The day that everyone knew was coming is finally here. According to the New York Times, Sammy Sosa failed a drug test in 2003. Another one of baseball's stars have crashed and burned.
It's said that society likes to build people up just so we can tear them down, yet baseball's biggest stars have not needed our help. The news today was predictable, expected, and doesn't register on the shock meter. Sosa is just the latest to fall in this house of cards, joining the man who helped baseball's resurgence in 1998.
I'll never forget the summer of '98, when Sosa and McGwire pushed each other in pursuit of Maris, it was absolutely captivating. Now it's equivalent to when I was a kid and my grandpa used to pull half dollars from behind my ears. I'm wiser now and I know how it was done, but it was entertaining and I'll always have the memories. Hopefully, someday in the very near future, we can all go back to believing in the magic on the diamond again.
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13 comments:
It's nice to read somebody's take who doesn't pretend that they never liked Sosa or that they knew all along. It has been obvious the last couple of years when you look back but there is no need to feel foolish for not knowing in 1998. If anyone says they knew then, they're lieing.
Agree with Anonymous. It's so easy for people to assert that they knew all along or that they never liked the guy.
Know what I'm talking about Dan?
I feel much the same as you Jay; that, somehow, we were cheated and these memories of excitement are now bereft of any type of meaning. So the next logical question is, who's to blame? Well... look no further than ourselves.
Sure, we can can blame the players. There's no questioning the fault lies on them for knowingly or unknowingly using performance enhancing drugs. But in a highly competitive league where your livelihood depends on your performance on the field, is it really that outlandish and unthinkable for a player to try to give himself a boost? Players today sit in rooms that are pumped full of pure oxygen and sleep in hyperbaric chambers so they can remain healthy/get healthy to stay on the field and put up numbers. Is that so much different than using an oil or a substance that was not prohibitted from use by the league?
Yet, all of that is also ignoring the simple and unavoidable fact that... we knew. The commissioner knew and, in a very subdued way, he let us know (heaven forbid he let it affect his revenue stream). Even the former head of the players association was telling us, yet the media never picked up his cause and, instead of his message being heeded, he was shunned.
And even without being told about steroids, we each saw them first hand every game we watched. We saw guys the size of Alexei Ramirez (100 lbs. soaking wet) turn into middle linebackers right before our eyes, and we let ourselves believe it was their offseason lifting programs?! Here's a hint, baseball's offseason is the shortest of any sport, so these guys were able to put on 20 lbs of pure muscle in 4 to 5 months? If that's the case, we better see Derrick Rose looking like Lance Briggs next year. And, to that point, we better see Lance Briggs looking like Magnus Samuelsson during OTC's.
My point is that we were bystanders to the whole song-and-dance, and now we want to act like the victim. That makes us enablers.
You knew me back then, did you not know I hated Sammy? Had I ever had a starting lineup Sammy Sosa I would have hung him by his neck like I did with Scottie Pippen. I cheered for both guys to help my teams win, but I did always hate them.
Just like you hate Kevin Gregg right now. I can't wait till 5 years after he's gone so I can say yeah right, like you hated Kevin Gregg when he was a Cub.
I hated Sosa, I hated Pippen, I didn't especially like Jordan. Just because a guy is good playing for the team you love doesn't mean you have to like him. I think it's a stupid argument to say that everyone liked Sosa in 1998. That's ridiculous. I cheered for him over McGwire and to help the Cubs, but McGwire was a Cardinal, and maybe my least favorite player of all time. That was a no brainer.
Case in point, the entire city of Chicago hates Soriano, even though he is one of the best players on the team. It's possibly the most idiotic argument ever to say everyone liked the guy.
Anyone read Rozner's column today? In typical Rozner fashion, he tries telling the reader that he's smarter than everyone and that he knew Sosa was juicing as soon as he showed up in 1998.
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=300968
If that's true, how come Rozner didn't do his job as a journalist and expose him back in '98?
Ha! Just realized I called Rozner a journalist...
Dan-
I know, I'm mostly joking with you. I was never Sammy's biggest fan because he did so many aggravating things:
Hopping
Swinging at everything
Playing poor defense
You get the idea. Mostly I just hate the idea, apparently espoused by Rozner today, that it was so obvious that he was juicing. I remember specifically making comments like "Creatine makes Sammy slow" back in '98 because I really did buy into the fact that he was a workout warrior.
Apparently "Wonderboy" knew all along, maybe I'm just naive...
I can say I have no recollection of ever thinking about steriods at any point in the 90's. Except when Lyle Alzado would either talk or die.
In an unrelated note, Sammy was corking his bat, which is also illegal, so the fact that he cheated in a second way isn't really vindicating for anyone. He was already exposed as a cheater.
And if Rozner would have called out Sammy in '98 Raul Ibanez would've been very pissed. That reminds me, Ken Rosenthal is a dick.
After the whole steriods thing broke all the columnists where apologetic and accepting some of the blame for never exposing anyone or even discussing steriods. They apologized for being as implicit as MLB and the coaches and organizations. But then a blogger comes out and comments on Raul Ibanez suspicion (without even accusing it was more like reporting the suspicion of others) and Rosenthal blasts him for having no integrity.
When that kid was getting roasted on SportsCenter he should have just said "Oh yeah Ken, and you're a shitty journalist for letting the biggest sports story of the decade unfold right beneath your nose and never even mentioning the subject until Congress got involved and exposed it themselves. That was supposed to be your job Ken. Jose Canseco somehow turned out to be a better reporter than you. What an embarassement to the industry...fuck off."
Or...
"How long have you guys been in the industry? Shit, that’s a long time, a lot longer than I’ve been blogging, I should show some respect. I mean, you guys have been doing this since before and even during the whole steroid era. Wow, you must have been exposed to a lot of it and heard a million whispers about what was going on. Too bad you didn’t have anyone to report those kinds of indiscretions to.
Oh shit, you’re a reporter, it’s actually your job to report?!? Ouch. Well you didn’t have 100% proof of anything going on so you know, I guess you couldn’t really report that, it was all opinion and speculation. Oh shit, your whole job is based around expressing your opinion and speculating?!? Fuck, that’s gotta hurt! I mean Ken, your entire career is now built around “reporting” trade rumors that are based on nothing concrete, just speculation and hearsay. “Rumor” is even in the damn phrase. So I guess you really should have been reporting on all this speculation and everything you were hearing as it was all going down. Sorry dude, didn’t mean to expose you or anything. That sucks, looks like "integrity" just made you its bitch."
Good points on Rosenthal, I didn't see the interview with Morris on OTL but I heard enough about it to know that you're right.
Additional note: While I stand by the fact that I never thought/knew that these guys were on steroids in the 90's, I was absolutely exposed to the steroids = bad thing in the 80's when Ben Johnson was busted in the Olympics.
That story was huuuuuuge. It has always bothered me that we now talk about how "steroids weren't illegal in baseball until '03 so nothing that happened prior to then can be considered cheating."
Bullshit.
Everyone knew that steroids were illegal in competition, everyone knew that it constituted cheating. Everyone was aware that steroids were performance enhancing, at least since 1988.
Well there's nothing in the rulebook that says you can't shoot other players in football so, while illegal, you can't say that dude in the Last Boy Scout was cheating when he started murdering everyone that tried to tackle him. It was not against the rules of the game. He should be in the Hall of Fame.
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