John H Armstrong

Alternative Medicine: Real Benefits and Real Problems, Part Two

When the various attacks upon alternative medicine are considered it should be pointed out that mainstream physicians are not trained in alternative medicine. The exception, and these are growing by leaps and bounds, is that regular physicians are increasingly embracing alternative medicine as they learn the benefits it offers to patients. But they come to this view in a way that is outside their actual medical school training. This is, of course, less true for those who were trained outside the United States or in a less mainstream practice of the healing arts, like osteopathy. If you are a fair-minded reporter, and you want good information about anesthesia, who should you ask? Obviously, you would seek information from an anesthesiologist. If you want information about the benefits and problems of alternative medicine then it seems only fair that you would interview physicians who have developed an appreciation of alternative medicine by actually studying it and using it with their patients.

Another problem in this debate is that we, the general public, are done a great disservice when facts are reported out of their context. Herbs and dietary supplements have not cured any disease. There is no solid research saying that they have. But the fact is this: most of the medicines doctors prescribe have not cured specific illnesses either but they are used because there is good evidence that they can and do help. There is also, in almost every case, abundant evidence of many “side effects” (often quite serious) associated with almost every medication used in the West. The fact that people may die, or be made worse, from these side effects is effectively under reported in the media. The one major exception to my statement is antibiotics but even here there are downsides that are increasingly being discovered as our bodies resist these drugs when they are over used. Herbs and dietary supplements can be abused, and often are, but they generally have less serious side effects than prescription drugs.

One of the biggest problems with supplements is in manufacturing. Poor quality control and labeling issues are serious issues but even pharmaceutical companies are now producing supplements. In time this industry will shift and develop accountability as was done with drugs. The FDA does not regulate supplements but it has the authority to do so. Why hasn’t it done this? The answer some suggest is that the FDA is understaffed and overworked. Complete manufacturing standards are slow in developing. When a problem is found it is addressed as quickly as possible. More needs to be done.

Finally, research in alternative and complimentary medicine is a new field. It needs to be given time and be tested and held accountable. The potential here seems apparent, especially for millions who deal with chronic health issues medicine has no answer to at present.

A good example of a commonly recognized benefit of the new medicine is Vitamin D supplementation. I recently had a blood test in which I discovered that I was low in Vitamin D. We now realize the clinical benefits of Vitamin D in preventing heart disease and Alzheimer’s. I expect this will prove to be the tip of an iceberg but time will tell. I do know that cell biology is bigger in medicine than it ever was and this will have its impact over time.

All therapies and approaches to medicine should be scrutinized and studied carefully. The new alternative treatments need to be tested but when mainstream medicine refuses to take these alternatives seriously there can be no serious advance in knowledge. This is not good science, it is bias built on supposition. We need to use all therapies that do no harm and thereby offer people relief wherever possible. We also need to advance meaningful dialogue, with less passion, in an area that presents great potential to the advance of medicine and health.

Alternative Medicine: Real Benefits and Real Problems

In a recent two-part post on this site (June 18 and 19) I wrote about the new physics and the new medicine. I am very aware that this conversation has some strange extremes to be found at both ends of the spectrum. The mere mention of “new” medicine makes some people react with intense passion, pro and con. I am not on the extremes of this debate thus I want to explain how I have come to appreciate alternative medicine without buying into the “hype” that so often surrounds this subject.

One of the first questions people ask when this subject comes up is very basic: “Why are so many competent and good physicians so negative about complimentary, or alternative, medicine?” If this is really beneficial why are so many opposed to it?

If my non-scientific sense of things is accurate the mainstream media presents a lot of negative information about the flaws of alternative medicine and the hype often associated with it. The truth of the matter is that there is a lot of hype in alternative medicine. The media does us a favor by pointing this out routinely. Even if you believe, as I do believe, that there is a lot of good to be discovered in alternative medicine, you should always welcome good criticism. Every gain, in any field of research and study, has positives and negatives.

