Sure thing. Between the Mitchell Report, the BALCO investigation, the Roger Clemens drama, the exposure of Rafael Palmeiro, and now the Rodriguez confession, haven't we learned enough about the squalid side of baseball? There can't be anything important left to disclose.
So it's time to celebrate the greatest victim--and greatest hero--of the Steroids Era, America's true single-season home run champion: sluggin' Sammy Sosa!
Just look at the toll baseball's cheaters took on Sosa. In 1998, he walloped what should have been an unmatched 66 home runs, only to see steroid abuser Mark McGwire, aided by performance-enhancing drugs, surpass him with 70. In 1999, he made another bid for immortality with 63 homers, only to again be overshadowed by McGwire, who hit 65 tainted home runs that year.
Then, when McGwire's artificial strength failed, Sosa kept on going, breaking the fabled 60-homer mark for a third time in 2001, with 64. But no one even cared, as Barry Bonds hit a chemically enhanced 73 home runs, making a travesty of the record books.
Add in his 50 home runs in 2000, and Sosa hit more homers in a four-year span than his boyhood hero, Roberto Clemente, hit in his entire career. And as far as the relentless inquisition into the Steroids Era has discovered, those were all clean home runs. Except for a bit of trouble with uppers mentioned in the Mitchell Report, and except for getting caught once with a corked bat--both of those being time-honored baseball traditions--no report or investigation has publicly attached Sosa's name to any performance-enhancing drug scandal. He was not a BALCO customer; no drug dealer has named him; no positive test of his has surfaced. The Mitchell Committee, the strongest investigative body assembled to address the drug scandal, checked him out and found no connection to steroids.
If we are going to close the book on the era now, let's honor the player who embodies the best and cleanest performance that Major League Baseball could find. Let's honor Sammy Sosa.
