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Sammy Sosa Was Vain, Too

Superificial slugger hiked up sleeves to show off steroid-infused arms

By Eamonn Brennan

| Tuesday, Jun 23, 2009 | Updated 10:45 AM CST

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Sammy Sosa, both a cheater and a meathead.

Sammy Sosa was a clown. This is meant in both a positive and negative sense.

Good clown Sammy sprinted out to right field every day. Good clown Sammy talked to fans on almost every play, acknowledging how many outs there were and raising his hand anytime anyone cheered his name. Good clown Sammy had a huge smile and a really cool manner of leaving the batter's box after one of his 600-plus career home runs.

Bad clown Sammy did typically clowny stuff like, you know, taking steroids. Or using cork in his bats. (That's not even that evil; that's just stupid. Cork can't help you that much, can it?) Bad clown Sammy irritated opposing fans by posing and flaunting and by seeming, for better or worse, too attention-greedy for his own good. Bad clown Sammy left his last game at Wrigley early.

Today, we can add a new chapter to the saga of Sammy Sosa, and this one goes directly into the bad clown category: Sosa altered the sleeves on his jerseys to make his arms look bigger. We know this thanks to an eBay auction of one of Sosa's authentic Cubs jerseys, which have an elastic band woven into the sleeves. MLB doesn't make such a jersey. Meaning, yes, Sosa requested elastic sleeves. That's all Sammy.

Which means that Sammy Sosa not only took steroids, but having done God knows how many cycles of God knows what, Sosa then hiked up his sleeves and flexed his muscles for all the world to see. That's not just stupid, though it is that. That's also incredibly vain, and about as cool as the meathead you knew in high school who insisted on going sleeveless whenever possible. For his next act, Sammy Sosa will drive his Camero to the McDonald's parking lot and pick a fight with rival high schoolers.