Sammy "Say It Ain’t" Sosa!!

[Realgeorge]

Sammy is all pumped up with steroids, but here in Birdland, we'll take him. So Sammy is coming to Baltimore, and Jerry Hairston goes to Chicago. Sammy will do fine in Charm City, and Hairston will have a great career in Chicago. The Sunpapers are all abuzz with the deal. The sleepwalking Orioles, with the two-headed GM, and Peter Angelos a.k.a. The Angelo of Death as owner, have delivered seven count 'em, seven disgraceful losing seasons. Yes, Angelos deliberately barbecued his Birds five years ago, deliberately acquiring a last-place ballclub to ward off competition from the new Washington franchise.


So we trade for Sammy "Say it Ain't" Sosa. He might have one more good year in him. I actually like Sammy, he isn't nearly the surly, hateful type so prevalent in the game. He'll fit in nicely with the many "Latinos" already on the Orioles roster. And the O's needed a right-handed power hitter. Gosh I miss Jeff Conine, got yet another World Series ring with the Marlins.


The real story here is that a good white guy, and excellent ballplayer, actually managed to NOT get screwed. This is one Brian Roberts, young and talented 2B for the Orioles. I love to watch him play. Fast, steals bases, catches everything, hits sweet line drives every fourth at-bat, best 2B in Baltimore in many years. Gives an intelligent and gracious interview, and come to play everyday. He was competing head-to-head with Jerry Hairston (b) for the second base job. Jerry had some injuries, went to the outfield, and had more injuries. It was too bad for Jerry, because he is a superb ballplayer as well. Many of us would have loved to retain both of them. But No Way -- the media hyped-up the rivalry. Absolutely amazing -- The Orioles keep the white guy and trade the black fellow. Did the Earth stop spinning on its axis!?


Even more strange, is that the move makes sense. Roberts is a great fit, and Hairston great bait to lure in the slugger. We'll take pumped-up Sammy for a year. I'll enjoy watching him strike out one hundred and sixty times. Maybe he will hit some home runs and win a few games for the O's. But I'm happy for Hairston, gets to go back to hometown and be near family, full of excellent ballplayer family. Roberts will become B'more fixture at 2B. And the Orioles will continue tostink. After all, it's Peter Angelos's team

 

[JD074]

During all this Sosa trade talk, they showed some footage of
him in his younger years. Wow. Couldn't even recognize him.
I guess that was the pre-Slammin' Sammy.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Yep JD,he was a much more average looking baseball player back then. I don't think anyone noticed him until he got huge with the juice and started hitting the ball. I know I didn't. Oh well, I doubt he'll ever get back to his 1998 prowess, especially since they are going to do SOME drug testing now. If they are going to test though, it should be done a lot.

 

[Realgeorge]

Sammy Say-it-ain't Sosa! Rah rah rah


Watched him strike out three times tonight. He's batting .222. He has struck out one-third of all his at-bats this year. Sammy is over the hill and should be cut from the roster immediately.


Gosh how many teams through the years have desperately signed a decaying has-been superstar and internalized his agonizing demiseEdited by: Realgeorge

 

[IceSpeed2]

The Orioles won more early in the season with Sosa spending time on the DL. Palmeiro is a similiar story I think.

 

[Bart]

Sammy mayonce again take advice fromdisgruntled fans in Chicago, who told him to ---"stick a cork in it."

 

[Bear-Arms]

I hope something similar doesn't happen with the White Sox now that Frank Thomas cameback.

 

[Don Wassall]

Sammy is currently hitting a robust .234 with 11 homers and 34 RBIs.

An AP article today quotes Orioles manager Lee Mazzilli thusly: "He's starting to come out of it. I think there was an adjustment period coming over to this league as well. You're talking about a Hall of Famer and this is the largest stretch he has gone [in a slump], and he has to make an adjustment."


What Mazzilli probably wanted to say was, "We're paying this clubhouse cancer $17,875,000 and he has 11 frickin' home runs? Do I ever hate baseball's new steroids testing policy. How do you spell 'washed up'?"


