Once the face of baseball who saved a declining sport with Mark McGwire. Now, persecuted and blackballed from the game. In an interview with Chuck Wasserstrom, Sosa used quite the example to defend his alleged steroid use.
“it’s like Jesus Christ when he came to Jerusalem. Everybody thought Jesus Christ was a witch (laughing) – and he was our savior. So if they talk (poop) about Jesus Christ, what about me? Are you kidding me?”
Sosa would also go on to elaborate on the allegations of his drug usage.
“First of all, I’m clean. They don’t have a case on me. I never failed a drug test. Never in my life. But you know what – this is not my field anymore. I’d rather not be in the Hall of Fame and have a lot of money in my pocket than to be in the Hall of Fame and try to find money to pay my bills….You saw me grow up, you saw how hard I was working. A lot of people say so many things, but I’m telling you – they have nothing on me. I’m not going to go out there begging, because they have no case. They had the Mitchell Report trying to find something, but they had nothing on Mr. Sosa.””
To quote Jay-Z, “We don’t believe you, you need more people”. In 1997, Sosa belted 36 home runs. Just one year later he added 30 to that total swatting 66 homers and becoming an American icon in the process. At the time, baseball was in decline following a 1994 lockout which cancelled the World Series. Sosa and Mark McGwire were on late night television, commercials and magazine covers. Like Sosa alludes to, he got paid and experienced the limelight. No one was harmed from his alleged steroid use, the only case to be made against him boils down to one of morals.
He however does come off as delusional and wanting to have his cake and to eat it at the same time. Beyond stats, he fails the eye test. Physically his body transformed to that of a body builder in his early 30’s. Furthermore, Sosa needed an interpreter to speak english for him on Capitol Hill in a 2005 congressional hearing to discuss steroid use in baseball. In this years Baseball Hall of Fame ballot he totaled 8.6 percent of the vote. 75 percent gets you in the hall. His legacy is shot.