Good point. Then again, Manny eventually owned up to his transgressions -- well, okay, he sort of didn't have a choice. Sammy's official defense was "I can't answer your questions, I don't speak English." Rather a difference there.
I'm on the fence, myself. I liked Sammy as a player, and as many have noted, not only did his hitting and power improve over time (possible due to PEDs), but his OBP went up. I've had to take steroids myself, for medical reasons, on a number of occasions, and while they make you feel you can do ANYTHING, they don't -- by nature -- make you feel more patient. Quite the opposite, they make you feel more aggressive. A LOT more aggressive.
Some guys, you could tell they were on PEDs because they swung at everything that came anywhere near the plate, and managed to hit a lot of it for power. Sosa was an exception. He got better at his patience and selectivity, which isn't a classic reaction to steroids. He didn't just hit everything, including balls way off the plate, for power -- he was patient enough to make the pitchers come over the plate, and then he hit them out of the park. That's how mere mortals have to do it; guys on PEDs didn't, in general, feel that they need to wait for the pitcher to serve up the pitch they wanted, they hit whatever they got.
So, from the point of view of the Ricketts family, I think it's more a matter of having been fully honest with the public, not whether or not you actually took PEDs as a player. Maybe Sosa thinks he has been fully honest, and maybe he has. But if he hasn't, and that's a fair likelihood, then it's within the ownership's rights not to have him represent the club in any capacity.
Again, YMMV.
