Sammy Sosa Used Steroids
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Should I still be a fan of Sammy Sosa?
As a kid, I greatly admired Sammy Sosa. I sent him a letter telling him how much I liked him as a player and asked him for his autograph. I prided myself in the 118 baseball cards in my extensive baseball card collection that were of Sammy Sosa - including my two precious Sammy Sosa authentic bat cards. I searched and searched for his rookie card when he was with the Texas Rangers and treasured cards of him in his early days with the Chicago White Sox. He was my favorite player. Now, how am I supposed to respond when Slammin' Sammy Sosa was proven to have used steroids?
Sosa's career: His rise and downfall
Sosa's major league debut was with the Texas Rangers on June 16, 1989. Funny that exactly 20 years later to the day, he was proven to have used banned substances. In his rookie season, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox. He only played with the White Sox for two years until he was traded to the Chicago Cubs. With the Cubs, he began to slowly break out when he hit 33 homers and stole 36 bases in '93. His previous season highs were 15 homers and 32 stolen bases both in 1990. Through the years, Sammy Sosa developed as a great athlete while on the Cubs, began to be a fan favorite, and a well-known player from the Dominican Republic paving his way towards the Hall of Fame.
Sosa is probably most known for his race with Mark Mcgwire for the record for the most home runs in a season in 1998. This race between McGwire and Sosa brought fans back to baseball that had been turned away by the large strike in 1994. McGwire and Sosa were both coming very close to breaking Roger Maris' season season home run record of 61 homers, and they were also competing with each other. Sosa was the first player to hit 65 home runs in a single season and he finished the season with 66 while McGwire beat him out with 70 home runs. In 1998, Sosa won the NL MVP Award and was a co-winner of the "Sportsman of the Year" award with Mark McGwire. Sosa began to be a great home run hitter as he hit 63 homers in '99, 50 in 2000, and 64 in '01. At the same time his stolen bases steadily dropped. (His yearly homerun and stolen base numbers are posted below).
In June 2003, in a game against Tampa Bay, Sosa broke his bat in the first inning and was ejected from the game when the umpires found the bat to be corked. Corking a bat is illegal because it gives the ball more pop when it leaves the bat making it easier to hit the ball longer distances. Sosa was suspended for 7 games and all of his 76 bats were analyzed for cork. None of his other bats had cork, and Sosa claimed that the corked bat was one that he only used in batting practice to entertain the fans but had accidentally grabbed it during the game against Tampa Bay. Many fans were unsure about this excuse, but I as a true fan believed it wholeheartedly. Now, what can true fans believe?
Slowly Sammy's numbers began to decline, and he suffered injuries such as a severe back injury at the end of the 2004 season. In 2005, the Cubs traded Sosa to the Baltimore Orioles. In his one season with the Orioles, Sosa played in 102 games and hit 14 homers mainly playing DH. No team signed him in 2006, and then in 2007 the Texas Rangers signed him. With the Rangers he played DH and sometimes right field. He hit his 600th home run on June 20, 2007 becoming only the fifth player in baseball history to hit that many homers along with Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Wille Mays, and Babe Ruth. This homerun was against the Cubs and also added Sosa as a player who hit a home run against every MLB team. For two years in 2008 and 2009, Sosa was not part of a team and was waiting to be signed. Then on June 3rd, 2009, Sosa announced that he planned to retire in the near future. Sosa said he looked forward to being inducted to the Hall of Fame, "I will calmly wait for my induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Don't I have the numbers to be inducted?" Now that Sosa has been proven to have used banned substances, I do not think that Sosa shold be allowed into the Hall of Fame. (I cover this issue extensively in my Steroids in Baseball hub).
Sammy Sosa used steroids
Now, on June 16, 2009, Sammy Sosa was proven to have used steroids. In the same report that convicted Alex Rodriguez to have used performance-enhancing drugs, Sosa was named as one of the 104 players that tested positive in '03. Sosa had said before that he had never used illegal substances. The great player that many fans fell in love with - with his strong arm, monster home runs, aweing stats, trademark home run hop, and entertaining celebration of using two fingers to touch his lips and chest and point to the sky - has now been shown to have jumped on the bandwagon and cheated his way to fame. It is hard for me to still call myself a fan, and I do not think he should make it to the Hall.
