Associated Press
NEW YORK ó Sammy Sosa tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003, The New York Times reported Tuesday on its Web site.
The Times said Sosa is one of 104 players who tested positive in baseball’s anonymous 2003 survey, which has been the subject of a protracted court fight. The paper did not identify the drug.
It cited lawyers with knowledge of the 2003 drug-testing results and reported they spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to publicly discuss material under court seal.
Sosa is sixth on baseball’s career home run list with 609, all but 64 for the Chicago Cubs. He has not played in the majors since 2007 with Texas.
In 2003, baseball did not have penalties for the first-time use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Sosa’s agent, Adam Katz, told The Associated Press he had no comment on the report. Commissioner’s office spokesman Rich Levin also had no comment, saying Major League Baseball didn’t have a copy of the test results.
Michael Weiner, the union general counsel, also declined comment. The union, while fighting to get the list back from the government, has mostly refused to discuss reports about the list.
New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez in February admitted using steroids from 2001-03 with Texas following a report by Sports Illustrated that he was among the 104 players on the list.
Sosa sat at a 2005 hearing before Congress and testified: “To be clear, I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.”
“I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything,” he told the House Government Reform Committee on March 17, 2005. “I have not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic. I have been tested as recently as 2004, and I am clean.”
That left open the possibility he used a substance legally in the Dominican Republic that would have been illegal to use in the United States without a prescription.