2/24/2005 09:11:00 AM by Rob

Oh, God

THIS is the day I’ve been waiting for, for Sam-Me is in his New House, and he made himself at home, absolutely. He’s still mad at Dusty for batting heem seexth, he’s calling Mark Prior and Kerry Wood liars for saying that the Cubs are better off without him, and most of all, most of all, he can’t figure out WHY, oh why, people in Chicago are forgetting all the Good Sammy Sosa when all he made was two meestakes in thirteen years?

Good jumproping Christ, where in the living fuck do I START with this quiescently frozen fuckstick?

Let’s get the good news out of the way. I would not be surprised if Sosa hits 45 or more homers this year. In fact, I’m pretty much counting on it. If this should happen, people, bear down, and relax. The Orioles are still going to finish no better than third, they might end up fourth, or hell, maybe last, and they’ll lose more than they win at the end of the year.

He can be mad at Dusty all he wants, because, if anything, Dusty fucked up the whole communication process concerning his batting order last year. He should have batted Sosa fifth TO BEGIN WITH, and dropped him from there when he wouldn’t cut down his swing to make contact and reduce his strikeouts. Sosa has ALWAYS forgotten that HE is a BALLPLAYER, that the old guy on the bench is the MANAGER, and it’s the old guy’s job to make out the order as he sees fit. This will not change at all in Baltimore.

He can accuse Prior and Wood of lying if he wants, big fucking whoop. What they actually are on record as saying is NOT that the Cubs would be better off without him, but that they would “get by” without him. Some, like Prior, and Wood, and Me, actually DO think what SamMe is accusing us of, and he can disagree, that’s fine. It’s gamesmanship, and he’s always had a dangerously inflated image of himself, that’s no surprise. Let him have his delusion.

It’s not even the unscheduled day off. SamMe points to that as being one of his “meestakes”, the corked bat being the other. You know, I don’t care. The Tribune cared, Dusty cared, his teammates cared, so I guess in their scope, as limited and as unrealistic it may be, the last day is a big deal. Don’t count ME as one of the bleating sheep. If THAT was the straw that turned the masses against Sammy Sosa, then the masses haven’t been paying attention.

He has spent his whole career in the plum #3 role, and he has been the highest paid Cub since 1997. You all can cite a few instances where his homers have tied or won a game; in fact, I believe he led the league a few years in that category, which should be no surprise in that he led the league in homers of ANY type in those years. But those games represent a mere handful of the total number of chances he had to win games, with runners on the bases. His batting average with runners in scoring position has sunk like a rock since 1999. His strikeouts have remained constant at about 1 per 4 plate appearances, while his walks have been cut in half. His batting average and slugging percentages have fallen from .300/.600 to .250/.450 in that same time.

He does not hit cutoff men, he does not run the bases well, he has been pretty brittle the last few years, between toes, back, abdominals, wrists. He does not lead, he cannot follow, he annoys his teammates with his prima donna attitude….Sosa always has and always will be a team unto himself.

I personally have never seen him inject himself with steroids, but I am willing to bet everything I own, my life, and the lives of my whole family, that he used them between the years 1998-2002. He isn’t using what he was before, and his performance has slipped greatly as a result.

Finally, and most importantly to me, for all his homers, all his RBIs, and the rest of his Hall-Of-Fame statistics, the one that matters the most is that he has not played in a World Series. He is LIVID because he feels like he is being blamed entirely for the shipwreck that was the 2004 Chicago Cubs.

Well, to be honest, he should NOT receive 100% of the blame. But he sure as hell should expect to be only receive the 4% of the blame as an average member of a 25-man roster. First of all, everyone knows that the Cubs Clubhouse was Heees House, thus, most of the blame for the toxic atmosphere should go to the Host. Next, he pulled down 1/5th of the total salary, and received a similar share of critical game-changing chances at the plate as a mid-order hitter. The offense was designed around him, players were acquired to ‘protect him’ in the batting order.

I personally think that Dusty Baker, and his inability to handle a bullpen, gets the biggest slice of the 2004 Humble Pie. But SamMe gets the second biggest piece, and he should just make like a good boy and eat his shitty slice, and then wipe off his greezy piehole, and shut it the fuck up, once and for all.

You’re an Oriole now, prick. Go pull a worm out of the ground, or something….

---