Sammy Sosa was in the Dominican Republic two weeks ago when he was asked by ESPNDeportes about allegations of steroid use, and Sosa artfully answered the questions while not really answering them.
"I always played with love and responsibility and I assure you that I will not answer nor listen to rumors. If anything ugly comes up in the future, we will confront it immediately, but with all our strength because I will not allow anybody to tarnish what I did in the field," Sosa said.
He didn't lie, necessarily, in the way that
Rafael Palmeiro lied and
A-Rod lied, or even in the way that
Jason Giambi lied a year before he sort of came clean. But presuming that Sosa knew he tested positive for steroids during the survey testing of 2003, he was being, at the very least, deceptive.
And Sosa may or may not have lied at the now-infamous congressional hearing on March 17, 2005. From
Michael Schmidt's story in The New York Times:
At the hearing, Sosa testified that "everything" he had heard "about steroids and human growth hormones is that they are bad for you, even lethal" and that he "would never put anything dangerous like that" in his body.
"To be clear," he added, "I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything."
The carefully chosen word "illegal" might be his get-out-of-jail free card, in the same way that "knowingly" is for
Barry Bonds.
Sosa is the seventh of the top 10 home-run hitters of his generation who have been linked, in one way or another, to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
But he went way beyond tarnishing his own legacy. Sosa and Palmeiro and many others tarnished the accomplishments of an entire generation, and even in retirement, they continue to cast shadows.
When
Raul Ibanez and others find themselves as targets of steroid speculation, as the Philadelphia slugger
was last week, they shouldn't blame bloggers like Jerod Morris. They should blame the guys who did the most damage to the credibility of the players.
Pick up the phone and scream at A-Rod. Pick up the phone and yell at Sosa. Aim your anger at Palmeiro. Ibanez should walk across the field the next time the Phillies play the Dodgers and go tell
Manny Ramirez that his excuses are ridiculous and unacceptable, and that you don't appreciate how he cheated his brethren in the players' association.
Or even better: How about being really brave and standing up in a union meeting and demanding a cultural change? Stand up and tell the union leaders that there needs to be a shift in philosophy, that the interests of the clean players need to be protected, once and for all, with the same vigilance that the cheaters were protected in the '90s.
Remember how the union insisted on a slow and gradual implementation of PED testing and penalties to buy time for veterans to wean themselves off the juice? Well, in retrospect, that was a devastating choice, because what the union mostly accomplished was to give the cheaters more time to cheat.
Ibanez and others should say out loud that as far as they're concerned, cheating should not be tolerated. Insist that the drug-testing penalties be given sharper teeth. Demand that one positive test means a voided contract and a year out of baseball, and a second strike means a lifetime ban.
Morris did nothing to erode the credibility of Ibanez. He only posed questions that are reasonable, because we've all seen aged star after aged star insist that they were innocent, only to be proven that they are liars. Like Charlie Brown, fans like Morris have had the proverbial football yanked out from in front of them time after time.
Only now, instead of Bonds and Sosa and Palmeiro and McGwire, it is Ibanez who is propping up some big numbers in front of them -- and is anybody surprised when there is skepticism?
(As a note: Some of the mainstream media outrage to the Jrod column was fascinating, because some of the same writers who have said they will never vote for a player they suspect of using steroids are saying it's wrong for others to blog about their own suspicions of players' steroid use. Think about the laughable inconsistency there.)
Ibanez insists he's clean, and we have no reason to doubt
his word. Assuming he is clean, the circumstances are wildly unfair to him. But those elements were not put in place by Morris, who just happens to be part of a generation that does its communicating via e-mail and Twitter and blogs -- rather than through word of mouth, as a lot of writers did in the late '90s and the earlier part of this decade, as they stood alongside batting cages and speculated on who did steroids and who didn't.
My own standard as a journalist is that I won't speculate, in print, on who does steroids and who doesn't, at least without proof. I don't think any news organization should.
But if Morris and others do so, after being lied to time after time after time, you really can't blame them.
If Ibanez wants to blame somebody, if he really thinks the problem of steroid speculation needs to be fixed, he and the other members of the union have the power to take long strides in the effort to clean up their sport. If they insist on the most stringent testing and begin ostracizing cheaters and booting them out of their union, the way they went after replacement players in 1995, they could help restore the legacy of the next generation of players.
If they aren't willing to do that, well, then they will be at the mercy of the integrity of Sosa and others for years to come.
Other perspectives on Sosa
You do wonder if Congress will follow up with a perjury investigation, because Sosa's positive test could be used in any attempt to prove that he committed perjury. Sosa worked out
with the same trainer as A-Rod, reports the New York Daily News.
The fact that Ivan Rodriguez tied a record on the same day of the Sosa report was
an uncomfortable coincidence. St. Louis reliever
Trever Miller wants
all the names out.
Sosa is the latest member of
the Gotcha Gang, writes John Shea. The leak of the name
stirs some debate, writes Bill Shaikin. Looks like Ramirez
isn't going to get voted onto the All-Star team.
Major League Baseball is upset
with the continued leaks, writes Phil Rogers.
Joe Nathan is frustrated that stuff
keeps dribbling out.
Sosa has gone from
hero to zero, writes Rick Telander.
Elsewhere …
A Braves pitcher was
busted for steroid use.
The Homer Index
Home runs are up in major league baseball, but largely because of new Yankee Stadium. These numbers come courtesy of ESPN Stats & Information, through games of Monday:
Home runs are up per game in the majors this season (2.03 HR per game) compared with the past two seasons through June 15.
A couple of key points here:
1. The American League accounts for the increase. AL teams have hit 2.03 HR per game, the highest since 2006 (2.29).
2. The National League is actually trending down. NL teams have hit 1.98 HR per game. Only 2007 was lower in the past five years.
Why blame the Yankees?
Pitchers have had to look over their shoulders time and time again in New York. Teams have hit 3.6 HR per game at the new Yankee Stadium this season, 1.5 home runs per game more than in 2008. Here's a look:
Yankee Stadium, thus far, accounts for more than half of the total increase. Take away the homers hit at Yankee Stadium in 2008, and it doesn't affect the HR-per-game average (1.94) But take away the homers hit at the NEW Yankee Stadium in 2009, and the change isn't so dramatic (1.94 to 1.98, a .04 increase). Add in Yankee Stadium and the numbers jump to 2.03 per game.
Where are the balls flying out of the new park? Here's a look.
Is the sample size large enough yet?
Moves, deals and decisions
To read the rest of Buster's blog, you must be an ESPN Insider. 
To continue reading this article you must be an Insider
Buster Olney
