Baseball Notebook: Sosa Not on Mitchell List
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by Niteowl049
Note: There will be no post tomorrow due to medication class and taking test for certified medication giver. Thank you for your understanding. Andrew Baseball Notebook: Sosa Not on Mitchell List
One of the biggest surprises to me has been that Sammy Sosa was not included on the list of players using steroids on the Mitchell report. Maybe he did get his power from Flintstone vitamins like he has stated in the past. It may be a case of Sosa leaving no paper trail to follow or a case of him being smart enough to cover his tracks. As far as I know nobody has produced a check signed by Sosa to acquire any steroids.
In 1997 Sosa hit 36 home runs and drove in 119 runs. Then in 1998 his power numbers spiked to 66 home runs and and 158 runs batted in. His slugging percentage jumped from .480 in 1997 to .640 in 1998. His batting average improved from .251 to .308. None of these numbers prove he used steroids but it does look suspicious for him to hit 30 more home runs than the last season all of a sudden.
Another indication of something being wrong is that from in the four years of 1994-1997 he hit 137 home runs and drove in 408 runs. Then from 1998-2001 he hit 243 home runs and drove in 597 runs. So he hit 106 more home runs and drove in 189 more runs from 1998-2001 than he had in 1994-1997.
I have always been a Sammy Sosa fan but I still am puzzled by how his power numbers spiked and he hit over 50 home runs in four straight seasons and bettered the old Roger Maris mark of 61 home runs in a season three times in a four year period.
None of this mattered to the Mitchell investigators who couldn't find enough concrete evidence against Sosa to include him on the list. Maybe Sosa didn't use steroids but I find it hard to believe but I am still hoping he truly compiled those amazing power numbers from 1998-2001 on his own.
Brian McNamee Defended By C.J. Nitkowski
C.J. Nitkowski defends Yankee trainer Brian McNamee who has linked Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte to using steroids. Nitkowski was considering using steroids himself but considered the legal consequences and decided against it.
I won't go into any more details on the article since it can be found at this link:
http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/wire/sns-ap-bbo-working-with-mcnamee,0,6247119.story
