Detective Jay Knew the Whole Time

You'll just have to take my word for it that Jay wrote this. It's a well-known FireJay policy that we don't link his articles.

At least three times, maybe more, I've asked Sammy Sosa if he ever has used steroids. Each time, he testily answered no, once stating that the only performance-enhancing substance he took was a "Flintstone vitamin." He had this goofy, cartoonish way about him that made you want to believe him, even though deep down, as someone who noticed that his head and upper body were swelled disproportionately to human reality, I knew he was as stone-cold guilty as any of them.

You. Fucking. Genius.

That's what I said, the biggest scandal in sports history. Think about it. Nearly every baseball superstar we've tried to embrace the last dozen years because of his magnitude and numbers -- Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez being the foremost -- has come up dirty.

Frank Thomas, Albert Pujols, Ken Griffey Jr, David Eckstein. Your move, Jay.

And all it does is make me ill for gushing over each of them at one time or another, starting with the Summer of Love in 1998, when Sosa and McGwire waged a muscle duel and blew past the single-season home run numbers of Roger Maris and Babe Ruth.

Gushing over them...but earlier you said.....knew entire time? pnoles confoozled.

The surge rejuvenated a game that lost some measure of popularity earlier that decade, when a labor impasse led to the cancellation of a World Series and widespread fan apathy. Alas, it turned out to be nothing but a hoax, just like almost everything else we've applauded in the Steroid Era.

Anyone else need this history lesson as badly as I did? Whew, thanks Jay. I'm up to speed now.

I'm ashamed to have admired their accomplishments, even while I was openly suspicious in some of my columns back then.

I'm ashamed, because I'm just like all of you, but suspicious, because I'm way smarter and better than you. I knew the entire time, cheered anyway, but documentation exists, Jay smart. I cheered, but I knew, I ashamed. Jay Good. All Else Bad.

Nah. It just was a matter of time and circumstance before the heat finally caught up to Sosa and he officially joined the Liar's Club. That's what angers me most about these villains, the deceit and the lies,

It hasn't even been a month since you wrote that it was impossible for the Chicago Cubs to win a World Series. Ever.

Like the Rocket and the Home Run King*, Slammin' Sammy conceivably could be headed to jail after standing before Congress under oath and testifying that "everything" he knew "about steroids and human growth hormones is that they are bad for you, even lethal" and that he "would never put anything dangerous like that" in his body. "To be clear," he said that day, "I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything." He was accompanied by a lawyer who said Sosa had difficulty speaking English, which struck me as odd considering Sosa knows English very well, including every choice curse word he has used when scolding media people.

Hmmmm....so Sosa actually does speak English very well, even though a lawyer said he did not? Detective Jay is on the case! I bet no one else ever noticed this!

Problem was, his testimony came in 2005, two years after the alleged positive test was included among the Dirty 104.

Which means Sosa may have been lying under oath. Perhaps we'll be calling him Slammer Sammy.

Throw the book at him boys! Another case cracked by Mariotti! His pure intellect is perhaps only surpassed by his one-liners!

So, no, he doesn't belong in the Hall any more than McGwire, who has been rejected overwhelmingly in his first three years of eligibility by the voting baseball writers -- myself included.

Did anyone know that Jay has a Hall of Fame vote (seriously)?

Well I don't have much to say about that, so enjoy this Chone Figgins quote that Jay plugged into this article.

"It's just like gambling on baseball. If you're not supposed to do it, you shouldn't be able to get in," Los Angeles Angels infielder Chone Figgins said. "It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Cheatin'. It's like not paying your taxes. They eventually catch up to you."

I hope Chone Figgins makes the Hall of Fame in 2020 or whatever just on the basis of this quote. Taking steroids is like not paying your taxes. Love it.

But wait, we haven't heard an Ozzie Guillen reference yet! Enjoy this quick, easy, and seamless transition that gives Jay an excuse to talk about Ozzie.

