Comments on: Let’s make sure our attacks on Sammy Sosa make sense

By: clydeserra

clydeserra — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 18:30:40 +0000

Kinda. The Greg Anderson angle is very important, but questions asked by the AUSA at the grand jury were so hopelessly muddled, compound and vague, that a conviction for perjury is going to be a tough row to hoe.

By: sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo

sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:54:00 +0000

Frankly, the mid 90′s through early 00′s were a much more interesting time than the 80′s for MLB. Maybe in spite of steroids, maybe because of them. Either way, it is a big chunk of MLB history that can’t be simply ignored away.

I keep seeing people post things like “It isn’t the hall of Very Good.” FWIW, it isn’t the hall of Morally Upstanding, or even the Hall of Great. I can’t think of anyone more FAMOUS (i.e., significant to the sport as a whole) in baseball over the last decade than Bonds or Clemens, or who had a greater impact on the sport. Maybe Jeter, but I suppose he is one Perlman article away from having his induction blocked as well.

By: thefalcon123

thefalcon123 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:18:42 +0000

As a lifelong Cardinals fan, Ray has already spent too many years being a punching bag. There irrational hatred of him by a large cadre of Cardinals fans was absolutely baffling. It was too the point where Fox Sports Midwest celebrated the Woody Williams trade, not for getting Williams mind you, but that Lankford was gone. He seemed like a nice enough guy and was a hell of a ball player, so I don’t understand it at all.

Then, he returned to the Cardinals in 2004. Apparently his homecoming was…uh…well celebrated because he was hit with two different paternity suits that year.

By: BC

BC — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:10:18 +0000

Actually Griffey turned into a total jerk when he went to Cincinnati. Either that or he just showed his true colors.

By: mcsnide

mcsnide — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:58:31 +0000

You’re on to something. The HOF is basically making itself irrelevant. Whitewashing of the sport’s past is absurd. We now have a HOF where the all-time hits leader and all-time HR leader are on the outside looking in. Whatever your take on Bonds and Rose, that’s crazy. It’s time to re-evaluate whether there’s even a point in having a Hall if people are going to be excluded for their moral failures.

By: adambuckled

adambuckled — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:37:30 +0000

Nope, all we need is an illegally obtained, vaguely sourced, supposedly anonymous, impossible to verify test with no second-sample corroboration. So glad we’ve got a lawyer on the case.

By: Chipmaker

Chipmaker — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:19:11 +0000

How about Ken Griffey Jr?

Fits the profile — peak power seasons in 1997-98, spent the second half of his career demonstrating how fragile and injury-prone his body had become.

Add some drivel about “The Kid” and his wearing cap backwards and “sweetest swing” and “always smiling” and, well, since those are the talking points the media and many fans want to read, they’ll just gloss over any steroids allegations.

I neither know nor care if Griffey used any magic potions, but the way he’s treated like purest platinum despite how easily his career can fit the “eeeevil steroid abuser” profile is inexplicable.

By: Roger Moore

Roger Moore — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:14:50 +0000

I’m not sure if you can blame the translator. They certainly have video and transcripts of his Spanish testimony, which they can get an independent translator to translate for them. If he said something in Spanish that’s perjury beyond a reasonable doubt, any reasonable translator will translate it in a way that shows it’s perjury. If he didn’t say something that’s perjury beyond a reasonable doubt, it really is the translator’s fault.

By: billtpa

billtpa — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:54:38 +0000

winner!

By: Jonny 5

Jonny 5 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:50:31 +0000

Why? The votes many place for the HOF don’t make sense. Why would we expect reasoning behind the votes to make sense?

By: sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo

sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:50:09 +0000

How sad it will be for me in 30 or 40 years when I take my grandkids to the Hall Of Fame and the baseball I grew up with isn’t there! What would be the point?

By: sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo

sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:46:25 +0000

Too late, they already did that with Bagwell.

By: umrguy42

umrguy42 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:42:06 +0000

“Perjury charges often turn on nuance, tense and the smallest interpretation of what the speaker is saying. One tiny misstatement and you could be facing jail time. Why risk it?”

Besides, if there’s an interpreter involved, you can blame the interpreter for screwing up the translation!

By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged

churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:41:37 +0000

If he tried to say what he said in English he may have screwed it up and actually told a real lie.

You may give him too much credit. I’m definitely agreeing with you though. I took 5+ years of Italian, and could still hold a good conversation about most things. However, if I were dragged in front of their gov’t body, I wouldn’t even say buon giorno.

By: jkcalhoun

jkcalhoun — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:40:41 +0000

Didn’t even show up to his own testimonial dinner. If he had had any playing ability or had made any contributions to his team, that alone would suffice for nullification. Disqualified.

By: Rosenthals Speling Instrukter

Rosenthals Speling Instrukter — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:37:42 +0000

Curtis Leskanic

By: Craig Calcaterra

Craig Calcaterra — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:36:53 +0000

Let us remember how fine a line Sosa had to walk to avoid perjury:

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2009/12/28/sammy-sosa-was-crazy-like-a-fox/

Even if he was trying to play PR games, he was probably the most truthful one there. If he tried to say what he said in English he may have screwed it up and actually told a real lie.

And of course, if Congress gave a shit about things other than PR, they would have had someone following up on Sosa’s cute testimony and nailed him down. They didn’t.

By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged

churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:32:31 +0000

It’s just way too dangerous. As we’ve seen with Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the real point of the various steroids hearings over the years was to create perjury traps. Perjury charges often turn on nuance, tense and the smallest interpretation of what the speaker is saying. One tiny misstatement and you could be facing jail time. Why risk it?

To put it another way, aren't the Feds having a hard time charging Bonds because he said he never knowingly took steroids? So it isn't enough to say he was taking them, but they have to prove he knew what they were. And good luck with that considering Greg Anderson refuses to testify.

By: Craig Calcaterra

Craig Calcaterra — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:32:23 +0000

We don’t need to read tea leaves with Sosa. He tested positive in 2003:

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090616&content_id=5355568&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

By: BC

BC — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:30:02 +0000

How about Rich Gedman?

By: dondbaseball

dondbaseball — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:29:42 +0000

Didn’t Sosa also cork his bat? And talk about drastic physique changes during a career. Something always tells me where there’s smoke, there’s fire…

By: Detroit Michael

Detroit Michael — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:23:24 +0000

Moonlight Graham!

By: sdelmonte

sdelmonte — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:19:22 +0000

Joe Schlabotnick!

By: BC

BC — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:10:37 +0000

I know what we should do. We need to pick a random MLB player to attack about PED’s. Doesn’t matter who they are. Just pick a guy and kind of “adopt” him as a punching bag.
How about…. Ray Lankford. (not that I hate him, just the first random guy to come to mind)