After belting a grand slam against the Reds last night, Sammy Sosa is just one home run shy of the rarified air of the 600 home run club.
Everything feels wrong about this.
After the game, he was quoted as saying, "Everybody's thinking about 600. I didn't come here to hit 600. Believe me, I want to get it done. I want to get it over with. But I'm not going to stop at 600."
Of course you came back to get #600, Sammy!
Are we supposed to believe you came back because you thought you'd win a pennant with the Rangers? Not likely. Because you thought your best days were ahead of you? Clearly not.
I think we'd be more likely to believe Sammy if it wasn't for other slippery or just plain ridiculous statements made earlier in his career:
- Sosa told Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly in 2002 that he'd bulked up so much because "When I first came to Texas [in 1989], I had a bad wisdom tooth. The doctor discovered this, and he fixed it. After that, I start to eat much better." Hmmmmmm. Sosa later cussed Reilly out when the writer suggested he volunteer for a urine test.
- Always worth a chuckle when considering Sosa's career is the corked bat incident, which he was quick to attribute to an honest mistake. "I use that bat for batting practice," he said. If you use a bat in batting practice that would be considered cheating if you use it in the game, you better be able to identify it before going out there and slugging a home run for the record books. No one is that stupid.
- In Mr. Sosa goes to Washington, Sosa hid behind his lawyer and stated that he'd never used "illegal performance-enhancing drugs." At least there was no finger waggling.
Everyone knows you came back to baseball for the sole purpose of getting to that hallowed number, and until it's proven that you were indeed a steroid user, no one is blaming you for that. So please, Sammy, shoot straight with us for once.
3 comments:
The best part of the DC incident was when he pretended to not be able to speak English.
Yeah, Chris, that's what I thought too. Did he actually say he never used them? I thought he claimed that he no speaka Englis.
He's more of a cheater than Barry (just as much evidence he used steroids PLUS he corked his bat), and no one talks about this. Totally agree with your points, Kevin. I don't really care how many he hits as long as he doesn't break Aaron's mark. Otherwise he'll just be a name in the record books that most half-witted people will remember as a cheater.
I think 600 is certainly a part of it, but I also think the guy just loves to play the game. He also didn't want to end his career on the Orioles disaster.
What else is the guy going to do? Playing baseball is probably all he is suited for. And of course, another million $$$ or so never hurts.
So 600 is part of it, but not all of it.
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