The infamous 2003 list was supposed to remain anonymous under terms established between Major League Baseball and the Players Association. For some reason, either the union didn't destroy the test results or someone in management is involved in hanky-panky. How interesting that Sosa's name was leaked in a Times story published on the day the Cubs were scheduled to play the crosstown White Sox -- owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, Selig's right-hand man forever -- in the opener of their interleague series. Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Sox, said before the game was rained out that all the names of the Dirty 104 should be released publicly.

Whew. See? Ozzie's relevant to this article too!

The Blizzard of Oz is a flaming hypocrite, of course, having said three years ago that former major-league pitcher Jason Grimsley was a snitch for serving as a steroids informant in a federal investigation. "Shoot the [bleep]," Guillen said then. "The only thing I can say is that a former player should shut up and go. Shut up and move on. We don't need these guys. Baseball is better without him." Now, Ozzie thinks all names should be revealed.

Now that he ::sniff:: doesn't write for the Sun-Times anymore, look how hard it is to squeeze in these Guillen insults! You can tell, this is absolutely killing him. Also, I love when Jay calls other people hypocrites. It gives me just the world's biggest joygasm.

I sensed Sosa was up to no good several years ago, when he claimed to have been "robbed" of $20,000 in the lobby of the Caracas Hilton. He had placed the money in a plastic bag, wrapped it inside a towel and supposedly left it in the lobby while he and his brother ate in a hotel restaurant.\

There's Jay's sharp eye for suspicious activity! Gee, I bet you could read that story to 25,000 of us normies and not a single person would have caught onto a whiff of shadiness.

Uh, what was Sosa doing in Venezuela with $20,000 in cash stuffed in a bag?

This logic is superhuman!

I was able to ask my questions to Sosa. Each time, he denied ever using steroids. I wanted to call him a liar but couldn't.

Today, I can.

...said Jay Mariotti, triumphantly, out of breath, planting a flag atop the highest mountain in Iowa, as onlookers in the distance gasp in awe upon seeing his rotund silhouette standing bravely in the orange, setting sun.

That shit's POETRY.

A Little Tribute to the Arts

Instead of merely discussing yet another bad All-Star Game article, I've decided to make up a little screenplay that occurs during the writing of Gene Wojciechowski's latest article. I figure it's more interesting this way. Let's meet the cast of characters!

Gene Wojciechowski (GW): A writer for ESPN.com, and our story's protagonist. He struggles to prove to the audience why 2 baseball players should be in the All-Star Game

Gene Wojciechowski's Train of Thought (GWTOT): A metaphorical entity that represent's GW's line of thinking. GWTOT is often forgetful.

Conductor: The personified, fictitious "conductor" of Gene Wojciechowski's Train of Thought. Gene cannot hear the Conductor.

pnoles: A dashing, handsome young man who serves as the antagonist of the story. He struggles bravely for reason and opposes GW's article's completion and publication as written at all costs.

Scene: Gene Wojciechowski is sitting at a computer typing. Gene's Train of Thought and it's Conductor are present inside Gene's head.

Enter pnoles, who stands behind Gene and watches him type

GW: (unaware of pnoles's presence) Let's see now, what do I call this masterpiece?

Sammy and Barry have earned their All-Star roster spots

GW: EXCELLENT!

GWTOT: Barry....Sammy.....they cheat a lot.....steroids......I'm on the introduction.....should make this attention-getting.....Conclusion: MAKE FUN OF THEM!

GW: Maybe a quick joke or two will liven up the ol' readers eh?

I think Barry Bonds' and Sammy Sosa's home run numbers, circa 1998-2004, are as fake as silicone breast implants. I think they cheated, just like I think Mark McGwire did. I think the only way they should get into the Baseball Hall of Fame is if they pay the $14.50 admission fee.

GW: Ho ho....Bah-ZING! I'll be here all week folks.

Conductor: BACKTRACK!

And yet -- and I'm going to need years of therapy to deal with this one -- I think Bonds and Sosa should be named to the 2007 All-Star Game rosters.

Conductor: Train is stalled briefly, hold on just a second!

GWTOT: I've got nothing. Rephrase last thing.

