Pedro Martinez' whining re: Sosa

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

From an article on MSNBC about Sosa getting suspended for 8 games:

Well, now - that seems a little pointless and whiny. A corked bat is a corked bat - period. Calling “race!” seems inappropriate - not that racism doesn’t occur in baseball - I am sure it does and where it does, it is awful - but this just seems whiny.

If I am missing something here, please help me see it, but for now, between his whining about his contract, ownership and other things, I am losing respect for Martinez, one of the best pitchers around…

2

Gee, I could swear I read on ESPN that Canseco had essentially the same thing to say. And pretty much, if Jose Canseco agrees with Pedro, we can be sure that Pedro is wrong.

3

Actually, Pedro has it bass-ackwards. During Sammy Sosa’s race with Mark McGwire to break Roger Maris’ record, the majority reporters were clearly pulling for Sammy, precisely because of Mark McGwire’s use of andro (which, like it or not, is legal).

Reporters generally LIKED Sammy a lot more than they liked the “white” McGwire.

4

I’m not sure that’s true, astorian. And besides, Sammy was on creatine himself.

5

This isn’t surprising. Harldy a season goes by in which Pedro doesn’t whine about something. He’s always a victim.

6

I wonder if Pedro would be so quick to jump to Sammy’s defense if Sammy had jacked, say, 60 dingers in his career off Pedro.

7

Well, not having taken a survey of sportswriters, I’m not SURE they liked Sosa betetr than McGwire, but that was definitely the feeling I got from the numerous newspaper accounts I read of the homer derby.

Add to that the fact that Sammy was the MVP winner that year (yes, there were multiple factors at work, including the fact that the Cubs managed to squeak into the playoffs and the Cards didn’t), and I’d say there’s a prima facie case that reporters liked Sammy better.