As the offseason continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today:
1. Slammin’ Sammy back at Wrigley?
Seven-time All-Star and 1998 NL MVP Sammy Sosa was one of baseball’s biggest stars over a 13-year stretch with the Cubs and is one of the most famous players to come out of the North Side in the past 40 years. You wouldn’t have known all that from taking a trip to Wrigley Field in the 20 years since he left the team following the 2004 season, however, as Sosa has been persona non grata on the North Side ever since he left the team due to his widely suspected use of steroids during his time in Chicago. Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts addressed the schism between his team and one of its biggest stars nearly seven years ago, telling fans and reporters at the 2018 Cubs Convention that “players from that era owe us a little bit of honesty” as noted by Jesse Rogers of ESPN at the time.
Sosa offered that bit of honesty in a statement yesterday (link via MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy). Within a lengthier statement regarding his time with the Cubs and love for the fans/organization, Sosa stated: “There were times I did whatever I could to recover from injuries in an effort to keep my strength up to perform over 162 games. I never broke any laws, but in hindsight, I made mistakes and I apologize.”
Following that tacit acknowledgment and subsequent apology, Ricketts released a statement of his own, extending Sosa an invitation to the 2025 Cubs Convention, which takes place next month. Yesterday’s thaw in relations between the Cubs and one of the biggest stars in the club’s history should give longtime fans the opportunity to see Sosa back at Wrigley Field in the future as a guest of honor, just as has been the case for other former Cubs stars ranging from Jon Lester and Aramis Ramirez to Fergie Jenkins and Ryne Sandberg in recent years.
2. Rangers 40-man move incoming:
Yesterday, the Rangers made a move to add to their bullpen by agreeing to terms with southpaw Hoby Milner on a one-year deal. Milner, who posted a 3.44 ERA and 3.14 FIP with the Brewers over the past three seasons, offers Texas a solid relief option from the left side and helps to patch up a relief corps that has lost Jose Leclerc, David Robertson, and Kirby Yates to free agency this winter. Milner’s deal with the Rangers has not yet been made official, however, and before it can be the club will need to make room for the lefty on its 40-man roster.
That can be achieved simply by designating a player for assignment, and that’s how the vast majority of 40-man roster crunches are addressed. That said, teams will occasionally line up a small trade that allows them to free up 40-man space for an impending signing. More clarity on the Rangers’ roster should arrive sooner than later.
3. Urshela to West Sacramento?
The A’s and third baseman Gio Urshela reportedly agreed to a one-year deal yesterday. While the Athletics won’t need to make room for Urshela on their 40-man roster, the financial terms for the deal have not yet been reported. Those terms hold particular weight given the fact that the club needs to significantly ramp up payroll this winter in order to avoid a potential grievance from the MLBPA. They’ve made good headway in that goal by signing Luis Severino and swinging a trade for Jeffrey Springs already this winter, deals which have left them with $88.5MM on their luxury tax ledger according to RosterResource. Urshela’s deal should help push that figure further north, but likely not by much. He played last year on a $1.5MM salary and hit .250/.286/.361 between Detroit and Atlanta.
Is Sammy Sosa a starting pitcher?
Guest of honor? You can always tell when a writer did not witness the event they are describing. Sosa did not just “leave town” he was ran out of town by the fans and no other team except the Orioles would touch him. Even for free. Cubs fans were sick of the whining, him being so standoffish with fans, refusing to sign autographs for kids, his selfish play, his rude arrogant attitude and the cheating. He didn’t just cheat with the roids, He was caught using a corked back during a game and tried to lie then cover it up. Pyss on Sammy Sosa forever!!
Tim Walz much?
Sosa was my 4th favorite roider of the 90s
Lyle Alzado was the trailblazer. They should have known better.
jmaa: And he paid the ultimate price. sosa, McGwire, Alex rodriguez and, the king of the roiders, bonds, ought to look out for their health.
Steroids are known to have aftereffects long after they stopped being used.
Avenger. The first generation of users had no idea of how much to take. They took massive doses causing health problems very quickly in their lives. Alzado, Caminiti, and many others paid a heavy price for being trail blazers. The next generation of users took just enough to get the benefits. They are much safer.
