Sammy Sosa, in an interview with ESPNdeportes.com on Wednesday avoided steroid talks. This also tipped off the upcoming formal announcement of his retirement from baseball. The former Cubs slugger told the website after speaking at a government-sponsored event in the Dominican Republic that he will calmly wait for his induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. “Don’t I have the numbers to be inducted?” he said.

In his career, Sosa has hit 609 home runs and is the only player to belt 60 home runs in three seasons; 66 in 1998, 63 in 1999 and 64 in 2001. All these were achieved when he played for the Cubs and during the height of the Steroid Era. Sosa is also involved in a steroid controversy when Jose Canseco accused him and other stars that needed performance-enhancing drugs to get by. Sosa’s last game in the majors was on September 29, 2007, going 1-for-4 for the Texas Rangers in a 5-1 toss to the Seattle Mariners. During his last at-bat, he flew out to the right field.

The said farewell season in the majors came when Sosa thought that he would be invited back to play in 2008. He had the numbers to warrant a look, hitting .252 but belting 21 home runs and 24 doubles and driving in 92 runs in 114 games. But during that time, no team was interested to offer a guaranteed major-league deal because it was also the time of the release of the Mitchell Report. The report was later on released in December 2007.

Despite his no baseball-playing future, Sosa still claims that he is completely clean during the dirtiest era of baseball. ”Everything I achieved, I did it thanks to my perseverance, which is why I never had any long, difficult moments [as a baseball player],” Sosa said. ”If you have a bad day in baseball and start thinking about it, you will have 10 more.”

When pressed by ESPNdeportes.com, Sosa still insisted that he will not welcome any questions nor address allegations of steroid use. ”I always played with love and responsibility, and I assure you that I will not answer nor listen to rumors,” he said. ”If anything ugly comes up in the future, we will confront it immediately, but with all our strength because I will not allow anybody to tarnish what I did on the field.”

Sen. George Mitchell, who spearheaded the Mitchell Report, wrote to baseball commissioner Bud Selig. It reads, “Through his personal lawyer, I asked McGwire to meet with me for an interview about these issues, but he declined to do so. I then sent his lawyer a list of specific questions about whether McGwire had ever used steroids or other performance-enhancing substances without a prescription during his major-league career, in the hope that McGwire would be willing to provide a response outside of the context of an interview. Neither McGwire nor his lawyer responded to that letter. [I sent similar letters with specific questions to lawyers for Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa and Gary Sheffield, none of whom provided answers to my questions either.]”

It is however the only time the name of Sosa appeared in the 409-page report. Canseco, on the other hand wrote a tell-all book, Juiced, that links Sosa to steroids. ”Sammy Sosa — I can’t say for a fact he took steroids — but he gained 30 pounds just like that — you could see the bloating in his face and neck. It seemed so obvious. It was a joke.”

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