Say it ain't so, Sammy

The Charlotte Observer has an article out of The New York Times by Michael Schmidt about Sammy Sosa and (what a surprise!) performance-enhancing drugs:

Sammy Sosa, who joined with Mark McGwire in 1998 in a celebrated pursuit of baseball's season home run record, is among the players who tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug during 2003, according to lawyers with knowledge of drug-testing results from that year. The disclosure makes Sosa the latest baseball star of the past two decades to be linked to performance-enhancers, a group including McGwire, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Rafael Palmiero. Sosa, sixth on baseball's career home run list, and who last played in 2007, had long been suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs but had never been publicly linked to a positive test.
During a recent interview with ESPN Deportes, Sosa, 40, said he would “calmly wait” for his induction into baseball's Hall of Fame, for which he will become eligible in 2013. But his 2003 positive test, when he played for the Chicago Cubs, might seriously damage his chances, a fate encountered by McGwire, who has attracted relatively little support from voters on three ballots.
The 2003 positive test also could create legal troubles for Sosa because he testified under oath before Congress at a 2005 public hearing that he had “never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.” The test that ensnared Sosa was the first such test conducted by Major League Baseball. Under guidelines agreed upon with the players union, the results were to remain anonymous but would lead to testing with penalties the next year if more than five percent of the results were positive.
That is what occurred. But for reasons never made completely clear, test results were not destroyed by the players union and 104 positives subsequently were seized by federal agents investigating matters related to distribution of drugs to athletes.
As the union feared, the names on the list have begun to emerge. In February, Sports Illustrated reported Rodriguez was on the 2003 list, and he subsequently acknowledged he had used steroids for three years. Now, Sosa's name has been disclosed. The lawyers who had knowledge of Sosa's inclusion on the 2003 list did not know the substance for which Sosa tested positive. A lawyer for Sosa, Jay Reisinger, declined comment, as did an official with Major League Baseball.