MLB commissioner Bud Selig is going to suffer dry heaves at the thought, but Bonds and Sosa belong on the AT&T Park first- and third-base foul lines when the National League and American League lineups are introduced the evening of July 10.

Conductor: Ready to go!

GWTOT: We just made a claim......next step: EVIDENCE!

They belong in San Francisco because of precedent,

pnoles: (to himself) Irrelevant.....

because of MLB's own All-Star selection rules,

GW: Genie boy you are on a ROLL!

and because this might be the last time Selig and Bonds are in the same ballpark together.

pnoles: Who cares?

GW: Eh? Who's there!?!?!? G-Dubs cares, that's who!

Conductor: HELP! THE TRAIN'S STUCK ON FULL SPEED AHEAD!

GWTOT: WHEEEEEEEE!!!!!! Selig! Paulie Walnuts! pitching machine! Dr. James Andrews! Henry Aaron! 600-homers! Rafael Palmeiro! Mark McGwire! Sosa no speak English! House of Representatives! Marky no testify! Hall of Fame!

If it were up to Selig, he'd have Paulie Walnuts make Bonds' career home run chase, uh, disappear. There'd be a tragic pitching machine "accident" in the stadium batting cage. Nothing fatal, just something requiring Dr. James Andrews and the permanent use of a walking cane.

Selig adores Henry Aaron, as well as Aaron's baseball and personal legacy. But the only thing separating Bonds from passing Aaron's record 755 home runs is seven more dingers. And steroid allegations. This is why Selig has yet to announce whether he'll be in attendance when Bonds eventually breaks the most cherished record in American sports.

Sosa, who just reached the 600-homer mark, isn't a threat to surpass Aaron. But he is an annoyance, a reminder of that seminal congressional steroids hearing in 2005 when Rafael Palmeiro and McGwire committed career and Hall of Fame suicide, and Sosa conveniently forgot how to speak English.

Palmeiro pointed at the House committee members that March day and said he had never used steroids. About five months later he was suspended for -- wait for it -- testing positive for steroids.

Meanwhile, McGwire didn't want to testify about "the past," which is what you say when you don't want to lie under oath. And Sosa, who needed a lawyer that day to read his statement, must have done some serious Berlitz work since then. He hasn't had any difficulty lobbying reporters, in perfectly understandable English, for his inclusion into the Hall of Fame.

Conductor: WHEW! Finally got it! We're normal again.

GWTOT: Wait....what were we talking about again? Oh right, All-Star game.

GW: Hey...wait...what's going on here??? None of this stuff I wrote has anything to do with anything! And to think I spent 3 hours on those 5 paragraphs. Well, I most certainly don't want to delete them.....hmmmm....this calls for one of those transition sentence thingamajiggers.

Conductor: HALT! REVERSE!

But the All-Star Game doesn't have anything to do with home run records, legacies and induction speeches at Cooperstown.

GW: Good thing I thought of this to justify everything I already wrote.

Conductor: The train's stuck! It can't go anyplace new for awhile......

GWTOT: All-star game - define? Selected by fans. Once Cancelled. Decides home-field in World Series.

It's an exhibition game whose rosters are primarily determined by baseball fans. It's so screwed up that Selig once called the game with the score tied in the 11th inning. That led to the equally screwy decision to give World Series home-field advantage (no small thing) to the league that wins the All-Star Game.

GW: Everyone knows these things. Why in the world am I writing them? ::points to head:: What's going on up there!?!?!

pnoles: Just delete the damned thing and take the day off.

GW: NEVER!

GWTOT: Repeat article thesis. Joke. Describe current status of article's goal.

Even if you think Bonds and Sosa are slimier than the Delaware River mud they use to rub up baseballs, they deserve All-Star jerseys. The latest fan ballot totals had Bonds trailing the Chicago Cubs' Alfonso Soriano for the third and final starting outfield spot. Sosa was in 13th place in the AL outfielder voting.

If the margins holds up, Bonds and Sosa would need help from their peers (the players choose the backups), or managers Tony La Russa (NL) and Jim Leyland (AL), or from online voters (who pick the final roster spot). For what it's worth, La Russa was noncommittal when asked recently about picking Bonds.

pnoles: You can't print this crap. You haven't done anything yet except say what the All-Star game is, how to get to play in it, and how Sammy and Barry are currently doing. Plus for some reason, Rafael Palmeiro's name came up.

