NewsWhore
06-05-2009, 05:10 PM
It was the announcement everyone was waiting for, just that no one knew when it would come. Potential Hall of Famer Sammy Sosa will officially retire from baseball within the next few days.
The announcement comes as no surprise to baseball followers, considering that Sosa had been out of baseball for more than a year and his age wasn't a selling point to any team looking for a hitter in decline. Though Sosa held out hope that he would or could sign with a Major League team, it was not meant to be.
Sosa retires as one of Major League Baseball's greatest power hitters and a key figure in baseball's reemergence after the 1994 baseball strike that threatened to derail the national pastime from the national consciousness.
Sosa partnered with slugger Mark McGwire in the 1998 season to embark on what would known as "the chase," or the epic summertime battle to break Roger Maris's record of 61 homeruns in a season.
Sosa hit 66 that season to McGwire's 70, but the chase etched the Dominican player into the hearts and minds of many Americans and was given the credit for making it OK to love baseball again.
But Sosa's success at the plate went on to run into controversy when he was linked to the use of performance enhancing substances. Though no proof has ever been found, Sosa's career in the "steroid era" has cast a shadow on his career.
Pundits are unaware if Sosa will be enshrined in Cooperstown, but in an interview with ESPNdeportes.com Sosa commented, "I will calmly wait for my induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Don't I have the numbers to be inducted? Everything I achieved, I did it thanks to my perseverance, which is why I never had any long, difficult moments [as a baseball player]. If you have a bad day in baseball, and start thinking about it, you will have 10 more."
Sosa is the sixth player in MLB history to achieve 609 homeruns, 24th in RBIs with 1,667, 42nd in slugging percentage with .534 and second all time with 2,306 strikeouts.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4229022
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#13)
The announcement comes as no surprise to baseball followers, considering that Sosa had been out of baseball for more than a year and his age wasn't a selling point to any team looking for a hitter in decline. Though Sosa held out hope that he would or could sign with a Major League team, it was not meant to be.
Sosa retires as one of Major League Baseball's greatest power hitters and a key figure in baseball's reemergence after the 1994 baseball strike that threatened to derail the national pastime from the national consciousness.
Sosa partnered with slugger Mark McGwire in the 1998 season to embark on what would known as "the chase," or the epic summertime battle to break Roger Maris's record of 61 homeruns in a season.
Sosa hit 66 that season to McGwire's 70, but the chase etched the Dominican player into the hearts and minds of many Americans and was given the credit for making it OK to love baseball again.
But Sosa's success at the plate went on to run into controversy when he was linked to the use of performance enhancing substances. Though no proof has ever been found, Sosa's career in the "steroid era" has cast a shadow on his career.
Pundits are unaware if Sosa will be enshrined in Cooperstown, but in an interview with ESPNdeportes.com Sosa commented, "I will calmly wait for my induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Don't I have the numbers to be inducted? Everything I achieved, I did it thanks to my perseverance, which is why I never had any long, difficult moments [as a baseball player]. If you have a bad day in baseball, and start thinking about it, you will have 10 more."
Sosa is the sixth player in MLB history to achieve 609 homeruns, 24th in RBIs with 1,667, 42nd in slugging percentage with .534 and second all time with 2,306 strikeouts.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4229022
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#13)