Sammy Sosa Dances Around Question About Taking PEDs — ‘I Never Tested Positive’

In a preview of an interview with ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap, former MLB slugger Sammy Sosa danced around the question of whether or not he took performance-enhancing drugs, instead saying he “never tested positive.”

Sosa was named in a 2009 New York Times report as one of a large number of MLB players who tested positive for PEDs in 2003 and he has been kept out of the MLB Hall of Fame as a result.

Schaap pushed back on the noticeably lighter skinned Dominican who set the world on fire during a 1998 home run race with Mark McGwire, arguing never testing positive and never taking PEDs are not the same.

Partial transcript from ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” as follows:

SCHAAP: Twenty years now after the home run chase. Did you use any performance-enhancing drugs at any time in your career?

SOSA: I never have tested positive in this country.

SCHAAP: That’s not the same thing, Sam.

SOSA: No, it is. It is.

SCHAAP: No, no.

SOSA: It is.

SCHAAP: I’m just asking you …

SOSA: I never tested positive, so …

SCHAAP: According to “The New York Times” you did test positive.

SOSA: A lot of people did.

SCHAAP: Are you saying that The Times is wrong?

SOSA: No, no, not The Times is wrong, but a lot of people got out in that paper, but –

SCHAAP: That’s true, 104 names in 2009, “The New York Times” reported that 104 players, including you, had tested positive in 2003 when it was supposed to be anonymous. You’ve already said you didn’t test positive. Did you use performance-enhancing drugs?

SOSA: No, my friend.

SCHAAP: Never?

SOSA: I never miss any tests, you know, in the major league level.

SCHAAP: There’s a difference between not testing positive and not doing it. And you’re saying you didn’t do it?

SOSA: Once again, you know, I never tested positive.

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