Sports

REPORT: SOSA TESTED POSITIVE IN 2003

A published report says slugger Sammy Sosa tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003.

The New York Times, citing lawyers familiar with the case, reported Sosa is one of 104 players who tested positive in a 2003 Major League Baseball survey. The paper did not identify the drug.

The testing period is the same one that revealed current Yankees star Alex Rodriguez used performance enhancing substances while with the Rangers, as reported by Sports Illustrated in February.

Sosa is sixth on baseball’s career home run list with 609, most of them for the Chicago Cubs. He has not played in the majors since 2007 with Texas.

Sosa’s agent, Adam Katz, told The Associated Press he had no comment on the report. Commissioner’s office spokesman Rich Levin also had no comment, saying Major League Baseball didn’t have a copy of the test results.

The former Cubs star is the only major leaguer to hit at least 60 home runs in a season three times. In 2005, he testified to Congress that he never used illegal performance enhancers, and earlier this month said he was patiently waiting for his induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“To just speculate from an era of how many years it was of who did and didn’t do what, it’s impossible,” Cubs general Jim Hendry said before Tuesday night’s game against the Chicago White Sox. “It’s just time to put that whole era behind us and move on.”

Former Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez played against Sosa for many years.

“This news would make me feel terrible if it is proven that Sammy tested positive,” Martinez said in the Dominican Republic.

“This is a problem of all of baseball, not just Dominican baseball. But in reality, this is a problem of education that has to be attacked,” he said.

In Sosa’s statement to the House committee on government reform on March 17, 2005, he said: “I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything.”

“I have not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic. I have been tested as recently as 2004, and I am clean,” he said.

That left open the possibility he used a substance legally in the Dominican Republic that would have been illegal to use in the United States without a prescription.

Rodriguez said during this spring training that his cousin helped him use “boli” obtained in the Dominican from 2001-03.

Sosa, now 40, and Mark McGwire engaged in a race in 1998 to break Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61 home runs. McGwire set the mark with 70, while Sosa, with a big smile and a trademark hip-hop out of the batter’s box, finished with 66.

Sosa followed up by hitting 63, 50, 64, 49 homers in his next four years. He hit 40 in 2003, a season in which he was caught using a corked bat in front of his home crowd at Wrigley Field.

As part of the drug agreement, the results of the anonymous testing of 1,198 players in 2003 were meant to be anonymous. Penalties for a first positive test did not start until 2005.

Cubs Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins told ESPN, “There was always that question mark about ‘Did he or didn’t he?’ and if this report is right, now we know he did. I always thought he was clean and got bigger just with his hard work.”

This month, Sosa told ESPN Deportes writer Yoel Adames, “Everything I achieved, I did it thanks to my perseverance, which is why I never had any long, difficult moments [as a baseball player]. …

“I will calmly wait for my induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Don’t I have the numbers to be inducted?”

Sosa was speaking then at a Dominican Republic government event, saying he was prepared to announce his official retirement.

“I always played with love and responsibility and I assure you that I will not answer nor listen to rumors. If anything ugly comes up in the future, we will confront it immediately, but with all our strength because I will not allow anybody to tarnish what I did in the field,” Sosa said.

“It’s all about timing and this is not the moment to discuss that topic [drug tests]. I’m here as an ambassador to my country, trying to find new business opportunities for my people. Perhaps we’ll discuss some other time. …

“The scandal on steroids and all those suspensions will not overshadow the game.”

With AP; ESPN.com