A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that federal investigators' seizure of drug-test results of more than 90 major league baseball players five years ago was illegal.
Twenty-three years after Jose Canseco, 19 years after Ken Caminiti, six years after Alex Rodriguez, there still exist people who would like to believe that somehow their team and their players avoided steroids. People actually broke down The Mitchell Report on a team-by-team basis, as if it were the official box score of the Steroid Era. For such people there is a day of reckoning with reality, the day that ends the charade of "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with the syringe." Thursday was such a day for Red Sox Nation.
I loved baseball as a kid. I still have fond memories of my siblings and me, members of the "Astro Buddies" club, heading to the Astrodome, the eighth wonder of the world, to watch the Houston Astros play.
There is never a time -- never a time -- when I look at Sammy Sosa's page on Baseball-Reference.com and do not come away with a shock. Sure, I know this stuff. I KNOW Sosa beat Roger Maris' famed 61-homers-in-a-season three times in his career (as many as Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds combined). Three times.
NEW YORK (SI.com) -- Sammy Sosa, whose memorable home run race with Mark McGwire in 1998 is credited with helping revive baseball after the 1994 players' strike, tested positive for steroids in 2003, according to the New York Times. The Times cited "lawyers with knowledge of the drug-testing results from that year."
NEW YORK -- On Tuesday evening, Washington Nationals bench coach Jim Riggleman was preparing for batting practice at Yankee Stadium when he was asked for his reaction to the news that Sammy Sosa had tested positive for steroids.
So the archeology of a corrupt era in baseball history continues. Sammy Sosa, identified by the New York Times as having tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003, is only the latest but far from the last discovery as the fragments of the past surface like bones from under a sandy soil.
Hall of Fame voting is a tricky thing.
Congressional hearings rarely produce much news of interest, or much good for the world, but the House Government Reform Committee did a great service to baseball -- and the country -- on March 17, 2005.
The baseball actuarial tables have been rewritten. As clubs continue to place greater value on young players under control (witness the new religion about not losing compensatory draft picks), the older free agent is being severely devalued. What has been a slow market for almost every player not negotiating with the New York Yankees has become downright cruel for the aging position player.
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that federal investigators' seizure of drug-test results of more than 90 major league baseball players five years ago was illegal.
Twenty-three years after Jose Canseco, 19 years after Ken Caminiti, six years after Alex Rodriguez, there still exist people who would like to believe that somehow their team and their players avoided steroids. People actually broke down The Mitchell Report on a team-by-team basis, as if it were the official box score of the Steroid Era. For such people there is a day of reckoning with reality, the day that ends the charade of "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with the syringe." Thursday was such a day for Red Sox Nation.
I loved baseball as a kid. I still have fond memories of my siblings and me, members of the "Astro Buddies" club, heading to the Astrodome, the eighth wonder of the world, to watch the Houston Astros play.
There is never a time -- never a time -- when I look at Sammy Sosa's page on Baseball-Reference.com and do not come away with a shock. Sure, I know this stuff. I KNOW Sosa beat Roger Maris' famed 61-homers-in-a-season three times in his career (as many as Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds combined). Three times.
NEW YORK (SI.com) -- Sammy Sosa, whose memorable home run race with Mark McGwire in 1998 is credited with helping revive baseball after the 1994 players' strike, tested positive for steroids in 2003, according to the New York Times. The Times cited "lawyers with knowledge of the drug-testing results from that year."
NEW YORK -- On Tuesday evening, Washington Nationals bench coach Jim Riggleman was preparing for batting practice at Yankee Stadium when he was asked for his reaction to the news that Sammy Sosa had tested positive for steroids.
So the archeology of a corrupt era in baseball history continues. Sammy Sosa, identified by the New York Times as having tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003, is only the latest but far from the last discovery as the fragments of the past surface like bones from under a sandy soil.
Hall of Fame voting is a tricky thing.
Congressional hearings rarely produce much news of interest, or much good for the world, but the House Government Reform Committee did a great service to baseball -- and the country -- on March 17, 2005.
The baseball actuarial tables have been rewritten. As clubs continue to place greater value on young players under control (witness the new religion about not losing compensatory draft picks), the older free agent is being severely devalued. What has been a slow market for almost every player not negotiating with the New York Yankees has become downright cruel for the aging position player.
Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Dec. 2. Here's one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer. For more essays, click here.
If you are about my age*, then you grew up as a baseball fan with three statistics and only three statistics. There was batting average. There were home runs runs. And there were RBIs. That was it.
Ten years ago this weekend, Mark McGwire hit his 70th home run of the magical 1998 season. At the time, it seemed both the record and McGwire's exalted place in the baseball pantheon would live forever.
In the annals of Junior Achievement, this milestone looms large, even on his considerable, Cooperstown-bound résumé. It's not every night someone hits home run No. 600, even in these pharmaceutically enhanced times.
Two questions for you: What's your best guess on the order the four unemployed big boys (Frank Thomas, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza) will be signed and the most likely teams doing the signing? Also, how do you think my Yankees' three touted young pitchers will be doing by mid season, given their current challenges and Joba's likely challenge in switching over to starting?
To be a ballplayer, especially a home run hitter, at the end of the century has become the historical equivalent of serving in the Nixon White House in the time of Watergate. Surely not all were corrupt, but our shorthand methodology of memory defines the players by the times. The Steroid Era, as we now know it, belongs to all, and maybe, whether by willingness or silence, that's not as unfair as it first seems.
