Slammin' Sammy Sosa

The new generation of ballplayers was something the world had never seen. Samuel Sosa Peralta was one of the new generation, that ushered in, among other things, cheating and bad sportsmanship. Sammy Sosa was born on November 12, 1968 in the Dominican Republic. He debuted at the age of 21, for the Texas Rangers, on June 16, 1989. He wasn't a very big player. Sosa hit a total of 207 home runs in his first 4,021 at bats in 9 seasons. He then went on to hit 367 home runs over his next 4,000 at bats in 7 seasons. So he hit nearly double the amount, in the same number of at bats, after turning 30 years old! Then Sammy was busted with a corked bat on June 3rd, 2003. He claimed, "I use that bat for batting practice, for batting practice -- just to put on a show for the fans ... I like to make people happy and I do that in batting practice." Once Sammy was busted, it opened the door to so many other allegations, most of which were led by the Bash Brother himself, Jose Canseco