* Times breaks Sosa steroids story

This isn’t so much much justified because you can put the Times on a bookshelf, rather it addresses a more important issue (soap box alert).

I came across this entry from JimmyScottshighandtight.com, a website from a fabulously faux pitcher (think along the lines of a Sasha Baron Cohen, someone who pulls off a character perfectly). Since it mirrors my thoughts almost exactly, I’ll save myself the trouble of writing my own commentary and refer you to his, with a few excerpts to get you going:

Scott writes, among other things:

My beef with the Sammy Sosa revelation is this: Why do we know? When players took these tests, they were told their names would be anonymous: ANONYMOUS. The union was supposed to retain ownership of the test samples after the results were tabulated and destroy the samples. The samples were not destroyed. Federal agents investigating professional athletes and drugs (remember BALCO?) took control of the tests. The union sued, stating the tests were seized illegally. For the past 6 years, the union and government have been battling out ownership of the tests in court. Which all comes down to this: A lot of people know who is on that list of 104 players who failed.

There are union employees. There are employees of Major League Baseball. These two groups were the first to know the members of this infamous group of players. The number of union and MLB people who have known has conceivably been a small group. Because the leaks of A-Rod and now Sosa did not come from these places. The leaks are coming from lawyers who have become involved since the government took control of the samples.

My question: Why are these “sources” speaking out? Why now? It’s six years later. Who is benefiting from leaking these names?

We shouldn’t miss the point, however, that his name never should have been revealed. Whether he used or not is almost irrelevant. Nobody was supposed to know the results. We should not be having this discussion about Sammy Sosa right now because we aren’t supposed to have this information. So why is it coming out? How do these “sources” benefit from first spilling the beans about A-Rod and now leaking word about Sosa?