No, Please, Go Away

Sammy Sosa wants back in.
Really, I was never a huge Sosa fan but I never actively disliked him, either. And unlike some people I’m not calling for Sosa, McGwire, Bonds, Sheffield and Palmeiro to be barred from Cooperstown. Like the great spitballer Ed Walsh, or like the cheat-any-way-they-could Orioles of the 1890s, they were creatures of the conditions of their era.
But baseball needs to turn the page on that era. We’re stuck with Bonds – he hit too well last year and is too close to the record for him to end up blackballed this offseason – and for a little longer we will be stuck with Sheffield, as well perhaps with other veteran sluggers yet to be unmasked. But we don’t need any more of those guys playing in the aftermath of the steroid revelations than we have to.