Former Republican congressman Tom Davis told the Daily News that he wasn’t so surprised to learn that slugger Sammy Sosa tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance in 2003, the results of which was revealed only recently. He said that they (congress) all knew that Sosa was probably using some substance, especially since those “things” were legal in the Dominican Republic where Sosa was from. Davis said that they somehow knew Sosa was choosing his words carefully during the big Congress steroid investigation in 2005 where Sosa was summoned and denied to using steroids or performance-enhancing drugs.

Davis was the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee during the inquiry and one of his responsibilities was to monitor big American industries for fraud, and to intervene when those industries are unable to self-regulate. MLB was one of those industries that went haywire, exposing its players’ out-of-control use of banned substance after the controversial tell-all “Juiced” by Jose Canseco, which accused several MLB players including Mark McGwire of using steroids.

During the infamous hearing which took place in March 17, 2005, Sammy Sosa said that he never took illegal performance-enhancing drugs—which may have some truth to it. In Santo Domingo where Sosa hails from, it is both legal and easy to buy performance-enhancing drugs, which are otherwise banned in baseball. In addition to this, Sosa relied on an interpreter during the investigation, which can insulate him of perjury charges. Of this, Davis says that under the law, those issues would make a conviction more difficult. He was quick to add, however, that the inquiry was never about convictions; it was not their intention to conduct a witch hunt and have a field day, but to clean up the mess that the game was muddled with.

Now a consultant with Deloitte LLP, the ex-congressman was also a ranking Republican on the second round of hearings regarding the disputes of Roger Clemens and former Senator George Mitchell’s report on MLB’s use of steroids and its drug culture.

Davis says he is proud of the accomplishments that his committee has made in fixing the steroid problem of the MLB. Because of the pressures that they insisted on the league in the 2005 and 2008 hearings, the league was forced in commissioning the Mitchell report, to overhauling their drug policies, and establishing an Internal Department of Investigations, which incidentally was the team that busted Manny Ramirez.

At the end of the day, Davis said, they did not pass a law, they just held hearings and they got the private sector to take action. Davis is also proud that he and his colleagues, as well as the California Democrat stuck together during brutal criticisms and partisan times. When they launched their baseball probes, they got a lot of angry phone calls from owners and union leaders.

Together with Congressman Henry Waxman who also led the probe, Davis said that all they wanted to do was expose the steroid and drug use and stop it, and that they were not out to indict anybody. They wanted a change in policy, and he believes that is what they got.

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