Yeah, to piggy back of CardsFan57- there are different types of steroids and the later generations figured out how to take the type and a small enough dosage that they didn’t bulge out to to unnatural proportions or their necks didn’t grow from sticks into tree trunks, or develop severe adult acne, etc.
Pitchers in particular pioneered usage of more subtle, ‘safer’ steroids, because they didn’t want the overly bulky muscles, wanted to keep leaner, more athletic builds and just focus on being able to recover faster or not experience so much fatigue from their otherwise basic workload- so that guys could pitch an extra few innings while maintaining the power on their fastball or whatever and could reach 100 pitches instead of having to get pulled at 75 pitches, or could go on 4 days rest rather than 5 days rest, etc. and that’s the kind that have really proliferated throughout the league in what we think of as the post-steroid era.
If I told you when and how he started talking steroids you’d probably say I was lying. But I’ll say these three things. Lyle Alzado should be in the NFL Hall of Fame, Sammy Sosa shouldn’t have to apologize to anyone, and if Lyle was in front of you, I guarantee, you wouldn’t have said what you just said. The internet is a wonderful thing.
Easy there white knight lol
@Sweet, 4th favorite? You have a ranking of players from the ‘roid era? LOL. Wanna share a top ten? Bonus points for a quick recap as to why!
Top 10 roiders in the 90s as follows
1. I’M JOSE CANSECO
2. Very Barry Strawberry Bonds
3. Fat Mac Attack
4. Slammin Soso
5. The Roid Rocket
6. Pug Rodriguez
7. Arron’s Boone’s brother
8. Rafael Pomeranian
9. Manny Being Manny (a terrible person)
10. Bo Bichette’s Dad
Piazza has to be at least Honorable Mention on such a list.
Has everyone forgotten that Slamming Sammy was busted for slamming his wife?
I knew McGwire was using when he gave a press conference after every HR during his “record breaking” season. His arms were bigger than both of my legs put together.
C’mon, you got to list the top 3.
You know who really got screwed was Palmeiro. Roids can help with power but they won’t help much in achieving 3000 hits. Guy would have been HoF bound without the roids for sure. Now he probably won’t sniff it for another decade.
coffin: If Palmiero was that good, he didn’t need the PEDS. Same with bonds.
Biggio was my favorite. Nobody was more cut than that guy.
I feel like I should leave a comment here.
Set small goals, and crush them.
The As spending binge is ruining baseball.
Agreed. We need a cap, out this will just continue unhinged.
Mlb needs to stop the A’s. What’s next? Corbin Burnes to the A’s.
I still believe that the A’s are the perfect landing spot for Masa Yoshida. Boston will have to eat a portion of his salary, but adding Yoshida gives them a very solid bat with low strikeout rates and a .340-.360+ OBP, 30+ doubles and 15-20+ HRs. He’s making $18M per year for the next 3 years. The Sox can pay off one full year ($18M), giving him to the A’s for $12M a season. This will get the A’s much closer to the salary number they need to achieve and it will improve the A’s roster as well.
Boston doesn’t need much of a return for Yoshida. They just need to free up the roster spot so they can move Raffy / Casas into a share of 1B/DH. Then the Sox can finally sign Bregman for 3B.
MLB management encouraged steroid use among the players, knowing exactly what was going on and paying a premium for it. The Cub$ loved the dollars coming in from the McGwire-Sosa HR races. How ‘bout some honesty from you, Mr. Ricketts?
Exactly this. The game was resuscitated thanks to the steroid era and everybody knows it, especially the owners who benefitted the most from it financially.
It’s amazing how the steroid use in the 70s doesn’t get talked about.
That and the recreational drugs many were using then, even on game days.
Ricketts didn’t own the team then, though I’m sure he would have welcomed the extra cash lol.
How about some more to the story besides Sammy and Steroids like how he would blast his music in the clubhouse and get aggressive towards anyone who wanted it turned down or how about when he walked out on the Cubs, Wrigley Field, and the fans while the game was still going for his swan song?
His apology does help. No apology from the Ricketts needed.
Manfred – He also earned the name “Corky” for a reason.
tiktok.com/@mlbonfox/video/7376314113699499306?lan…
Seriously ….. not one mention in the article or comments of his corked bats?
At least with guys like Clemens and Bonds, they were HOF-caliber players BEFORE they began cheating.