Maybe Sammy's smile will pull him out of it. The above mentioned AP article has the obligatory reference to his glory year, when Sosa's smile "lit up the summer of 1998."

 

[jaxvid]

Interesting that the wonderful "smile" of so many black athlete's was once referred to a "watermelon grin". This exceptionally un-PC phrase (last publicly used by Rick Barry to describe a picture of Bill Russell) has disappeared but not the white media's desire to compliment blacks on their bright toothy grins. Notice how many black athletes have that description. Sosa, Tiger Woods, the Williams sisters. Gee if only white athletes could "light" up like that.

 

[robcat]

Maybe theyll soon be smashing Sammys boom box in the Orioles locker room, like his Cubs teammates did in Chicago.

 

[JD074]

Great point, Jaxvid. I believe it was last year's home run derby when Chris Berman commented on no less than three black guys' big ol' smiles. Weird.

 

[Realgeorge]

And the Orioles are achieving freefall, forget the 48-34 record in May. Now they stink and are already out of contention. Stick a fork in em, they're done. And Sammy say-it-ain't Sosa does have a wonderful smile, albeit with a big ol' chaw in it. And he sprints out to right field at the start of every home game. Scintillating!


During last night's rain delay, the Oriole's flagship station replayed the last inning of the Fourth Game of the 1966 World Series, Orioles vs. Dodgers. What a class bunch those Orioles were compared to the new clipped-wing variety. Oh ... and Vin Scully voice of the Dodgers was very cordial and positive calling the sad last inning of the Dodgers collapse that year


Yuri

 

[JD074]

Sosa is noticeably thinner this year as well. I wonder why....

 

[Don Wassall]

Interesting that the wonderful "smile" of so many black athlete's was once referred to a "watermelon grin". This exceptionally un-PC phrase (last publicly used by Rick Barry to describe a picture of Bill Russell) has disappeared but not the white media's desire to compliment blacks on their bright toothy grins. Notice how many black athletes have that description. Sosa, Tiger Woods, the Williams sisters. Gee if only white athletes could "light" up like that.

Now that you mention it, here's the first sentence of the AP article about the second round of the Buick Open: "Tiger Woods had plenty of reasons to pump his right fist and flash an ear-to-ear grin."


Too bad there's not a watermelon emoticon to insert here, so I'll settle for this one

 

[Bear-Arms]

The O's are really having some bad luck with injuries aren't they?

 

[Realgeorge]

Sammy Continues to Stink


Stick a fork in him, he's done. Sammy can't play the game anymore. Stikes out three times a game, even after 125 games. The Orioles have the worst two-headed GMs in pro sports, but they can agree that Sammy is toast. Thank Goodness they signed him for only one year.


Yuri [Buy CasteFootball business cards !!]Edited by: Realgeorge

 

[jaxvid]

Sammy is all pumped up with steroids, but here in Birdland, we'll take him. So Sammy is coming to Baltimore, and Jerry Hairston goes to Chicago. Sammy will do fine in Charm City,

So we trade for Sammy "Say it Ain't" Sosa. He might have one more good year in him. I actually like Sammy, he isn't nearly the surly, hateful type so prevalent in the game. He'll fit in nicely with the many "Latinos" already on the Orioles roster. And the O's needed a right-handed power hitter.

Realgeorge, what happened!

 

[Realgeorge]

Hello Jaxvid !! What Happened Indeed !


I was blinded by the irrationality of the White Sports Fan, which J. B. Cash so eloquently described in his summer article. All White Sports Fans latch onto rose-colored fantasy, that's what sport is for in a totalitarian dictatorship. I also bought into the "Give a guy a chance, everyone gets to be new one time." I'm a sucker! but cut my losses quickly.


