Strong hitters, weak answers

Today marks the 19th anniversary of the farcical testimony of, from left, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro during an 11-hour congressional hearing into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

At the time, all three deny using PEDs.

A short time later, however, all three either are found guilty of using steroids (Palmeiro), heavily implicated in taking them (Sosa) or simply confessing to getting help from pharmaceuticals (McGwire).

“I’m not here to talk about the past,” McGwire, now famously, tells the congressional committee.

Of course, the committee’s sole reason for existing is to talk about baseball’s past – specifically its most recent, PED-riddled past.

McGwire’s testimony, or lack thereof, induces face palms both inside the hearing room and outside throughout the baseball world.

More disbelief follows when McGwire directly is asked if he thought using steroids is cheating.

“That,” McGwire says, “is not for me to say.”

Which is more than Sosa says as he lamely relies on an interpreter for his terse, sanitized answers.

Rafael Palmeiro

The irony, of course, is the Dominican-born Sosa pleading ignorance to understanding the questions, even though he is fluent in English.

As for Palmeiro, he simply points his left index at committee members and says, “I have never used steroids. Period. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never.”

Less than five months later, Major League Baseball suspends Palmeiro for – wait for it – for using performance-enhancing drugs. You know, steroids.

Palmeiro never again plays in the majors after the 2005 season— four years after McGwire retires when his body breaks down in 2001 and two years before Sosa limps out of the game after an injury-shortened 2007 season..