LordD99: Don’t give Manfred any ideas.
That’s what’s most crazy. What exactly is Tom’s standing to demand an apology? What harm was done to him by Sosa’s (alleged) steroid use? Maybe he’s just mad because the increase in franchise valuation Sosa provided cost him money when it came time to negotiate the purchase price.
Tom – Right or wrong, current owners have the ability to dictate how those from the team’s past are viewed/perceived/treated.
For example John Henry has had all references to the longtime Red Sox prior owners removed, even renaming the street outside the park.
It’s the Golden Rule … those who own the gold make the rules.
As it pertains to how those players are treated by the organization, sure. As it pertains to how they are viewed or percieved–no. The fans dictate that. And just as it was Tom’s right to determine how the org was gonna handle Sammy, it’s the fans’ right to point out how dumb, self-righteous, and ridiculous his stance is/was. In the Tom vs. Sammy spat, there’s no question who the loser was, and it wasn’t Sammy. Especially given that Tom hasn’t shown any urgency or proclivity towards prioritizing winning baseball in the last several years.
Lets be honest- there’s a lot of data indicating that the steroid era ‘saved’ baseball. That the home run ‘competition’ between Sosa and McGwire reinvigorated the sport. Were those juiced numbers? Sure.
And there are a ton of guys whose numbers magically jumped up by like 10-30 HR’s a year to 35-50 HR’s annually from about 1997 to about 2001 or so and then magically came back down to earth
But you know what people don’t seem to discount or want erased from the collective memories? The juiced ball era from 2019 or so, when guys like Gleyber Torres magically swatted close to 40 HR’s despite clearly being more of a 10-20 HR type of player.
I just think its some holier than thou hogwash to denigrate a generation of players that, although certainly unnatural and enhanced in their performance and stats, are just that particular generation of that particular kind of juking of the stats- of which there’s always been something- the juiced ball era, the dead ball era, the era of the shift, etc. etc.
Exactly. And there are plenty of players in the Hall of Fame who took steroids that weren’t called out for it, so very hypocritical of the weasel writers with no athletic ability who sit in their little writing closets and decide who should and shouldn’t be in the HOF.
The other thing a lot of people point out, which is sort of the heart of the matter, is that steroids don’t improve your contact, they don’t improve your approach, they don’t improve your hand eye coordination, etc.
In other words- did they boost stats? Sure. A guy who’d normally hit 25 HR’s would hit 35 or 50 HRs or a guy who’d naturally hit 40 HR’s hit 60 or 70 HR’s… fine.
But steroids didn’t turn terrible players into great players and didn’t take a guy who couldn’t hit and turn them into an automatic hit/walk, etc. machine.
There’s a lot of people who think Aaron Judge was gassed by the end of the year and that followed him into the post season, which is why he ‘disappeared’ during the WS in particular- maybe. Maybe if Aaron Judge was on steroids he would have had more energy and hit dingers and the Yankees would have won or been more competitive- or maybe Aaron Judge’s issue was/is psychological and all the steroids wouldn’t have taken the pressure off him that gave him the yips in the post season.
Steroids never really changed the career trajectory or overall performance of players- it just boosted existing, likely stats and performance by a margin of ‘exhausted’ vs ‘still has some energy.’
To me the ultimate example is Barry Bonds, who was already a generational power hitter who would’ve have likely ended his career with between 450 and 600 HR’s *without* ever taking steroids.
Steroids were ultimately a cup of coffee for guys who might’ve otherwise dozed off, but instead managed to stay up a little longer and keep participating.
Trill – How about 1996 Brady Anderson?
BTW – I actually think greenies should not have been banned, they simply provided the energy you mentioned players getting from roids.
@Fever – I was going to mention him too. Brady was averaging about 16 HRs per year prior to 1996 (career high of 21 HRs prior to ‘96). Then out of nowhere, he gains 15-20 lbs of muscle and goes on to hit 50HRs and set a career high in RBI, OPS and slugging percentage, miles above his previous highs in both categories. He’s the poster boy for how steroids increased production in MLB during that time.
Luis Gonzalez was another who had a massive power spike
FPG: There’s always coffee.
