So he is in a pretty exclusive club with just 4 other players reaching this milestone yet Sosa has some demons in his closet. No championships, corked bat incident, steroids era, etc. So do you think he is hall of fame material? Sosa becomes fifth player to blast 600 home runs ARLINGTON, Texas -- Sammy Sosa's 600th homer resembled so many that came before -- except this time the Chicago Cubs were on the other side. Playing for the Texas Rangers after a year out of baseball, Sosa became the fifth member of the 600-homer club Wednesday night when he connected against his former team. After driving a 1-2 pitch to right-center for a solo shot in the fifth inning, Slammin' Sammy bounced out of the batter's box with his trademark hop and thrust his right fist into the air before reaching first base. He was mobbed at home plate by his teammates while the scoreboard showed pictures of all five members of the elite club: Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Sosa. No. 600 came off Jason Marquis, the 364th pitcher the 38-year-old Sosa has homered off in his 18 major league seasons. It was Sosa's 12th homer in 62 games this season since signing a minor league deal and making the roster in spring training with Texas, the franchise that gave him his start and for which he hit his first homer in 1989. Sosa also has 52 RBIs, which ranks seventh in the American League. He has homered against every major league team in his career. After going into the dugout with his teammates, Sosa came out for a curtain call. He blew kisses to the crowd and acknowledged the Cubs' dugout with a pump of his fist, and Chicago manager Lou Piniella pointed back toward the slugger. Sosa had never faced the Cubs before the series opener Tuesday night. A countdown banner that has hung in right field for about a month was flipped from 599 to 600 -- and a new banner was unfurled in center field congratulating Sosa for joining the 600-homer club. Chants of "Sam-my! Sam-my!" prompted a second curtain call from Sosa. The cheering hadn't even subsided before Frank Catalanotto followed with a homer -- the 75th of his career, to give the Rangers a 6-1 lead. While Slammin' Sammy has had an impressive comeback this season, his pursuit of 600 homers was overshadowed by the Rangers having the worst record in baseball and Bonds' chase to catch Hank Aaron atop the career home run list. Bonds has 748 homers -- seven shy of Aaron's mark -- with only three in his last 97 at-bats. Ruth is third on the home run list with 714 and Mays is fourth with 660. Sosa had a similar homer drought. No. 600 was only his second in 22 games -- a span of 83 at-bats in which his only other homer was a grand slam Friday at Cincinnati. "Sammy's had a great career," Piniella said before the series began. "It's maybe apropos that here the Cubbies are in town and Sammy is going for his 600th home run. He was an icon in Chicago for a long time, was loved." When Sosa returned to the majors, he insisted that he was coming back for more than the 12 homers he needed to reach 600. "I'm going to go beyond that. I'm not going to stop there," Sosa reiterated this week. A tumultuous 2005 season almost drove Sosa out of the game for good. It started during spring training that year when he testified before Congress about possible steroid use in baseball, and it didn't get much better from there. He hit .221 with 14 homers and 45 RBIs in 102 games with Baltimore before going home to the Dominican Republic, where he stayed for more than a year. Like Mark McGwire and Bonds, Sosa is suspected of using steroids before they were banned by baseball, and he was caught with a corked bat in front of his home crowd when he played for the Cubs in 2003. He has never been penalized for a positive steroid test, however, and was not involved in the BALCO scandal that has dogged Bonds. "I'm quite sure a lot of people were skeptical about him for many reasons," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "But he showed us he was serious about coming back." Sosa is the only player with three 60-homer seasons. He hit .308 with a career-high 66 homers and 158 RBIs in his 1998 MVP season for the Cubs -- and was part of that memorable home run chase with McGwire, the first major leaguer to hit 70 homers. Sosa holds the major league record by hitting homers in 45 ballparks, adding Rangers Ballpark in Arlington and two other stadiums to that list this season. He also homered for the first time at Cleveland's Jacobs Field and at Disney World in a series against Tampa Bay. The slugger was 16 when Texas signed him out of the Dominican Republic in 1985. He was still a lanky kid in 1989 when he made his major league debut and hit his first home run, the only one he had in 25 games for the Rangers before he was traded to the Chicago White Sox and later to the Cubs.
I don't follow baseball anymore, but what's the consensus about him, McGwire, and steroids? Do most people think they took them? I feel kinda suckered because I almost came back to baseball after watching their homerun competition... and again when the 'Stros tried to win it all.... ah well... Rockets fan for life.
dude used a cork bat...who knows how long he had been using that. though like sherv said, if Bonds gets in, so should sammy. then again, mcgwire was no where near the amount you needed to be voted in his first time on the ballot, and hes kind of been in the background in this whole steroids thing as Bonds and Giambi have been front page material for awhile now, no idea if they'll ever get in.
Silly argument, as Bonds is a much, much, much better player and has been over the course of both of their careers.
all 3 of them cheated their asses off. I was joking with my girlfriend, I said I hope bonds hits the homerun that will tie the record, then as he's one step away from home plate someone guns his ass down. guy makes me sick, he does not deserve to have the alltime home run record, not at all.
i don't know exactly when sosa started taking steroids but i'm guessing it was around the time he went from a pretty good power hitter to mr. 66 homeruns. i'm gonna say no to sosa, definitely yes to bonds. sosa's career is entirely built on steroid usage and possibly corked bats, though i'm indicting him on steroids alone. there's no case to be made that sosa is a hall of famer without steroid help while bonds could have retired before he started taking them and still have gotten in. i really believe bonds started taking steroids atleast partly because of mcgwire and sosa. i think he saw them getting all the attention, and he thought, "you think they're good, watch this," and he blew them out of the water. all three guys are cheaters/have cheated but i also believe bonds had a hall of fame career before he ever touched the stuff.
i dont follow bball to much at all but.... from all the talk ive heard over the years on espn and such. are there not other times sosa has broke a bat. those times did it have cork in it??? seems like that would be a question someone would have asked but i dont remember it.
Seriously everyone cheated back then. Even Bagwell. The MLB liked the long ball and thus didn't bother to enforce anything. I don't know why anyone would care so much if he took steroids or not. It was common place for a long time. Its not like he taking steroids now.
He's getting in. Only one with 500+ HR who won't get in for sure: Rafael Palmeiro. McGwire, maybe...he might have to wait awhile.
The McGwire vote already set the precedence... he was nowhere close to getting into the HOF after the last vote, indicating that voters definitely are going to keep the steriod "era" in mind.
McGwire was a sideshow. McGwire was never a great baseball player. He could knock the cover off the ball, but he really did nothing else well, and he stayed hurt so he never was really a benefit to his Cardinals' teams. Barry Bonds and Sosa would both be Hall of Famers if they hit 400 homeruns instead of 600. McGwire wouldn't even be considered.
Congrats to Sammy. While it's widely assumed (and probably correctly) that he took steroids, it still takes talent to put bat to ball and hit it out of the park that many times.
I think baseball should just settle this "steroids era" argement and simply not allow anybody that hit a home run between 1998 and 2005 into the Hall of Fame. Sure, Biggio and Bagwell wouldn't get in, but neither would Bonds, McGuire, and Sosa. You have to give something to get something, I always say... ...and a corked bat? Are you kidding me? If you took an anomyous poll of living hall of famers, I bet you at least half would admit to cheating at least one time in their careers...
Do they allow interpreters when players give their HOF ceremony speeches? Cuz you know Sosa doesn't speak very good English.
He'll be fine. He won't have to give his HOF speech on Capitol Hill. That's the only place where he can't speak English.