GW: DAMMIT! Get out of here! Which one of us has a job writing about sports? ME! THAT MAKES ME INSIGHTFUL!

Conductor: Whew! We've got her up and running better than usual!

GWTOT: Barry Bonds.....legitimate reasons he should be in the All-Star game. Every team needs a guy. Bonds's teammates suck.

MLB rules say that each team has to have at least one All-Star representative. The Giants, who will finish dead last in the NL West, need somebody, so that somebody ought to be Mr. Martyr instead of the other two San Francisco candidates: catcher Bengie Molina and pitcher Matt Morris.

Molina's batting average and RBI totals have tumbled during the month, and Morris has given up 12 runs and 22 hits in his last two starts. That leaves Bonds, who can't throw, can't run that well and is nowhere to be found among the league leaders in batting average, RBIs, hits, total bases and extra-base hits. But he does have those 15 home runs (OK, so only four in his last 105 at-bats), a .293 batting average and more walks and intentional walks than anybody in the majors (you'd walk him, too, if you saw who was hitting behind him).

GWTOT: ::SCREEECH!::

Conductor: Don't worry, just a minor spike in the power here....we'll be back up shortly!

Plus, the Giants' own Web site implores fans to "Vote Bonds."

pnoles: (nearly falls over laughing)

GW: You're a cold-hearted bastard.

pnoles: Dude....you were sooooo close to a good paragraph there! Didn't it occur to you that every team implores fans to vote for their players? Just delete it and redeem yourself.

GW: Ah what do you know, anyway!? Why should I change anything just because you, a no-sports-writing-job-man-bloghead-wannabe says so? ::to himself:: Fuck....he's got me there.

Conductor: We're up and running, but going the wrong way!

GWTOT: Bonds...anyone else get into the game on legacy without great stats? RIPKEN!

GW: Eureka!

Bonds' '07 numbers aren't All-Star worthy, but they don't have to be. That's because the game has a history of sticking stiffs out there long past their prime. Example: Cal Ripken.

Ripken made his final All-Star appearances in 2001, even though he was hitting just .240 and had only four homers and 28 RBIs at the time. The fans voted him in. Ripken homered in his first at-bat and got the MVP award as a parting gift. It was dramatic stuff, but the simple truth is that Ripken wasn't an All-Star-caliber player that year.

GW: Muhaha.....now they'll HAVE to believe me that Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro will never make the Hall of Fame! I mean, uh, Bonds should play in that game!

GWTOT: Ripken = loved by fans, long honest career, set record for consecutive games played showing dedication and durability, clear Hall of Famer at retirement. Bonds = hated by most, cheated, chance of not making Hall of Fame due to aforementioned cheating. Conclusion: SAME SITUATION.

Bonds isn't either, but if you made an exception for Ripken, you've got to do the same for Flaxseed Man.

GWTOT: Isn't there another guy I'm sorta supposedly writing about too? Yeah, give him a token appearance here.

The same goes for Sosa, whose 13 homers and 59 RBIs are actually respectable numbers on a Texas Rangers team without a no-brainer All-Star candidate.

GW: That's enough about Sosa....he's not even in the title of the article, so let's not mention him again.

GWTOT: I bet there's some guy out there that agrees with me. Good ol' logical, sane....Ozzie Guillen? Whatever, go with it.

"What, you take [Ripken] because he 'saved baseball?'" said Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who managed the AL All-Stars a year ago. "Bonds should play."

Guillen meant no disrespect toward Ripken. He said Ripken belonged in the '01 All-Star Game, no questions asked. But if Ripken, and that .240 average, was in the starting lineup, Bonds' .293 average should at least be in the NL dugout. Perceptions and steroid allegations shouldn't matter, he said. Bonds is an active player who deserves the same courtesy that Ripken got six years ago.

Conductor: We're stalled again!

GWTOT: Repeat last thing. No new thoughts.

