Now He Tells Me

On Friday, a Tribune sportswriter called out ex-Cub Sammy Sosa.  Too bad it’s sixteen years late.

Teddy Greenstein, who covered the Cubs for two years starting in 2000, offered a whole list of reasons to dislike Sosa, including being a “lousy teammate” who “would never take the blame for misplaying a fly ball or missing the cutoff man”; a cheater with a corked bat; and “the most egotistical athlete or coach” Greenstein has ever covered.  What, pray tell, set off Greenstein?

Well, Sosa did an interview recently on cable where he put his ugly—and clueless—self on full display.  When he wasn’t busy whining, Sosa came off as some sort of unappreciated martyr.  Here’s the thing, though.  This was all apparent to anyone who wasn’t a zombie Cubs’ fan (as much as it pains me, I will admit to the existence of thinking Cubs’ fans) or a member of the Chicago sports’ media.  When I first saw the “new” Sosa, in the spring of 1998 if I’m not mistaken, he looked like he’d put on thirty pounds or more.  I kept waiting for someone to call him out.  Silly me.

That wasn’t fat on Sosa’s frame, but new-found muscle.  Not once in that period 1998-2003, when Sosa totaled 332 homeruns, did I once read or hear doubts over how Sosa had gotten so strong.  Even now, Greenstein can’t bring himself to charge Sosa with using PEDs.  Instead, he merely offers that Sosa “nearly—but not magically—doubled his homerun rate from 1997 to 1998, quite the accomplishment for” an athlete in mid-career.

Greenstein is right, it wasn’t magic; science is more like it.  But maybe Sosa used magic to cast a spell over the Chicago media.  Or maybe the Chicago media just turned a blind eye to what was obvious from the South Side of town.