Near daily musings about the future whereabouts of two Cy Young Award winners dominated baseball's off-season: Would Johan Santana wind up in New York, and would Roger Clemens end up in Washington?
When Bill Clinton first ran for president in 1992, his campaign posted the now-famous slogan "It's the economy, stupid!" in its headquarters to keep the candidate and everyone around him on point about what the electorate truly cared about. And it worked.
Overlooked somewhat in the announcement of Rich Gossage's election to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the debates it triggered over Class of 2008 runners-up such as Jim Rice and Andre Dawson, was the fact that Mark McGwire received precisely 128 votes -- identical to his 2007 total.
Spawn comic book creator Todd McFarlane has one of the most impressive collections of famous baseballs including Sammy Sosa's 33rd, 61st and 66th home run balls, Mark McGwire's first, 63rd, 67th, 68th, 69th and 70th, and Barry Bonds' record breaking 73rd home run ball. SI.com caught up with McFarlane to talk about the value of Bonds' 756th ball and his future investments in the collectable field:
Barry Bonds haters are comforting themselves with the notion that Bonds' hold on the home-run record could be short-lived. Alex Rodriguez is more than 100 home runs ahead of Bonds' pace at the same age, and if he doesn't break the record, there are a number of other candidates such as Albert Pujols waiting in line for their shot at the pi�ata.
We're pretty smart, when it comes to cheating in sports. We pick and choose. There's real cheating and then there are episodes we let slide.
The 600th home run in the career of Sammy Sosa last week was met with an odd amount of indifference for a milestone that only Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds and Willie Mays had obtained. Blame it on more fallout from the Steroid Era, as the home run prompted the usual Is-he-a-Hall-of-Famer? chatter. (Verdict: none, the jury is still out on this one.)
Sammy Sosa is going to be a tough call for the Hall.
Teams covered in this issue:
I. Geezer ballplayers: Pouring over the statistical league leaders Thursday, I found myself continually asking one question: Man, how old is that dude? After a series of birth date checks, I confirmed a budding suspicion: America's pastime is being shaped by a number of players who are far past their time. Currently many of the games top players boast birth dates in the decade of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll -- the 1960s.
Players, in their wildest fantasies, wouldn't dream about getting in the kind of groove that Alex Rodriguez is in right now. It's nearly unfathomable. The best players in the world would be happy with half of what A-Rod's doing this April.
Also in this column: • Blue Jays in pain • Orioles interested in Kim • More news and notes
SURPRISE, Ariz. -- You can't have a good comeback story in baseball without a little controversy. So it is that Sammy Sosa, in his return from major league purgatory, is being accused of cheating.
Also in this column: • Bonds market up • Fielder wowing scouts • Optimism for "Z''
Also in this column: • Sosa's got it made • Possible suitor for Dye • Barmes frustrates Rockies • More news and notes
At first glance, the Sammy Sosa who arrived at Texas Rangers camp last week looked much like the ebullient, homer-and-hop-to-first version who once dominated the National League. Same Sammy smile (produced at the drop of a lens cap), same Sammy laugh and same Sammy commotion. As Sosa played pepper, 14 tripods lined the first base line; as he threw from the outfield another 15 photographers fired away. A small cluster of skeptical reporters gathered to witness his first batting practice, which consisted of several foul balls, a handful of line drives and three home runs in 38 swings.
Eight years ago the Cubs established in spring training that a 21-year-old named Kerry Wood was not going to make their big league team. "Congratulations," Angels manager Terry Collins told Chicago manager Jim Riggelman one day that spring.
All indications lead you to believe that Rangers GM Jon Daniels would've made a heck of an NL Rotisserie baseball player in the early 2000s after assembling a squad consisting of Eric Gagne, Kenny Lofton and Sammy Sosa. However, those three are merely trying to revive their big league careers and should have varying fantasy worth during the 2007 season.
NOTE: The following was scrawled with The New York Times Sunday Review of Books in mind, but I decided to spare myself the editor's stony silence and openly court yours instead:
A hot trend in the publishing industry these days is children's books "written" by sports stars. Alex Rodriguez released his effort, Out of the Ballpark, this week, featuring a baseball-crazed boy named Alex who makes an error in a key game because he's trying so darn hard. That joins, among others, Terrell Owens' trenchant Little T Learns to Share. (T.O. apparently hails from the "write what you don't know" school.) Here are some other children's books that we can imagine being penned by sport figures:
With the first Friday of the month upon us, it's time once again for the all-reader-submission edition. Thanks as always for all your entries. Have a great Super Bowl weekend.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Mark McGwire is gone, but Sammy Sosa is on his way back.
Will baseball fans be going, going gone, if steroid-aided home runs disappear from the game?
Former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire refused to answer questions about steroid use during his playing career at a congressional hearing Thursday, repeatedly telling a House committee he was "not here to talk about the past."
This one will make you or break you. You've got three hours before that final presentation to a key client, and you're as prepped as you can possibly be. Now what? Option A--for "anxiety-inducing"-...
If you've ever wanted to take a bath with Mr. T (and who hasn't?), rejoice: Celebriducks have arrived. These tub toys--rubber ducks modeled after famous humans, from Queen Elizabeth I to James Brow...
During the magical summer of 1998, when Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa battled the Cardinals' Mark McGwire for the single-season home-run record, Sosa did what rich celebrity athletes sometimes do. He set...
By the time you read this, St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire or Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa may have broken Roger Maris' 1961 record of 61 home runs in a single season. Some critics have scoffed at the du...
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