Some of the criticism provided by mainstream Western medicine reminds us that no complimentary therapies have been found to cure cancer thus we should not rely on such theories in treating it. I agree, but with one caveat. We have no single proven approach to cancer, though great advance has been made and some Western models are proving beneficial in major ways. I would opt for a combination approach to most illnesses, including cancer, for which we have no proven (single) cure. Since I have an illness that the medical world in the West offers no solid cure for I speak from some experience at this point.

However, many of these critical articles and news releases contain some implied facts that are not proven on the opposite side of the debate. For example, bio-energy fields are real and measurable. This study has been going on for more than thirty years. I gave, in my two previous articles, an example of how the new physics and the new medicine had combined in producing a way to break up kidney stones with a totally non-invasive approach based on sound waves. These studies are not based on placebo effects or “self hypnosis.” The mind is powerful and habituated patterns of thought can be changed. There is much more to learn in this field. My appeal is that we become open to learn more and to use all that science reveals to us, including the way the mind works to promote healing and wellness. Surely Christians, who have read so much in the Bible about the mind and human thought, can be open to such an approach to health.

Success Is Never Final

We are often too focused upon our success and not enough upon our failures. We can major, as I said previously, on our fear of failure and never try to do what we should do. We can deny our mistakes and live fruitless and self-centered lives. But we must realize that success is never final. Even when we have enjoyed our greatest success there is the opportunity to fall and fail again. This should drive us to Christ alone. Only there will we find any hope of lasting success.

Michael Barone Analyses the President

Michael Barone is one of my top five favorite writers on politics and American culture. He is sensibly conservative without being on the fringe. He is willing to see the good in those he disagrees with but he doesn't throw out his mind in the process. This is what made his recent article "Dodge Facts, Skip Details, Govern Chicago Style" so engaging. I urge you to read it.

Michael Barone makes three telling criticisms of President Obama. In the process he significantly corrects my expression of good will about the president's approach to international tensions that I posted late last week. He refers to the president's policy toward Iran as "propitiating" our avowed enemies. I like that term better than some of the other criticisms I have read. I also think that after my piece appeared a great deal of new information suggests that Obama's "coolness" is potentially miscalculated. Barone writes that the president's "friendly words" are based on an assumption that the hearts of Kim Jon Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejab can be melted and then shaped for a new day of peace. Barone rightly questions the very argument I tried to make last week and reminds me of how much I want to see the perspective of this president in a good light but how often I am growing disappointed day-by-day. Barone makes my case far better than I can.

This all demonstrates why I do not wade into politics too often. I try to read and form my own opinions but when all is said and done I am not an expert, just an educated citizen with profound interest in the well-being of my nation and peace in the world. I guess what I find unattractive about so many conservative arguments is the way they are made and the failure to deal with modern issues in the light of true conservativism. Sometimes the arguments certain conservatives make are excellent but the manner in which they are advanced is too rhetorical and polarizing. My interests are far more in the advance of Christ's missional Kingdom and the making of disciples than in the advance of American values. One thing I am sure about---the two are simply not the same.

Alice: A Modern Monk?

Today's blog is written by my friend Ed Holm from Newport, North Carolina. For 33 years Ed taught school, first in the Baltimore County Schools in Maryland and then at Gramercy Christian School in Newport, North Carolina. He left teaching to become a parish administrator at his local church. Recently he returned to teaching by working at a home for troubled youth sponsored by the Methodist Home for Children. Ed is a graduate of St. Mary's Seminary & University (Baltimore) and holds a Masters in Theology degree. Ed is also a Third Order Franciscan monk in a group called The Company of Jesus. This article "Alice" is about a woman Ed worked with over 10 years ago. I found it so appropriate, following my own posts over the last four days, that I couldn't pass on letting others read it.