Footjoyboi who should pick? Surely not the fans. People already whine enough about players getting in because they played for a big market team. Letting the players decide will not change the steroid guys getting in. They’ve already been on the veterans committee ballot and still didn’t get in. So, writers it is.
Joe: Letting the players vote is the only fair way. Writers hold grudges against players for various reasons and won’t vote for them because of it. The best awards show, and the one actors like the most, is the Screen Writers Guild because it is voted on by their peers.
avenger remember this about letting their peers vote. The 1970s veterans committee inducted a few St. Louis Cardinals who have no business in the HOF without a ticket. They also elected Harold Baines. And they told steroid guys like ARod and ManRam they didn’t want them in. Writers have grudges sure but their peers have their buddies. There is no perfect system.
Joe – I think what you’re saying is power corrupts ….
Agreed, Joe. The writers by and large have done a much better job of inducting worthy candidates. Of course they do have it easier since they get to vote on everyone. The Veterans Committee only gets to select from the players rejected by the writers.
@Trillionaire
Slight difference in 2019 – anyone – in otherwords all hitters – got a boost without cheating and without injecting themselves, and in most cases lying about it, with HGH, roids, and God alone knows what else…
Amazed that more of them haven’t died relatively young, a la Florence Griffiths Joyner…
And of course the consequence was that real records, like Ruth & Aaron, got swallowed up by these shysters…
Sorry, but even if you are writing tongue in cheek, I’m not writing holier than thou…
Cool beans, A’sfaninLondonUK.
Clearly I have offended you, as well as God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.
Trillionaire,
By no means am I offended. I just thought your comment was incorrect, and pointed that out. No more no less…
My response was a deep cut historical reference and a heavy dose of sarcasm. Nothing serious or sincere about it. No more, no less…
Air y Hola Asperja.
But you know, if steroids had been around and widely available when they played, who’s to say Aaron and Ruth wouldn’t have tried them.
Not arguing for or against these guys to be in the hall, but I think their attitude and the way they all behaved as this stuff came to light is clearly part of the backlash towards them.
Every one of them was a shameless liar that had the opportunity to be man and tell the story of their era, and instead they chose to lie and attack everyone who knew what they were doing.
I remember looking up at Big Mac as a player when I was a kid, and then seeing him as a sad old man lying to Congress, thinking wow I’d be really embarrassed if this coward was my dad.
McGwire had nothing to be ashamed of. Well over half the league was using steroids and he had to do what he felt was necessary to keep up with his peers. And as far as lying to Congress, what are Congressmen but a big pack of cheaters and liars.
Canseco didn’t lie. He even wrote a book about it.
TTO, I agree that every era has a different statistic that jumps out at the fan. However, the juiced/deadball era was the same for every player who stepped to the plate. Steroid users enhanced their performance on an individual basis, thereby creating the alleged inequality. The argument that steroids saved baseball is valid. The fact that the MLB may have promulgated steroids even enhances the argument. I still believe that those players who achieve greatness without resorting to the use of steroids are better. IMHO, of the five, Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, ARod, and Jr Griffey, the last one earned it. All great players, but one stands out.
Players have been enhancing performance on an individual basis since 1876. Scuffed balls, corked bats, stolen signs, sharpened spikes, whatever they thought would give them an edge.
Thank you Mr. Sosa forever a Cub legend. Good times and memories. Gotta Love Baseball. Chitown will always love ya.
In other words we hate all other teams drug abusers but love those for the home team
Drug abusers, lol. You people are too much!
There is a lesson here i think about the belief there is a need to build sports palaces at taxpayer expense. Major league games will be played in “minor league” parks in sacramento and tampa. The fields are still major league dimensions. Players will still earn big money. Beer will still cost 12? 18? Dollars to wash down 15 dollar dogs. Fans will turn out. If the home team is in a pennant race tickets will be hot items. Fans dont need sports palaces. They need clean, safe, accessable, affordable and comfortable places to sit in the warm summer breeze and take in the best game ever. “If you build it Ray, they will come. They will most definitely come.” I am old. I miss the game of my youth. It was better.
In nurse: Absolutely true. The game was so much better during my youth, too.
The owners only want sports palaces because they make them even richer.
“I made a mistake”
I don’t accept your apology, Mr. Sosa, because I don’t need an apology from you. You sacrificed your reputation and career in order to save baseball in ’98 with McGwire. You were what we needed after the Strike.
