Read the quotes from Sammy Sosa in Sports Illustrated's "Where are they now?" piece on the great home-run chase of 1998 and you'll think: Yup, that's him.
The story opens with Sosa sipping 12-year-old scotch while lounging in a leather chair at a seven-star hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He doesn't have time for social media, he says. Too busy making a fortune in oil (Dominican Republic), stormproof housing (Panama), beverages (the U.K.) and real estate (UAE).
Oh, Sammy, you international titan of industry, you.
Sosa still kinda sorta maintains that his massive musculature was achieved legitimately, telling SI: "I never failed a drug test. So why are you asking me about that when they don't have nothing on Sosa?"
Interestingly, the piece quotes an unnamed Cubs team source as saying: "It's never been our position that we want Sammy to wear a hair shirt and sit in front of Wrigley and be punished for weeks on end. This is simply, 'I messed up, and there's something to learn from it, and I'd love to get back in the fold.' It would take one sentence."
There's no sign of Sosa being willing to utter such a sentence.
Sosa crafts an image of a man whose existence is so full and rich, he does not need to relive his superhero days at Wrigley Field: "This is my life, and I don't take garbage from nobody."
Remember the interview that Sosa did this spring with David Kaplan of NBC Sports Chicago?
"I'm a humble man," he told Kaplan. "I'm not a man to have ego."
A truer picture of Sosa is on display in this SI piece.
"I passed Ernie Banks for most home runs in Chicago Cubs history," Sosa says. "He has a statue, and I don't have nothing. So, what the (expletive)?"