We gave Sammy the benefit of doubt. He turned out to be such a bust! Well, darn. Sammy is one of many busts I have rooted for throught the years. Let's see ... Jaromir Jagr (Caps), Denny McLain (Senators), Heath Shuler (Redskins), Sammy Sosa (Orioles) are major disappointments as Saviors of DC-area and Baltimore sportsteams. Dozens more can be brought to mind easily.


Several Baltimore-area sports analysts theorize that Sosa has suffered irreparable confidence and motor damage from being "beaned" last season. Others cite "withdrawal symptoms" from going cold-turkey off of steroids. I think that those two, combined with simple aging have contributed to Sammy's inability to hit a baseball.


Hopefully Sammy will slip slowly, slowly into oblivion after he is cut from the roster in eight weeks. He sure is a quieter man than during his Cubs heyday. But I sympathize with Sammy about aging and injuries. My own days of raquetball and soccer and softball are over due to painful knee injuries. Life just ain't fair!


Thanks for reading, Jaxvid. Your posts are super. I like CasteFootball and its members. Maybe one day we can have a convention.


Yuri [Buy CasteFootball Business Cards !!]

 

[jaxvid]

Realgeorge I remember the Denny McClain deal well. Tigers got Eddie Brinkman, shortstop, Aurelio Rodriguez, third base, and Joe Coleman pitcher, for Denny and someone else. Brinkman and Rodriguez achored the left side of the Tigers infield for years and Coleman was a solid pitcher (I think he won twenty games once). It has to be one of the worst trades in baseball history.

 

[Realgeorge]

So Long Sammy


Several weeks ago the new GM Flanagan announced that the Orioles will not re-sign either Rafael Palmeiro or Sammy Sosa in 2006. Looks to me that Sammy may be staring at oblivion or retirement. Palmeiro still swears that his positive Steroids test was the result of vitamin B-12 injections.


The Orioles are not an attractive venue for MLB players, it will hard for them to replace Palmeiro or find a true slugger

 

[Don Wassall]

I'm glad that Sosa became washed up so quickly, and Palmeiro was the cause of his undoing. But what gets me is that both of these frauds are high up on the all-time home run list, displacing worthy sluggers from the past.

 

[Realgeorge]

Swingin' Sammy has a tryout planned with a Texas Rangers minor league team. ¡Ay Caramba!

 

[Don Wassall]

Sosa hit his 600th home run tonight. I caught the beginning of "Baseball Tonight" on the flagship network of the Caste System, and it was all hero worship. Nary a word about steroids, only a brief mention of "tainted" records, which prompted John Kruk

to start praising Sosa like he was Tiger Woods. Sosa "carried baseball on his back for 3 or 4 seasons," "he made baseball fun again," "he humanized Mark McGwire." It's only white players like McGwire and Giambi who are continually hammered by the media about steroids and made to pay a price.

 

[Don Wassall]

Mark McGwire was resoundingly rejected by Hall of Fame voters, but now that Sosa has hit 600 homers,compared to McGwire's seventh best all time of 583, the boys of ESPN overwhelmingly findSosa to be Hall material. What a surprise.


Sosa, like Bonds, entered the big leagues as a skinny spray hitter, whereas McGwire blasted 49 HRs as a strapping rookie, but who cares about trivialities like that. Sosa will get in the first time he's on the ballot; McGwire will never get in.


http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2875680

 

[Bart]

Sosa hit his 600th home run tonight.... Nary a word about steroids... It's only white players like McGwire and Giambi who are continually hammered by the media about steroids and made to pay a price.

Interesting that Sammy bowed out of baseball when the steroid fuss was heating up, but comes back after missing an entire year in order to reach 600 homers. Mark McGwire was very close to that total also. If he had decided to return at one point over the last few years toreach that total, howwould havethe media responded? Would they be relatively passive as is the case with Sosa? Hardly! They would have skinned Mark alive.


So, now we have arrived at Sosa reaching a home run milestone and being praised by many and Bonds ready to do the same.We will havemore Negro League tributes this weekend, and the player most vilified by the media and MLB is Jason Giambi who is being forced by Bud Selig to meet with George Mitchell. Go figure.