Believe me it is. Its even easier when I know I am right. The facts all point to Sosa on 'roids, and even other forms of cheating. There is no other way around it. There is no need to listen to the other side when the other side has no basis.

Must be nice to wake up everyday and realize you are going to be right all day. Threre is no reason for me to rebut when you don't listen or see other sides.

"Sosa found his stroke in '93 and hit atleast 30 HR's for 11 years, except for '94 when he hit 25. Where is your proof. 4 years of 50 or more and 3 years of 60 or more."

EXACTLY. His normal average OTHER than those 4 obviously 'roided up years hung in the mid to upper 30's as far as HR's were concerned. In case you haven't noticed, 60 is a lot different than 35. In the juiced years, any warning track flyball was suddenly a HR to Sosa, that is how he doubled his numbers.

You can tell when he's getting off the juice too...try when he went to Baltimore lol. He went from 35 HR from his last season in Chi-town to a whole 14 in Baltimore.

You want proof of Sosa's changing appearance drastically from year to year. Look at a picture of him as a rookie, or even him in 1993, and compare it to how he looks in 1995,1996 etc. His face gets a lot chubbier, and his body gets bulkier and bulkier. As as former athlete and someone who lifts a lot, you don't gain mass that quickly w/o some help.

Ha lol. And btw, you're Congressional hearing argument is quite possibly one of the dumbest arguments ever. He has no trouble speaking English when he's going on one of his egotistical "talking about how great I am" rants, but when he's asked a question about steroids, he needs a translator? If he didn't do anything in the first place, then there would be no need for him to be intimidated.

"This is proof?? In any interview he speaks more than sufficient English. When interviewed by a Congressional panel, it was suddenly "oh snap, I can't speak no English"

If you were brought in front of a congressional hearing wouldn't you want an interpreter so you don't say the wrong thing considering english is your 2nd language. Or sitting in front of Congress wouldn;t be intimidating. Sosa is a citizen of the Dominican he didn't even have to show up.

"There was a certain year when he went from skinny Dominican kid to bloated head Sosa. Not ego-wise, but literally, his head."

What year????? I asked for proof.

"You want proof, he got that big overnight and started hitting homers in bunches for like 4-5 years when in other years he barely crept 40-45."

Sosa found his stroke in '93 and hit atleast 30 HR's for 11 years, except for '94 when he hit 25. Where is your proof. 4 years of 50 or more and 3 years of 60 or more.

Yeah he was dumb and used a corked bat(which has been proven to only add a couple of feet if anything to a ball hit) in a game. Kenny Rogers used pine tar on his hand in a game, or was that BBQ sauce.

Leaving the last game was inexcusable but this guy saved baseball and is the greatest hitter the cubs have ever seen. Where is the proof???????????

Hubert:

100 percent correct on Sosa. But remember, he was hitting Home Runs off of pitchers who were on some form off "junk" also. I cheered for Sosa because he was a Cub and he gave us many thrills especially when he was the ONLY thing we had to cheer about for a few years.

The thing that gets me about all this talk about steriods is that no one talks about the other enhancement -SPEED. Back in the 1970's, speed, uppers, whatever the trendy name of this product enabled a player to party all night get little or no sleep, then pop a pill an hour or two before game time and perform. Pete Rose was famous for doing speed and brazenly admitted it. Ephedra used for weight loss has the same effect as speed. Obviously, the poster team for failure, our 1969 Cubs wasn't on any form of speed.

Aaron,

Well I'm pretty sure that most of those AB came the year he started with the Cubs and then was traded to Clevland. That was in 04 and he hasn't done anything with other clubs since then so I'm not sure that its just the Cubs.

Agree with you on guys like Rusch, Hollandsworth, and Nefi. However, I'm not sure that you give everybody a chance from the minors just to give them a chance. Its not like you can promote everybody just for the sake of doing it. And I guess you have forgotten about Cedeno, Hill, Marshall, Murton, Zambrano, Theriot, and all the Rookies from last year. They were given chances. You can't always promote guys just because they are "due". Having quality vetran bench help is a staple of winning baseball teams. Young guys need to play every day. Riding the bench in the majors doesn't do anything except stunt their developement. Thats why you pick up guys like Mabry and Ward. Second, I haven't heard anything from the Cubs about platooning Murton. There have been some rumors about Floyd but thats it. Nothing from the actual club. Third, Willis was included in the Lee trade so everybody can pretty much agree that was a wash.

Again, great teams are a mix of young guys and vetrans. Some guys struggle at the major league level when they were lights out in AAA. See Ronny Cedeno. He was awesome in AAA, but struggled last year as the everyday SS. IF the club is serious about winning now then you can't afford to let young guys figure it out for a whole season. Pinnela is not the type of manager to let a guy "work things out". Either you preform or you are replaced. Granted, there were guys who were "Dusty Guys." BUt its a new era now.