He'll get no argument here. This isn't a steroid/performance enhancers issue. It's about what's fair. The beloved Ripken got an All-Star freebie in '01. The arrogant, smug Bonds should get one in '07.

pnoles: Hey man, who are you to decide what's fair? That isn't cool. If the fans love Ripken and vote him in purely in recognition of a great, honest career, and hate Bonds for his dishonesty and don't, it IS fair in the minds of many. You can't publish this.

GW: I CAN......AND I WILL! And as for YOU! ::takes a baseball bat, swings, and nails pnoles in the shin::

pnoles: YEEOOOUCCCCHHHHH!

Conductor: Still stalled here, c'mon Gene come up with something!

pnoles: Whatever man, you're a jerk for that, I was right. I don't care how much that hurt.

GWTOT: Repeat last thought. No new thoughts.

GW: No I'M RIGH-.....hey....I've got it!

Right is right, even when it hurts to say so.

GW: Heh. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, nay-sayers.

::end scene::

Sammy Sosa's "Sensational" Season Sizzles Celizic's Senses

Now that you're all done saying that three times fast, watch HatGuy redefine the word impressive.

This article's been there for awhile, but it's been revamped with stupidity after the milestone was reached.

Sosa’s comeback juiced with joy for game
Think what you will of slugger, his return to baseball is impressive

I'll make my stance on this clear right of the bat. Sosa coming back to baseball is an impressive personal feat after going out in such a poor/shady fashion. Good for him that he was able to prove himself still able to play Major League Baseball and face up to all the hostility that fans were sure to bring upon him. But there is nothing impressive about his on-field performance.

It’s not the 588 home runs that Sammy Sosa had hit through 2005 that impress me, but the 12 he’s hit this season. Regardless of what you think of the man, what he’s doing is pretty darned amazing.

No. How Roger Clemens has been performing through his 40s is "pretty darned amazing". Sammy Sosa providing a below average bat at a corner outfield position is pretty darned typical for a 38-year-old on a bad team.

After hitting just 14 home runs and falling four points shy of hitting his 225-pound weight for Baltimore two years ago, Sosa packed up his gear and effectively fell off the face of the earth.

Nobody missed him. His reputation was shot, tarred by the popular perception that steroids were responsible for the big numbers he’d put up from 1996-2003, when he hit 408 home runs in eight seasons. His sudden inability to habla Ingles for a Congressional subcommittee holding hearings on steroid use in baseball didn’t help.

And now he’s back, getting booed wherever he goes, but still doing his little happy hop over the plate after he connects and blowing that kiss to the sky. Still enjoying the game.

I promise, it gets bad soon.

He started slowly, but his 12 long balls are tied for second on the Rangers behind Ian Kinsler Teixeira, and his 53 RBIs lead the team.

Do you follow baseball? April was his best month, hitting 7 home runs and slugging .547. How is that starting slowly? If anything, he's cooled off dramatically with only 5 HR since April 27th.

Who's Ian Kinsler Teixeira?

He still strikes out a lot — more than 60 times already — but most teams would love to see him hitting in the fifth spot in the line-up.

Stop. Everything. Did you mean...high school teams? The Kane County Cougars, maybe?

Look, as meh a topic as batting order is, Sammy Sosa's EqA is .254. Below average, and especially so for a right fielder. The only teams with a 5-hole hitter putting up a worse number than that are the Chicago White Sox (Dye), Baltimore Orioles (Huff), Colorado Rockies (Atkins), and Kansas City Royals (Brown/Gordon/Sweeney). Of those teams, two of them have a 5-hole hitter that will probably finish with a better season at the plate than Sosa and one of them hates his guts and would never let him play for them again in a kajillion years. The teams that would love to see Sosa hitting in the fifth spot in the line-up? Mayyyyyyyyyyyyyybe Kansas City. Maybe. So they could sit their young talent on the bench in a desperate attempt to catch the White Sox for 4th place in the Central.

And that’s impressive. It’s impressive that he made the team

749 other major league players did that.

impressive that he’s again one of the best RBI men in the league after quitting the game for a year.

