance-enhancing substances. No, that would ruin the inceasing gate receipts if it was proven that either one was getting by with the help from his 'friends'. Now that Sosa and McGwire are just another couple of statistics, the truth gets out, slowly and in a trickle. The baseball industry should just release all the names of those who cheated, rather than hope a few names here and there will satisfy the sportswriters who wrote about this abuse and cheating when it really counted, and something could have been done to punish those who did cheat.
THE HOUND SAYS: Hermie, are you suggesting there's a conspiracy? In baseball? In America?