Another One Bites The Dust

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In yesterday’s New York Times, Michael S. Schmidt reported that “Sammy Sosa…is among the players who tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003, according to lawyers with knowledge of the drug-testing results from that year“.  Sosa is now the second name to be leaked from that 2003 test of players. In recent months, it has been mentioned that the results of this test were suppose to be destroyed, but for reasons unknown, they were not.

As we all know, Sosa denied ever using PED’s in front of the House Government Reform Committee back in 2005. Mr. Schmidt also notes that this revelation might bring about legal consequences from his 2005 denial.

Baseball's Steroid ERA

Furthermore, Carrie Muskat from MLB.com wrote the following:

Sammy Sosa went from a skinny outfielder to a muscular home run hitter, chasing Roger Maris‘ record and belting more than 600 home runs in his career. The right fielder often credited Flintstone vitamins, in part, for his success.

According to a report published on the New York Times Web site Tuesday, adding credibility to those who’ve questioned his power surge for years, Sosa benefited from banned substances, not Bam Bam supplements.

It has been reported in both articles that the lawyers who have allegedly brought this admission to life have agreed that they do not know which banned substance Sosa tested positive for.

The Muskat article has this summary of Sosa’s career:

Sosa began his career in 1989 with the Rangers, who traded him to the White Sox during that season. He played for the Cubs from 1992-2004, and is the team’s all-time home run leader with 545. He played one season in Baltimore in ’05 and one in Texas in ’07, finishing his 18-year career with 609 home runs.

In that same article, both current managers Lou Pinella & Ozzie Guillen had these words to say concerning the remaining list of 102 names from the 2003 testing.

Both Piniella and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said they would prefer to see the entire list made public.

“It would probably create a lot of havoc, but I think it would be the best thing,” Piniella said.

“It’s very, very, very sad how names start to come out,” Guillen said. “And every week baseball has to deal with these names. And whoever is leaking the information, whoever got the rights to the information, they should right away say something and get it over with, because it’s put everyone in baseball, not just Chicago people, everyone in baseball, dealing with this situation they shouldn’t be dealing with any more. We got enough time to clean this thing.”

Guillen said it’s not fair to the game to be revealing names in such a random fashion.

“It’s not good for us to answer people’s questions when we don’t have anything to do with this,” Guillen said. “That’s an uncomfortable situation, because you want to protect the guys but you have to get interviewed about the game and I’m about protecting the baseball game. And I think the best thing we can do is get those names out there, deal with it and be done with it.”

When Piniella played in the 1970s and early ’80s, he said steroids weren’t a topic.

“In the era that I played, it wasn’t a problem,” Piniella said. “I don’t know that much about it. Maybe if managers had been trained a little more in these areas, I could answer better, but I don’t know. I wouldn’t know a steroid from a reefer.”

Editor’s note: Carrie Muskat is a reporter for MLB.com. Scott Merkin and Jesse Noble contributed to her story. The story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

For more reading on this topic of the Steroid ERA, please read Sosa news calls for special outrage by Howard Bryant, senior writer for ESPN.com. Except for one line, I agree with what he has to say on this subject. Yes, I believe the remaining 102 names should now come out! The leaking of names, in my humble opinion, will just make matters worse and create a cut throat approach to gaining the next name.