I'd go with VERY fluky. Of the top 10 RBI men in the AL, Sosa's the only one with a SLG below .500, and its not very close between him and the next-worst guy. He's either getting into a ridiculous amount of good RBI spots, or he's gotten so good at CHOOSING when to get his base hits (that's what clutch players do, right?) to the point where he's practically a True Yankee.

But it’s most impressive that he still wants to be a part of a game that didn’t care if it never heard from him again.

It's most impressive to want to be a part of something that is indifferent to you coming back? Well, I suppose my return to playing in a softball league this summer was pretty impressive.......

Sosa didn’t need the abuse that he had to know was going to come his way if he tried to come back this year at the age of 38. He had made plenty of money, and he was comfortable in his native Dominican Republic. There were a lot more reasons not to come back than there were to give it one more shot.

There were just two reasons to do what he did.

The first was to prove he could still play — even with steroid testing.

You mean play......without steroids. And yes, this is probably, in a nutshell, everything impressive about Sosa's return.

(Please, don’t get started about HGH. There is no test for that drug, so you can’t single any one player out as a suspected user. Until there’s a test, everybody’s suspect.)

Hear that David Eckstein? HatGuy's got his eye on you......

The second was that he simply loves the game. And no matter what you think about him, you can’t blow raspberries at that.

I can't WHAT?

This has to be the strangest and most out of place allusion to food I've ever seen.

(edit: reader John pointed out to me that this is an actual expression. Celizic's still obsessed with food though. Sweet food. Whipped cream and raspberries.....mmmmmmm)

Either way, he was taking the risk that he’d fall flat on his face and be subject to even more ridicule. After all, people figured that the reason his performance fell off so precipitously in Baltimore was that baseball had started a more serious testing program. So when he decided to attempt a comeback this year, not many thought he’d be able to make a major league roster, let alone have an impact on a team.

Fair.

He couldn’t even get a major-league contract, just a minor-league deal with the Rangers and a chance to prove himself in spring training. Bernie Williams had been offered a similar deal by the New York Yankees but had too much pride to take it. Sosa took the Rangers’ offer.

There's one sentence in that paragraph that doesn't belong and has nothing to do with anything. (Hint: It's very typical and obligitory of a certain fedora-wearing eastcoastophile.)

You can think what you want about how he hit so many home runs in such a short time. He’s got three 60-home-run seasons, and nobody else in history has more than one. Even Barry Bonds, who holds the record — chemically assisted or otherwise — of 73, never passed 60 again.

OK, I will think what I want. He used steroids and cheated to get those 60-home-run-seasons, making them significantly less impressive.

There was a lot of juice in the game back in 1998 when Sosa and Mark McGwire went toe-to-toe in pursuit of Roger Maris, and it stayed in the game.

Pitchers did it as well as hitters. We still don’t know who did them, and we may never have solid proof of what the prime suspects did, but we can be assured that Sosa, McGwire, Bonds and Jason Giambi weren’t the only ones.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless every single pitcher in the league was on steroids as well, Sosa still gets an unfair advantage from using them, yes?

Yet only Sosa had three seasons with 60 or better. Give the guy credit — or give that corked bat he got caught with credit — but admit what he did was awfully impressive. Everyone else had the same advantages he did, but he put up the biggest numbers.

Let me translate:

"Only Sosa had three seasons with 60 or better. Give him credit, or give his cheating credit, but admit what he did (not his cheating, crediting that stopped being an option 5 words ago) was very good and deserving of recognition. Everyone else was corking their bats and on steroids too, but his corky, drugged numbers were the 'biggest'."

He’s not going to hit 60 homers again — now that the testing program is in effect, we’re not going to see many seasons like that from anybody. But he could drive in 100; one thing Sosa could always do was drive in runs.

He’s having fun doing it, too. I’m not sure I like him, but I’m still impressed.

Of course you don't like him. He doesn't wear pinstripes, dummy.

Maybe I'm just blowing raspberries here, but I'm starting to think that the hat is sewn into your scalp and interfering with your ability to not be wrong.