| 21 June 2009
It finally happened.
The last big piece of the steroid puzzle fell into place this week, when word was leaked that Sammy Sosa- he of 609 career home runs- failed a drug test in 2003. Like the ending of a gangster movie, the walls closed in and last big Don finally fell, piano music playing quietly in the background.
The information itself had about as much shock value as your mother telling you as a 15-year-old that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Of course at the same time, it’s still weird watching her place the presents under the tree for the first time.
Sosa started his career in Texas as a slap hitting speed and singles hitter, and over the better course of the 1990’s transformed himself into the Dominican hulk, his body built like a brick house, and neck thicker than a Texas strip steak.
We always wondered- sometimes aloud- about validity of his newfound bulk, because lets be honest its not easy to gain 60 lbs. over the course of a few years, especially when it’s all muscle. But even as recently as Sosa’s official retirement just a few weeks ago, there was still no tangible proof that Sosa did anything more than eat his vegetables and live in the weight room.Sure the circumstantial evidence was there. In 2002, then Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly offered Sosa a phone number and directions to a Chicago area laboratory where he could get tested for free. If Sosa took the test Reilly insisted it’d be good for baseball and the superstar, a big time home run hitter showing the world that his urine was pure as an Alaskan waterfall.
Sosa of course reacted about the same way one does when they get the notice that it’s time for a colonoscopy. He squirmed and stammered, eventually swearing at Reilly and telling the sportswriter to leave him alone because “You’re not my father” (I think it’s important to note on this Father’s Day weekend, my father made me do a lot of things I wasn’t too happy about when I was younger.Getting tested for steroids was never one of them. Love you dad!).
But despite that, what made Sosa such a fascinating case was that throughout this past decade- when he’s been watched closer than a teenage girl at a frat party- Sosa remained clear of any wrongdoing. Beyond the previously mentioned circumstantial evidence and a corked bat in 2003, there was no true smoking gun to tie Sosa to. No shady trainers, no saved syringes, no mysterious receipts from far away pharmacies that can’t be accounted for.
And in an era where some Hall of Fame voters have said publicly they’d never induct someone with any question of a performance enhancing background, that said a lot. Mark McGwire- the 8th most prolific home run hitter of all-time- has been on the Hall of Fame ballot three years in a row, and hasn’t been inducted. The writers had nothing on Sosa, except for the empty bottle of Flintstones vitamins he claimed gave him his extra pop. If the former Chicago Cubs slugger didn’t make it into the Hall of Fame it’d be blasphemy, guilty until proven innocent at its finest.
Of course that all changed this week, with the New York Times report of the leaked positive test result.
If you’re scoring at home, let’s take a quick look at the all-time home run list and see who we can cross off as a cheater. There’s all-time leader Barry Bonds with 762, who admitted to taking “the cream,” and “the clear,” but didn’t know what they were at the time. Of course since then he has refuted his original statement.
No. 6 on the list is Sosa, his case made already. McGwire at No. 8 has 583, but a bottle of Andro was found in his locker in the summer of 1998 and he has yet to be forgiven for that. No. 10 is Rafael Palmeiro, he of the famous, “I have never used steroids. Period,” comments during a 2005 testimony in front of Congress. This was also likely the first case of ‘roid rage revisionist history, as just three months later Palmeiro failed a drug test. At this point, I have about as much of a chance to get into the Hall as Palmeiro does.
And of course at No. 12 on the list and moving up is Alex Rodriguez who admitted to taking steroids during the 2001-2003 seasons.
Not to be forgotten of course is Manny Ramirez, who’ll miss 50 games for the Dodgers in the 2009 season for failing a test in May. Ramirez is widely considered to be one of the best pure right-handed hitters not only of his generation, but of all-time.
So doing the math, that’s nearly half of the top dozen home run hitters in the history of the game, and another all-time great.
But with all that evidence on the table, here’s the most important question of the entire conversation: Does anyone even care anymore?
As time goes on and more and more names get revealed, we as the casual fan have become numb to it. It’s like being a cop on a big city police force; I’d have to imagine the 25th dead body isn’t nearly as impactful as the first.
When a new name comes out, we go through the same routine time and time again. Talk about it at length for two or three days, throw “X,” player under the bus, discuss how disappointing it is that he defrauded the game and lied to us as fans, and then we move on. A week later the story is on the backburner, just like Sosa has basically already become.
As more and more players fall, we’re supposed to lose interest in the sport, refusing to go to games because the guys in front of us are just juiced up cheaters. Of course, looking around baseball this season, the Yankees have the highest average attendance of any team in baseball at over 45,000 fans per game. They also employ the biggest name in baseball that’s been found guilty of steroid use, Rodriguez.The fans in L.A. are just as sympathetic with Ramirez, who was basically exonerated by locals before his suspension even started.
These two most recent examples prove maybe the most important point, that Major League Baseball is simply a form of entertainment.The oldest adage in marketing goes, “Put out a good product and people will come,” and the teams that are winning- with or without cheating players- are proving that.
The reason we go to a baseball game on a Saturday afternoon is the same reason we go to the movies on a Friday night. Sure Paul Blart: Mall Cop isn’t the most pure piece of cinema that’s ever hit theaters. But it gets us off our coach, and makes us forget about our bad financial situation, lousy marriage and the job we hate.
When it was discovered that Rodriguez was taking PED’s, he repeatedly said in his interview, “It was the times,” and we chastised him for it. Like most other things, it sounded cheesy coming out of Rodriguez’s mouth, but Sosa is just the latest example of the statement being true. Everybody in baseball over the last decade knew the guy in the locker next to him was taking something and decided, “Hey this is my livelihood, if I don’t do it I might be out of a job.”
We may criticize and critique, but if you could take a pill or inject yourself with something that would make you twice as productive at work, likely earning a fatter paycheck and blowing away the competition in the process, wouldn’t you?
Steroids are just the latest twist and turn from the sport of baseball, one that has made the record book a jumbled mess. Remember Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Ty Cobb never played against black, Latino or Asian players. Should their records have an asterisk? Of course they also never played in a 162 game season either.
Hank Aaron is still considered the all-time home run champ by many, but don’t forget Atlanta Fulton County Stadium was built with short fences specifically for him to break records.
We’ve seen the spit ball outlawed and mounds raised. Players during the 1940’s had to leave Major League Baseball right in their primes to go fight in World War II. Steroids are just the latest thing that is skewing the history of the sport we all love so much.
My suggestion? Take the advice of famed sports broadcaster Bob Costas. Put a page at the front of the record book, and a plaque at the entrance of the Hall of Fame. List all the changes mentioned above, good and bad in the sport of baseball, and how their impact affected the game. And then let fans enter, and judge at their own discretion.
As for the original topic of this column Sammy Sosa, let’s let him retire in peace. Was he the most gregarious person in his playing days? Sometimes. Ultimately his legacy will be as a cheater, and I guess that’s fair. But we also live in a world where people murder, rape and rob each other.
Sosa simply stuck a needle in his butt, and that will likely forever be his legacy.
Am I surprised that Sosa cheated, no not at all.
Will the sun still come up tomorrow? I think it will.
