Maybe Sammy Sosa can follow Lance Armstrong and sit down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Or somehow reconnect with the Cubs, a franchise that has ex-players popping up for their convention, during spring training and all over Chicago media outlets to promote whatever charities or business ventures they have going on now. ?
Because it is so hard to see Sosa getting in now, his Hall of Fame campaign is going to need an absolute game-changer.
The Baseball Writers? Association of America overwhelmingly rejected Sosa ? who received only 12.5 percent of the vote ? and didn?t elect anyone to Cooperstown for the first time since 1996.
[SLAMMIN' SAMMY: Writers don't feel Sosa worthy of Hall]
With 75 percent required for election, the judgments came against Roger Clemens (37.6) and Barry Bonds (36.2) once the results were revealed Wednesday on the MLB Network. They may be the two best players of their generation, but they have also morphed into billboards for The Steroid Era.
This shutout can?t help the tourism industry in upstate New York, which won?t have much buzz for the July 28 induction ceremony. This marks the BBWAA?s eighth election that did not yield a Hall of Famer. Craig Biggio (68.2), Jack Morris (67.7), Jeff Bagwell (59.6), Mike Piazza (57.8) and Tim Raines (52.2) were the only players to exceed 50 percent this year.
These decisions will be second-guessed and dissected all over cyberspace and talk radio. But Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson and BBWAA secretary/treasurer Jack O?Connell said that they don?t expect to respond with major changes. ?
?We remain very confident with the voting electorate, as well as the procedures and guidelines that we give (them) to consider candidates,? Idelson said on a conference call. ?It?s worked incredibly well. As I walk through the Hall of Fame gallery every day that I?m in Cooperstown, there?s not one plaque that I see (where) I say: ?This person doesn?t belong.? ?
?They take the process seriously and they truly vote their conscience.?
Sosa wasn?t taken down in ?Game of Shadows? or the Mitchell Report, the bestselling book and groundbreaking document that exposed Bonds and Clemens.
But a 2009 New York Times report ? which identified Sosa as one of the 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs during the anonymous survey in 2003 ? is about as close to a smoking gun as you?re going to get in The Steroid Era.
Combine that with a corked bat in 2003, a weak performance at a 2005 Congressional hearing and the way Sosa?s numbers exploded mid-career. Looking at the exit polling ? and hearing about the reputation that he wasn?t a real leader or multidimensional player ? you got the sense that his 609 career home runs wouldn?t be enough.
[PHOTOS: A look at Sosa's career]
Bonds eclipsed Hank Aaron?s record and hit 762 home runs while winning seven MVP awards and becoming a key figure in the BALCO scandal. Clemens won seven Cy Young awards and notched 354 wins and more than 4,600 strikeouts, but those numbers are overshadowed by his escape from perjury charges that he lied to Congress about using performance-enhancing drugs. ?
Michael Weiner ? the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association ? called the BBWAA?s vote ?unfortunate, if not sad.?
?Those empowered to help the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum document the history of the game failed to recognize the contributions of several Hall of Fame worthy players,? Weiner said in a statement. ?To ignore the historic accomplishments of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, for example, is hard to justify. Moreover, to penalize players exonerated in legal proceedings ? and others never even implicated ? is simply unfair.
?The Hall of Fame is supposed to be for the best players to have ever played the game. Several such players were denied access to the Hall today. Hopefully this will be rectified by future voting.?
The Class of 2013 includes former New York Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, umpire Hank O?Day and Deacon White, who last played in 1890.
O?Day passed away in 1935, while Ruppert and White died in 1939. A veterans committee voted them in last month at the winter meetings. Paul Hagen, a longtime Philadelphia Daily News writer, and the late Tom Cheek, a Toronto Blue Jays broadcaster, will also be honored with media awards that weekend.
?Nobody in Cooperstown was rooting for a shutout,? Idelson said, ?but at the same token, we have a great respect for the process.?
At least now the noise can begin to die down. With pitchers and catchers about a month away from reporting to spring training, this is something to fill space in between rounds of the NFL playoffs. We?ve seen enough debate shows, homilies from bloggers and newspaper columnists, and snarky comments all across Twitter. People care as much about your fantasy football team as your hypothetical ballot.
It will be difficult for anyone from this round to create a sense of momentum. Frank Thomas, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Jeff Kent and Mike Mussina will be eligible in 2014.
Mark McGwire will be forever linked to Sosa, their images fused together in 1998 on the cover of a special commemorative issue of Sports Illustrated: ?The Great Home Run Race.? They would become the magazine?s ?Sportsmen of the Year.? McGwire received only 16.9 percent of the vote during his seventh year on the ballot.
[Sammy Sosa's career: A complicated case against Cooperstown]
Sosa got 71 votes on the 569 ballots submitted (five were left blank). That probably doesn?t match up with Sosa?s ego or self-image. Back in 2006, Comcast SportsNet?s Gail Fischer interviewed him at his beachfront mansion in the Dominican Republic. ?
Asked a simple question ? Are you a Hall of Famer? ? Sosa gave a spectacularly awkward answer that sounded like something out of a ?Saturday Night Live? skit.
?Do you think with my numbers I cannot be in the Hall of Fame?? Sosa said, looking around and laughing. ?Huh?...Hello?...Hello??
It?s on Sosa now to change the message. The problems certainly didn?t begin and end with him (or Bonds and Clemens). This went all the way to the top, from Commissioner Bud Selig to team owners to baseball executives to managers to the union to the media. The Cubs certainly cashed in and helped make Sosa a superstar.
Sosa leaned on his lawyer and an interpreter when he appeared before a House Government Reform committee on St. Patrick?s Day 2005. The attorney read a sworn statement, painting the picture of a boy whose father died when we was seven years old, and sold oranges and shined shoes to get by before his talent lifted him out of the Dominican Republic.
Sosa wound up making more than $120 million in his career, according to the Baseball-Reference online database, but he can?t have it all.
Tags: Hall of Fame, Chicago Cubs, Tim Raines, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, Jeff Bagwell, Jack Morris, Craig BiggioSavages Home Run Derby 2012 San Diego fireworks steve nash july 4th higgs boson Malware Monday
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