Here’s Sammy Sosa, reported PED cheater, less than two weeks ago:

“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.

So. When can we expect a tersely-worded legal letter to be fired off to the New York Times?

Two down, one hundred and two to go. A-Rod and Sosa’s names have been leaked, and eventually, the rest will emerge. The timing of Sosa’s quotes last week and the release of this information is curious – do you think the lawyers that allegedly leaked this may have seen this piece last week about the slugger in the Chicago Tribune? This isn’t to say that a cadre of lawyers with the list is scouring the papers, looking for boastful players who think they’ve gotten away with something. But it wouldn’t surprise us.

The entitlement of some of these baseball players. If you go in public and deny cheating (hell, talking to ESPN Deportes might as well have been calling a press conference), don’t expect people who have the list in front of them to just let it slide.

Sosa’s options:

- Ignore it. The Mark McGwire solution. It’s worked well for that guy.
- Deny, deny, deny. And challenge the NYT legally. Keep playing up the Flintstones vitamins. When it goes to court, just don’t expect to use the ‘my English isn’t that strong’ charade you pulled a few years back in DC.
- To deflect the negative publicity, leak a player’s name who you know will steal the spotlight from you. A few of his teammates in 2003, for what it’s worth: Injury-ridden Mark Prior, perpetually-angry Carlos Zambrano, slugger Aramis Ramirez and ageless Moises Alou. It probably shouldn’t be too difficult to determine a few names that may emerge next.

Here’s one for the fans:

The fan has been the greatest enabler of the steroids era. Face it: Had the paying customer revolted, the institutional reaction would have been decidedly different. The superstars knew the paying customers were either too forgiving of their golden heroes or too selfish to have their fun and games interrupted (or both) to hold them accountable.

And a question for Bud: If you’re so bitter and jammed up about the names trickling out, why not release the rest of them? Like a band-aid, Bud, just yank it.

Reports of Sammy Sosa’s name on positive-test list is no shocker (LA Times)