All’s Quiet on the Sammy Sosa Front … Except For the Clumsy Defense from Paul Konerko
Baseball, Media Gossip/Musings June 18th. 2009, 2:15pm
This is Steve Wilstein, the former AP baseball writer who, at the height of the McGwire-Sosa home run competition in the fraudulent summer of 1998, dared to ask Big Red, “What’s this andro stuff in your locker?” (paraphrased). He was branded a snooper by ornery Cards skipper Tony LaRussa.
In an ironic twist, two days after the New York Times linked Sosa to PEDs … Wilstein’s up for the baseball writer’s wing at the Hall of Fame.
Still nothing from the former popper of Flintstones vitamins. But if we asked him about this sentence, he’d probably pretend he had no clue what it meant:
Others were flummoxed by the assertion that a magic potion might be of assistance in the hitting of a curveball, a naïveté born of insulation and the belief that baseball, being true Americana, was on a higher moral plane than less refined pastimes.
No matter. He’ll have plenty of time to take down that language barrier before meeting with Congress again. In the meantime, he’ll have to settle for guys like Paul Konerko defending him.
”To me, it’s just not a story,” Konerko said Wednesday. ”Some guy writes an article, the sources aren’t public. One of two things needs to happen: Either whoever is going to report, these sources, put your name behind it and put your face out there and tell people who you are. Or someone admits to it and that’s what happened in the Alex Rodriguez thing.”
In the offseason, we humbly recommend a journalism class at the local community college for Mr. Konerko. You say “admits to it” and we say “got caught.”
A Hall of Fame Find by a Sports Reporter (NY Times)
30 Responses to “All’s Quiet on the Sammy Sosa Front … Except For the Clumsy Defense from Paul Konerko”
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June 18th, 2009 at 2:26 PM
A-Rod admitted to it because of unnamed sources. If some guy tells my girlfriend I’ve been fucking her sister the issue will not be who that some guy is, it will be if I was in fact actually fucking her sister.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:27 PM
taguchi – is she hot?
June 18th, 2009 at 2:28 PM
When did this become about Martin Brodeur?
June 18th, 2009 at 2:30 PM
tremendous picture. very deep thinker.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:33 PM
for some reason, I ALWAYS get a good laugh when I think back to those days, and all the fucking stupid sportswriters who are now falling off their high horses faster than Christopher Reeve
June 18th, 2009 at 2:33 PM
taguchi – is she hot?
If you find Sandy Cohen attractive. She makes me feel safe.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:35 PM
andro was not on the banned substance list,legal and over the counter. not sayin mac didnt do PEDs but he wasnt wrong in doing andro
June 18th, 2009 at 2:37 PM
Konerko didn’t believe the Watergate break-in was linked to Nixon until Mark Felt came forward a few years ago.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:37 PM
Agreed. I was doing Andro in 1998 when they found it in McGuire’s locker. It blew my mind at the time that they were making such a big deal out of it.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:38 PM
You’re on a roll today, jpq. Wilstein, apparently, was not on this high horse and had some balls.
Guys like LaRussa and Konerko are all across baseball. It’s the locker room culture bullshit. Regardless of what team the “accused,” “caught” or “admitted” user plays for, he’ll usually be defended by fellow ballplayers.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:42 PM
LaRussa is the worst, and the Joe Buck’s of the world always defend him, like “Tony really believes that McGuire didn’t do steroids.” Which, if you really think about it, is actually more insulting to LaRussa. That’s saying that rather than baldly lying to our faces, which is what I assume LaRussa does, he is actually so stupid that he cannot process the evidence presented to him like 99.9% of the rest of the world.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:42 PM
As it should be.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:44 PM
JFC…
Pedro maybe to Yankees now? Replacement for Wang perhaps?
June 18th, 2009 at 2:48 PM
It’s their only defense. The media and fans won’t be duped again. The media is probably overdoing it now because it effed everything up until about 3-4 years ago. The fans haven’t forgiven or forgotten, but they’re moving on. Most of them probably don’t give a shit, as long as the dudes are clean now.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:49 PM
bullshit? You would feel right and just by ratting out teammates?
It’s tough to rat out peers when you are in a world of peers. No matter the evidence presented.
/brotherhood’d
June 18th, 2009 at 2:50 PM
Re: The picture in this post.
Why is Steve Wilstein sitting in the middle of the forest with a newspaper in hand? Is he pinching a loaf?
June 18th, 2009 at 2:50 PM
Four teams are going to watch him pitch, but make 90 percent of your story about how he would fit in with the Yankees.
Who greenlighted this story? Mike Lupica?
June 18th, 2009 at 2:52 PM
bullshit? You would feel right and just by ratting out teammates?
It’s bullshit because they’re “brotherhood” is the reason people accuse Raul Ibanez of taking steroids. If he doesn’t like the accusations he could look at all his “brothers” roiding it up and actually blame THEM, not some blogger asking reasonable questions.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:52 PM
Looks like you posted about a minute after my next post.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:54 PM
I hope the Yankee’s do sign Pedro, He’d get lit up worse than Wang.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:54 PM
Pedro maybe to Yankees now? Replacement for Wang perhaps?
i thought the Cubs and Rays were after him
June 18th, 2009 at 2:55 PM
@Jay – The Rays and Cubs are already out. Too expensive. Yankees have the check book but do they really need a starter like Pedro?
I don’t think he pitches in a MLB park this year.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:57 PM
Is it possible to turn this into a sexual joke?
June 18th, 2009 at 2:59 PM
Definitely some make-up calls going on now.
I’m just saying that some people you talk to or hear talk get so upset and act hurt that someone they don’t even know is maybe lying* to them, when it is a lie* to defend a teammate. Personally, if I had to pick an alliance, it would be with my teammate and not the media/ stranger.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:00 PM
I was unaware Sammy Sosa was a member of the White Sox.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:02 PM
Of course. He’s that thin, wirey kid that they’re molding to steal bases and play great defense.
/1989′d
June 18th, 2009 at 3:04 PM
General point on teammates/peers vs outsiders. Not speaking to the specific situation.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:06 PM
Barry or Sammy?
June 18th, 2009 at 6:39 PM
I recall Mark Kiszla, who is the Denver Skip Bayless, poking around in Dante Bichette’s locker and looking at all of his “supplements” around that time.
Bichette freaked out, naturally, because Mark fucking Kiszla was pawing through his shit, and it became a huge deal.
Then Kiszla wrote about his suspicion that Bichette was doing steroids–and while he hasn’t admitted it, come on, it’s Dante Bichette–but his point was nullified by his own actions. Nice work.
Bichette’s wife, by the by, was/is unspeakably hot and Brazilian.
June 18th, 2009 at 6:43 PM
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