Home Run Derby

Sammy Sosa hit his eleventh Home Run of the season tonight.

It was also his 599th career Home Run. He’s about to become only the fifth Major League player in history to hit 600 freaking Home Runs.

The Fanhouse raises a question … where is the fanfare?

However impressive 600 Home Runs might be, it’s small potatoes compared to the biggest Home Run chase of them all … and that’s happening every time Barry Bonds strides to the dish in his quest to surpass Hank Aaron’s 755 Home Runs. The controversy surrounding Bonds doesn’t help Sosa’s cause in redirecting the TV cameras which chronicle Bonds every scratch at the plate.

So Sosa is a victim of timing and scale. But he’s also a victim of his own actions - which have alienated him from baseball fans.

For years in Chicago, Sosa put the “ME” in Sammy. And even though Cub fans ate up his Home Runs like hot dogs … his act was wearing thin after the team couldn’t consistently put together a winner despite his crazy 5-year Home Run spree.

Have I mentioned the corked bat incident in 2003 yet? Any credibility Sosa might have had to keep his name from being labelled an alleged steroid user went out the window right there. If he’s cheated in one facet of the game; what would stop him from cheating another way?

Then Sosa was forced to leave Chicago with his image in shambles after bailing on the Cubs on the last day of the disastrous 2004 season. In a typical Cub move, management destroyed Sosa’s image (and trade value) by releasing the video of Sosa leaving the ballpark early.

And in early 2005, before a Congressional hearing into steroid use in Baseball … Sosa forgot how to speak the English language that he had mastered while in Chicago. There’s a million interviews to prove it.

And then, Sosa spent all of 2006 away from Baseball after a lousy season in Baltimore - which made most people think he was no longer a going concern …

… only to resurface with the Texas Rangers - who are the worst team in baseball this season (yes, even worse than the Nationals) with even worse national TV exposure. Since no one outside of Texas cares about the Rangers … no one sees much of anything about Sosa on a regular basis.

If the fans cared, there would still be spotlights for Sammy Sosa. But through his own actions, he’s alienated himself from the fans, which has made covering his career less of a priority for ESPN and the rest of the baseball media.

We’ve had two Blog Show Dings which means … two Blog Show Wings.  So can we fly now?

Be sure to watch the whole thing, but Home Run Derby is featured about 2 minutes and 45 seconds into this week’s Blog Show for the Great Beards of Baseball …

Bip props to Jamie (Mr. Irrelevant), Littles (The Dude Abides), and Dan (DC Sports Bog) and the Washington Post TV thing for putting us on the Blog Show and a big thanks to BallHype, Babes Love Baseball, Fear the Beard, Empty the Bench, Brogna Blog, St. Louis Sports Magazine, and our buds at Drunk Jays Fans for linking to the Beards week.

We’re less than a month away from the All-Star break and it looks like we’re down to a two-horse race between Triple Crown and Master-Batters for the 2007 Home Run Derby First Half Championship. Standings have been updated.

Over the next 24 days, these two will lock horns for a coveted spot in the yet unpublished Home Run Derby Hall of Fame.  The HRD HOF is coming, Greek, it really is.  Let’s take a look at who these two teams are cheering for … and cheering against over the next score and four days.

And let’s break that down into just their differences …

Triple Crown leads Master-Batters across Groups B, C and D.  But thanks to the BALCO boys (Barry and Gary), M-B’s are really cleaning up in Group E over 3C’s media darlings (David and Grady). 

Who will avoid the late June swoon and take home the First Half Hardware?

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