(Jay Mariotti predicts one of these men will be voted into the hall, whether he likes it or not)
Writes Jay Mariotti in The Chicago Sun-Times: His name isn’t Sammy Sosa. It’s David Copperfield, Criss Angel, Houdini. Is it not ridiculously uncanny, if not a miracle in escapability, that so many players associated with the Steroids Era have been implicated and shamed while Sosa continues to elude the snare?
Indeed, Sosa eludes a solid steroids link in the same way Jay Mariotti has artfully eluded the Pulitzer all these years. But what’s worse, a world in which Sosa gets into the Hall or one in which a Jay Mariotti votes on the Hall? Fortunately, lack of evidence isn’t going to sway Mariotti:
You may believe Larry Craig before you believe any of that. You may think Sosa is a stone-cold liar. But when we’re dying for the truth about baseball, that is all we have on him. If he isn’t signed by a team before next season and his career is over, those of us who vote for the Hall of Fame will have a tricky decision in five years. McGwire failed on his first try, named on a scant 23.5 percent of the ballots. Most members of the Baseball Writers Association of America say they won’t vote for Bonds. I still wouldn’t vote for Sosa because he appeared before Congress with the same self-indicting mumbles that shamed McGwire, advancing an absurd notion that his English was poor. But if the stars of the Steroids Era are in part being judged on dirt, there simply may not be enough to omit Sosa, who is fifth on the all-time list with 609 homers.