Jim...you want proof?

- In any interview he speaks more than sufficient English. When interviewed by a Congressional panel, it was suddenly "oh snap, I can't speak no English"

- There was a certain year when he went from skinny Dominican kid to bloated head Sosa. Not ego-wise, but literally, his head.

- The cork.

- You want proof, he got that big overnight and started hitting homers in bunches for like 4-5 years when in other years he barely crept 40-45.

Thought this was interesting

"Sammy Sosa also concluded 2001 with one of the most memorable four-season offensive stretches in Major League history. During that span, the Cubs resident slugger hit at least 50 home runs each year, joining Babe Ruth and Mark McGwire as the only players with more than two 50-roundtripper campaigns. He also established the total base record for a four-year period with 1,621 and his RBI total of 597 was the most in the Majors since Lou Gehrig drove in 639 from 1931-34. Sosa also set the big-league record for most homers over a six-year period with 319.

The 2001 season also saw Sammy Sosa tag 425 total bases for his second 400-plus campaign, setting club marks for extra-base hits (103) and slugging percentage (737), topping the records set by Hack Wilson. In addition, Sosa recorded just the seventh 50-homer/150 RBI season in Major League history. Sosa is the only player since World War II to accomplish this feat, having previously reached it in 1998 as well"

"in 1993 Sammy Sosa becomes the first player in Cubs history to post a "30/30" season, finishing the year with 33 homers and 36 steals. He duplicates the milestone the next full season and along the way, hits the organization's 10,000th home run"

How can anyone say this guy shouldn't be in the HOF???? Show me some proof. i.e. Rafael Palmeiro

Thought this was interesting

"Sammy Sosa also concluded 2001 with one of the most memorable four-season offensive stretches in Major League history. During that span, the Cubs resident slugger hit at least 50 home runs each year, joining Babe Ruth and Mark McGwire as the only players with more than two 50-roundtripper campaigns. He also established the total base record for a four-year period with 1,621 and his RBI total of 597 was the most in the Majors since Lou Gehrig drove in 639 from 1931-34. Sosa also set the big-league record for most homers over a six-year period with 319.

The 2001 season also saw Sammy Sosa tag 425 total bases for his second 400-plus campaign, setting club marks for extra-base hits (103) and slugging percentage (737), topping the records set by Hack Wilson. In addition, Sosa recorded just the seventh 50-homer/150 RBI season in Major League history. Sosa is the only player since World War II to accomplish this feat, having previously reached it in 1998 as well"

How can anyone say this guy shouldn't be in the HOF???? Show me some proof. i.e. Rafael Palmeiro

Zip, if I came off as sounding unimpressed I do apologize. I was looking at your name and his and thought there might be another connection. What Zip Zabel did was amazing and I meant no disrespect to either of you.

Neil, here is the URL for the Web site....and, a wonderful picture of Zip Zabel in uniform....

http://www.mikezulu.com/wetmore.htm

George "Zip" Zabel comes out of the Chicago Cubs' bullpen with two outs in the first inning and winds up with a 4–3 nineteen-inning win over the Brooklyn Dodgers...the longest relief job ever in MLB.

That's the "explanation," Neil....and, worthy of attention and respect from any Cubs fan.

Just my opinion, of course.....

His hometown has a Web site with a great picture of this great Cub.

O.K. Zip, I looked now please explain.

Clark, you are right on your time frame but the information I read in a book stated that(we do not try to make up facts around here). I will do a better job of checking my information in the future. I should have used "one of the first" instead of "first". Thanks again....

Hey, everybody...Cubs fans!

Happy New Year to all....and, especially, to the Cubs players and staff!!

Regarding the Cubs History....I respectfully suggest and request that everybody go over to Cubs.com and look at the Team History section for the 1910's......

Zip Zabel in 1915....

Take a look see....

--Zip

"[Dubois]The guy has simply mashed when given the opportunity..."

Uh, what games were you exactly watching? He WAS given the opportunity with "Holly"! Did you forget?! He flippin' struck out all the time and was a defensive liability. Other than that he "mashed the ball". Geez...

HE SUCKS!!! Maybe, just maybe, this is why he couldn't stick with any other MLB team.

What a great judge of talent you are.

hey guys...couple comments..

Jim---wholeheartedly agree with you

Ryan---I don't know how you can write off a guy like Dubois after only 200 AB's in the majors in 80 games, mostly coming off the bench in late inning situations, pinch hitting, or spot starts....The guy has simply mashed when given the opportunity, and when you compare his stats to Derrek Lee's in the minors and early MLB career, you'll see they're pretty similar, and you certainly wouldn't shuttle Lee back and forth between the bench and starting, because he couldn't get into any sort of rhythm---same goes for DuBois, who should be an everyday player....

