All World All Sports
-Digger's Daily-
Add Sammy Sosa's name to baseball's Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) users. Baseball conducted anonymous random tests in 2003. Test records were never destroyed by the players union and names of alleged users have been leaked publicly over the past few weeks. Is anyone surprised to see Sammy's name? Doubt it!
Sosa spent years denying using steroids. On many occasions Chicago area sports columnists questioned Sosa's truthfulness by challenging him to be tested voluntarily (he refused). It was obvious to most of the country baseball players were juicing when players like McGwire, Bonds & Sosa showed up to spring training with swollen heads and bulging bodies back in the late 90's and early 00's. As I've argued many times, baseball was not blind to players artificially bulking up. MLB turned away from the growing problem allowing it to fester. Why? Dollars and greed.
Sosa carried his bag of denials up to Capital Hill. His carefully worded testimony before Congress was laughable. Sammy often worked out with banned trainer Angel Presinal who was known for distributing steroid-like substances to major leaguers. "I have not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic. I have been tested as recently as 2004, and I am clean." (steroids are not illegal in the Dominican Republic).
Baseball's record books are forever tainted by substance abusing players. Baseball's single season home run record was once a sacred title held by Roger Maris (61). Currently, the top six home run totals now belong to PED players. MLB rallied around and promoted Sosa, McGwire & Bonds to the hilt milking every single dollar out of their performances. Sportswriters were all over these guys. Promoting their feats while quetioning baseball's integrity.
I'm a bit stunned listening to sports tv recently. With every new name pubicly implicated... reporters seem to soften when discussing potential Hall of Fame votes. In my book, users shouldn't even be allowed to enter Cooperstown as visitors!
PED's domino effect is staggering. Usage led to shattered records, millions in new revenues, taxpayer sponsored billion dollar stadiums, multi-million dollar player contracts and endorsement deals, tremendous surge in ticket prices (up to $2500/seat at new Yankee Stadium) and record television contracts. It's only a tip of the iceberg. There's no doubt in my mind MLB colluded with MLBPA and players by refusing to tackle the growing problem before the games newest scandal spiraled out of control. Living in denial was too profitable. From top to bottom, everyone cashed in on their piece of the pie.
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