Sosa's Homeruns and Stolen Bases
Homeruns precede stolen bases
1989: 4(HR), 7(SB)
1990: 15, 32
1991: 10, 13
1992: 8, 15
1993: 33, 36
1994: 25, 22
1995: 36, 34
1996: 40, 18
1997: 36, 22
1998: 66, 18
1999: 63, 7
2000: 50, 7
2001: 64, 0
2002: 49, 2
2003: 40, 0
2004: 35, 0
2005: 14, 1
2007: 21, 0
Does Sosa's steady decrease in stolen bases point to the fact that he used steroids to get bigger and become more of a home run hitter?
Does Sammy Sosa belong in the Hall of Fame?
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yah same here you said his debut was in 2009 i think you meant 1989
Yeah, I meant 1989. Thanks guys, I changed it. Isn't it crazy that his steroid use was discovered exactly 20 years after his debut...that blows my mind a little bit. I wonder if that was intentional.
How sad. I, too, loved Sammy. How not to love a guy who came up from a shoeless shoe shine boy to become the greatest slugger in Cubs history. But, he was cheating. And that is a shame.
Yeah man, I am so disappointed. Thanks for the comment.
I still haven't decided which, if any, steroid users should be kept out of the Hall of Fame. The punishment aspect of this issue is a vexing one.
I think all steroid users should be kept out just to get the message across that steroids are inexusable and will be taken with serious measures. This way, current and future players will be much more careful in their choices to take PEDs or not.
No hall of fame for Sammy or any of them except Bonds and Clemens. I think they were hall of fame before they juiced. I think that has to be the standard in which to judge them. If steroids truly affected their career, they shouldn't be in there. Juicing at the end of the career when everyone else was competing in the same fashion makes it a little bit tougher to judge.
I agree, but several times steriods keep the older players in the league. So even if they only juiced at the end of their career, they should not be allowed in the Hall. Thanks for the input!
yes, but those older players were already lock hall of fame. I don't watch baseball anymore for this reason but there are several factors, like the league itself pretending it wasn't happening and the fact these Hall of Famers were watching juiced up scrubs passing them by in terms of popularity and accomplishments.
I see your point, but... No one really knows exactly when most of the Hall of Fame caliber players started using, and no one knows exactly how long they used. A-rod used from like 2001-2003, before he was Hall of Fame material. Sosa didn't hit his 600th homer until 2007, and although he was on the 2003 list, he could have been using much longer before that. We don't know.
Also, are you saying that the Hall of Famers should have ratted out the other players ("juiced up scrubs") who were using or should have started using too?
everyone in sports takes steroids... they aren't dangerous and who ever takes them is just smart. Think about it would you rather be just an average baseball player or the greatest... you wait and see there are going to be more and more people discovered for taking steroids because everyone does them!
Another great player ruined by roids. Check out my article on instant replay in MLB http://hubpages.com/hub/Why-Major-League-Baseball-
his jaw line sure seems to have thickedned up thanks to years of juice and hgh.
First off, most of you fools don't know shi* about steroids or HGH.
Second, who cares if these players use roids. I say let them. Baseball is a better sport and definitely more exciting when the players are super juiced.
No steroids = boring baseball
Super Juiced Ball Players = Big time homeruns
All you moralist can suck it. Most of you are hypocrites anyways. Not one person on here bashing steroid use would have passed up the opportunity for glory, fame, women, and millions of dollars if it meant all you had to do was inject a little oil in your butt cheeks.
Well here is my deal. You can't vote in some of the players from the steroid era and not the ones that we know for sure didn't. All that proves is we very well could be letting the cheaters in anyway because they could have retired before testing got better and more strict. I'm not saying we are, but we're about to be hitting the point that we will be, and it will happen. Baseball I don't think will ever make up it's mind collectively on what to do about the Era. I personally think, though I am not for the cheating, steroids did help save baseball. Nobody was watching until Sammy and Mark went at it, at least not near as many that kept watching thereafter . Watching that was and still is one of my childhood memories, knowing they used steroids doesn't change that. But hey that's just how I see it. Thanks for the read!
quietnessandtrust 2 years ago
Good story but I noticed the date in the beginning of it reads.
"Sosa's major league debut was with the Texas Rangers on June 16, 2009"
So he started today?.....oooops.