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/L/derrek-lee.shtml

http://thebaseballcube.com/players/D/jason-dubois.shtml

The fact is, under the Baylor and Baker regimes, young players were not given the chance to develop...players such as: Choi (though post concussion syndrome made him fall), Bobby Hill, Juan Cruz, Jon Leicester, Francis Beltran, Kyle Farnsworth, Jason DuBois, Corey Patterson, Gary Mathews Jr., Julio Zuleta and Todd Wellemeyer---were all shuttled back and forth between the minors and majors, or had a very short leash while guys like: Novoa, Macias, Guthrie, Rusch, Hollandsworthless, Gerut, Harris, Mabry, Fassero, Alfonseca, Perez, Dempster, Remlinger, Hawkins, Hairston, and Heredia, among others----always had the chance to get it going--and ultimately couldn't.

It's unbelievable to me that other teams like the Marlins, Mariners, Astros, A's, Tigers, Devil Rays, Twins, Braves----pretty much all of baseball-----find ways to integrate their young talent, while we're listening to management talk about possibly get a LH-hitting platoon partner for Murton---our first rookie to really get a chance one year to show what he had, and then have the whole next season under his belt since Mark Grace---and Patterson doesn't count, as his first two years, he was shuttled back and forth under Baylor, ruining his confidence, then got a full season, then got hurt the next, then got a full season, then struggled and split time, then was traded.....UN-BE-FRICKIN'-LIEVABLE that now, after we FINALLY have a position player like Murton out there that shows promise---we have management that wants a platoon partner.....WOW!!!!

And before I get comments on here about Hill and Choi---yes, they brought us ARAM and Lee, and I am 100% satisfied with that---I was just illustrating a point that we CANNOT develop young guys at all, and give them a chance....

Consider Juan Cruz, who really only had one bad year with us, so we get rid of him for Andy Pratt, because his dad Tom Pratt works in our minor league system, and he wanted his son on the team---now Pratt's out of baseball, and Cruz flourished with the D'Backs when given the opportunity to finally start...It's like Hendry plays favorites, and doesn't really give deserving guys the chance to play. That's just my opinion anyway.

Andy Sisco and Willis would be two other examples of how we don't give guys the opportunity to prove themselves....Sisco's a 6'10" lefty, who fanned 76 in 75 IP with a 3.11 ERA in his first year with the Royals out of the Rule 5 draft...sure, he struggled last year, but the Sox thought enough of him to trade their best bench player for him, and we all know the story with Willis. I almost guarantee you that both of these guys would still be in our minor league system to this day---perhaps for the next few years, and disappear into oblivion. We love to give guys like Guthrie, Novoa, Remlinger, Rusch, Perez, Mabry, Marquis, Lilly, etc.---big contracts, and keep our talent in the minors---in case we need them, rather than promote them when they deserve it. Well, at the time, Sisco deserved a look, and Willis had the stats to warrant a look as well...But it is what it is, and we'd rather trade for or purchase aging veterans than give youth a shot. Doesn't that go against logic anyway? Aren't the most talented guys in the NBA in their early 20's, and same for the NFL...Why is it that we've missed out on the gameplans of the Braves, A's, Devil Rays, Marlins, Astros, Twins, etc....Minus the Rays, those are all teams that have given their youth the opportunity to win spots, and they've made the playoffs.

But it sounds like I'm a minority on here---that most of you would rather overpay for the likes of Marquis, Lilly, Hollandsworth, Rusch, Eyre, and Howry (though I do like the latter 2 a lot)---but don't want to take a chance on young guys like Sisco, Willis (while you say it now, most of you wouldn't have given him a shot then), Wellemeyer, Leicester, Cruz, DuBois.

When will we have management that takes a chance? Or will we forever be stuck getting nothing more than AARP discounts on the road? Hey, given the Trib's frugal ways, maybe that's what they were going for all these years to save a buck.

I think the cubs will survive without the addition of David Newhan. Actually, I am thrilled that he is out of the CF equation. I will admit, I am getting bored with the lack of Cub Rumors.

Mordecai:

Bingo on the Orioles bringing in all the ex-cub rejects. Instead of fading away, they just go to Baltimore and make that team even worse.

The Cubs bought their lights in 1941, to be installed the following year. By that time, most major league teams were already playing night games. The first was in Cincinnati in 1935.

I'm not surprised the Orioles have picked over the Cubs' leavings. They may be the worst run team in the majors. I wouldn't even trade the Cubs 2006 front office staff for that one.

That list of signings reads like a recap of most of the Cubs' free agent drafting errors of the past few years. The Orioles are mining for gold, but getting sludge.

Jason Dubois? How far has that guy fallen? Goes from basically starting in LF for us to a minor league contract? I sometimes wonder how some of theese "prospects" get their highly touted status.