Clo – Pretty sure Sammy Sooser and Mike McGwire did it for the benjamins …. and I don’t mean Mike Benjamin.
Clofreesz: Steroids is something we never needed. The game is good enough on its own without juicers trying to “save” it. It was an embarrassment.
avenger – Right you are!
As usual, it’s all about the rich wanting to be even richer.
Yeah, the NFL is full of steroid users, but no one ever asks for them to apologize. It’s such a stupid double-standard.
The Big Papi and A Rod perpetual clown show on Fox says hi
A-Roid is *thee* worst.
Gwynn – At least he doesn’t have the purple lips anymore.
When sammy sosa & gio urshela are the opener headlines you know mlb offseason has hit a dry spell. See ya’ll after new yrs i guess. Gonna be real quiet til then seems like
THESE B****ES LUV SOSA
Banshees?
Beatles?
Buggles?
Blondes?
Or brunettes. Mysterious!
I don’t care what the media says about Sammy… he’s a hero from my childhood and will always be my favourite Cub. (I just dropped the mic)
Very curious wording in Sammy’s of “never broke any laws.”
Most likely—most likely—-probably did “break laws”—possession or usage of some type of substance.
And I can only take the quote on it’s face value as it is transcribed. If it had read “never broke any rules” that’s perfect, because the “rules” in baseball didn’t exist until after 2003 or whatever it was.
Glad he did say something, whether or not it could have been resolved years/decades ago.
And also glad that Ricketts relieved himself from being sole judge and jury the last 15 years concerning this.
>probably did “break laws”
True.
Nov. 18, 1988 — The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 creates criminal penalties for those who “distribute or possess anabolic steroids with the intent to distribute for any use in humans other than the treatment of disease based on the order of a physician.” [“A timeline of steroids in baseball,” The Associated Press]
Oct. 5, 1990 — Congress toughens its stance with the Anabolic Steroids Control Act, which places steroids in the same legal class as amphetamines, methamphetamines, opium and morphine. [ibid]
>If it had read “never broke any rules” that’s perfect
But that is not true.
June 7, 1991: Commissioner Fay Vincent sends a memo to each team announcing that steroids have been added to the league’s banned list. [ibid]
There was no testing at the time, but if you were caught with PEDs, you could be suspended.
Honestly, don’t really care about the steroid era nonsense. Cheating has been in the history of the sport. If baseball had been worried about the integrity of the sport, they would have banned many of the cheaters in the past from ever participating in the league and removed their statistics from the record books as being invalid but they just let it pass. The writers inducted cheaters into the HOF as well.
“I don’t call that cheating; I call that heads-up baseball. Win any way you can as long as you can get away with it.”
– Leo Durocher, HOF Manager
It doesn’t bother me at all. Especially given the fact that football players aren’t held to the same standard, as far as being labeled cheaters and all that BS. It’s only in baseball and cycling that people and the media make a big deal out of PEDs.
Did the Cubs ever apologize for all the money they made off Sosa?
I don’t condone what those guys did but teams who made millions off it acting like they care about integrity is hypocrisy at its finest.
@HalosHeavenJJ
Cubs don’t apologize for the poor quality they put on the field night in and night out. No chance they’re apologizing for the profits they made back then or today.
As a 35+ year die hard Cubs fan, I have a couple thoughts here. First of all, in the summer of 98, I was 16 years old, and that was probably the greatest summer of my life….until 2016. Sammy and Mark brought baseball back from the dead. The methods in which they did, will be one of the most hotly debated subjects in baseball, forever. I hear both sides, I really do. The adamant folks who say they cheated the game, I hear you. Were they taking substances to hit the ball further? Sure they were. It sure was exciting though. Steroids will never do anything for hand/eye. Period. Banjo hitters were taking the stuff and hitting .213 with 4 HRs. They do not make you a better baseball player, in my opinion. They make you stronger. Barry, Sammy, A-Rod, they were all elite level talents, juice or not. The era before, it was greenies for endurance. PLAYERS IN EVERY SPORT, WILL ALWAYS LOOK FOR AN ADVANTAGE. THEY ALWAYS HAVE, AND ALWAYS WILL. My last thought would be against Sammy though. I don’t like the apology. “I made mistakes”. Did you take steroids bro? Then just say that and be done with it. All this beating around the bush just makes him look foolish, and the Cubs frankly too. you were mad at him, he says he made some mistakes, and they are like, good enough for us! Just seems cheesy. All that said, I ain’t mad at Sammy. Be good to have him around the ballpark again. The Tucker acquisition has got me fired up for next season!
