Sammy Sosa Believes He Belongs In Hall Of Fame, Wants Cubs To Retire His Number, Is Delusional
By Chuck Sudo in News on Jan 24, 2013 2:45PM
Sammy Sosa continued his slow climb back into the public eye Thursday with a live Ustream chat that was equal parts interview and public relations campaign.
Sosa took time away from posting photos of himself on Pinterest to answer questions posed to him by his handlers about what’s he’s doing currently, reflections on his baseball career and whether he deserves to be in Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
On that last issue, Sosa said he absolutely deserves to be enshrined in Cooperstown along with former Oakland/St. Louis slugger Mark McGwire, who staged an epic chase for Roger Maris’s single season home run record in 1998 that reignited interest in Major League Baseball after the 1994 strike and, later, was held up as Exhibit A of MLB’s “Steroid Era.”
Sosa also said he won’t “say anything that is going to jeopardize my future,” which could be taken as a reference to McGwire’s admission to using PEDs during his playing career.
”Right now whatever it is, it is. I am not (somebody who) is going to go out there and say anything I don’t want to say. I’m waiting for my time. … I don’t like controversy. Definitely time will determine everything.”
Sosa was named by The New York Times in 2009 as one of the players on a 2003 list of MLB players who failed random drug testing that led to mandatory testing for players. But he’s never admitted to using PEDs or suddenly lost his ability to speak English when posed with the question.
Sosa also seemed open to the possibility of reconciling with the Chicago Cubs. The last memories of his time with the team involved his leaving Wrigley Field early on the final game of the 2004 season and Kerry Wood beating the shit out of his boom box with a baseball bat. Sosa said he heard the comments from Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts at last weekend’s team convention about re-establishing relations with him. “If they want to find me, they have to call me. I’m always available.”
Sosa only received 12.5 percent of the ballots from the Baseball Writers Association of America in Hall of Fame voting earlier this month. If he fails to reach 5 percent of the votes in any year he’s eligible, he’ll be dropped from the ballot.
Some other highlights of the interview:
Sosa’s favorite home run: The first time he hit number 62 in 1998 and hitting his 600th career home run against the Cubs.
He’d like to see his number retired by the Cubs.
He has a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic, where he also said he would be open to the possibility of running for president of the island nation.