Shout out to Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio for both managing to juice like crazy and face no professional repercussions. The steroids robbed me of some of my love for the game. Enough remains that I’m still a fan but I follow now with the feeling 70% of the players are on something PED related.
The cubs convention is next month. The Sox’ is…What? No convention for the Southsiders for the third straight season? OK, but I must have missed the press conferences to introduce Bryse Wilson and Altavilla. No? No press conference? And I was so hopeful Reinsdorf would change things after he said at the end of this season that he would change things.
I heard the Sox convention was at the Starbucks on Halsted.
sports: It is, and there should be plenty of room since no one under a Sox contract will attend.
That is truly sad. I never understood why they stopped doing it.
Manfred: So they wouldn’t have to face fans questions about why they’re so awful and won’t put a dime into the team to make them better.
Sox Convention at the newly remodeled Ramova Theater in the heart of Bridgeport. next month.
Actually sounds like a great venue and time. Sox convention reimagined with music and entertainment at a hip historic theater that Chance the Rapper helped restore. Instead of a bunch of middle aged dudes in their bluey tidy whidies lining up for autographs in McCormick place annex E whiling away their wait with a chorus of go Cubs go. Unless you’re there with your kids, attending fan conventions when you’re 2 x the age of the players, kinda creepy, no?
Dumpster Divin’: You forgot the rest of that song: Go cubs, go, out of town…
The steroid era should be left back in the “closed files” filing cabinet. Effectively barring PED-associated players from the HOF and keeping them at arm’s length for team-related activities is pretty ample punishment. Pity no responsibility taken by MLB/Ownership, who clearly knew what was going on but liked the dollars. And a second razzing for employing known users (in the booth, in PR jobs) because….you like them anyway.
Remember that little hop the steroids would give Sosa whenever he hit a home run? #90smemories
>I never broke any laws
This is not likely to be true. If you acquired your drugs from someone not authorized to distribute them, you broke the law.
Corky Sosa is baseballs all time biggest cheater!!
ARod and Papi say hi, minus the finger wag
I think the problem for a lot of the players of that era is there is no good way to come clean. Say you did it for the numbers and you are selfish. Say you did it for the money and you are greedy. Say you did it because the owners encouraged/told you to do so (they did, you know owners were paying for this crap and probably had it in buckets between the sunflower seeds and the big league chew) and you open up a bigger can of worms that is not limited to slander and lawsuits by billionaires trying to cover up their own bad deeds.
The era doesn’t bother me as much as some because i realize the impact of it wasn’t about the individual numbers for the players, but the salvation of the game. We’re used to seeing empty stadiums in Oakland, Miami and Tampa Bay but after the strike the stadiums were empty everywhere and this brought the fans back and at the end of the day thst is all the owners and the MLBPA cared about
I like Sosa.. and I’m not even sure an apology is necessary. But what a lousy apology..
I did something wrong and I’m sorry.. but I did it for all the right reasons.. others were doing it.. it really didn’t have that much of and impact.. my ill-begotten accomplishments are underappreciated.
CK, Not everybody were caught with illegal substance in bat like Sosa. I was watching that game with cub fans and they saw it as well.
Tom Ricketts knew back then, and to now take the morel high ground- is just ignorant. Tom didnt care back then beause HE sold tickets.
Especially after they converted morel, into Tucker (nee Paredes)
—————
moral
—————
How did the fellas in the stable show their appreciation for a well delivered punch lime or yarn on Arsenio Hall? They’d go “Hoof, hoof, hoof!”
I remember a sign from a nationally televised game against the rival Cardinals (after the cork incident).
SOSA – STEROIDS – CORK = 10 HRS
Cardinals fans went in. Good times.
I was at the Cork game! Good times
Also recall the improper sign: “what do Cub and Cardinals fans have in common? They both love Pujols”
You beat me to it