I have stumbled upon a rather wonderful little book called Lessons From the Monastery That Touch Your Life, by Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. He is a Cistercian monk. Pennington suggests ways in which monastic practices might be incorporated into the secular lives that most of us live; ways in which the ordinary might be sanctified and become pathways to worship. Pennington has written this little book in response to an introduction he once received while attending a conference. The conference director, while meaning no harm, relegated Pennington and his fellow monks to being nothing much more than “old books on a shelf in a library.” At best, they were handy resources though which a modern person might view quaint antiquity but bore no relevance to life today. I suppose that the director held such old tomes to be of great intellectual value but of little practical use. Sadly, I think the director's perception is quite common, not only concerning monastic life, but concerning the value of scripture, contemplation and prayer in general as it is perceived by our culture. Faith is most always set on life's margins. But the very nature of faith itself flies in the face of such thinking. For the community of faith Christ is a fact, not a proposition. He is central and not marginal. Therein lies the rub between the culture and the Church.

I work with a wonderful saint named Alice who understands this dichotomy fully well. She is a custodian at my school. Alice follows the scriptural admonition to “pray unceasingly”. I don't think I have ever in fifteen years had a conversation with Alice that did not in some way allude to prayer. She prays for the teachers and the students, she prays for her church, she prays for my church, she prays for the neighborhood, she prays for her friends as well as her enemies. She prays particularly hard for her husband who does not share her piety and she prays for everyone and everything imaginable as far as I can determine. She comes into my office and smiles and tells me that she prays for me. I have walked by rooms where Alice is working alone and I have heard her praying aloud or singing a song of praise. It has gotten to the point that every time I see Alice, or even her cleaning cart, for that matter, I think about the subject of prayer. Alice is a sign of the Kingdom.

Those of us without the strength or courage of Alice are smaller, weaker signs, I suspect. We have too much to lose by confronting the culture which supports us. We are beholden and compromised. We are satisfied and perhaps even proud to be “books on a shelf.”  Alice is undaunted. Never one to flinch in the face of withering fire, she refuses to believe that everyone cannot have faith just like hers. She comes into my room and says things like, “I see you have been in the Word this morning Mr. Holm. I saw the book on prayer in your briefcase.” Or she will say,  “Have you got a Word for me today Mr. Holm” never thinking that one might live in a world where “a word” is something privately received and hidden under the bushel of ones self conscious fears. Sadly to say, most often I do not have “a word” for Alice because, unlike Alice, I neglected to start my day being fed by the Word. Not to worry, Alice always has a Word for me.

Sometimes my words and actions bespeak of a very poor spiritual witness. I will say things or do things that I wish I had not. Sometimes my comments have been cruel, unforgiving or diminishing of others. I have had the blessing on several occasions when I have been caught being the “other me” by Alice and I have seen the disappointment on her face and have felt shame. Indeed, her very presence is a work of righteousness that confronts my sin. Upon her lips I have seen the silent words of prayer, interceding for me or someone else in need of healing or forgiveness at that time. Alice, a valiant prayer warrior holds me accountable for my puny faith. Alice reminds me at those times that Christ is not a relic, an old book upon a shelf. I know His presence when Alice is around. That is why Alice is a saint.

Alice is a modern day monk praying for all others in all circumstances. The world needs people like Alice much more than it knows. The world needs monks and nuns and priests and saints and all of the faithful company of Heaven because, without them, our lives would suffer terrible spiritual poverty much greater than it suffers already. Without people like Alice faith would appear to be nothing more than a pleasant notion or a moment of wistfulness. Alice is an embodiment of faith. Her faith is incarnational in its blood, flesh and bone and she witnesses to a God she knows and one, she is sure, who knows and loves her.

The world holds tightly onto its disbelief but it cannot deny the substance of those who do believe and shine forth. Strangely, it is upon the human heart that God has chosen to make His strongest case for Truth. How fragile are the bearers of God's Word, and yet, how enduring; far greater than the loftiest tomes on library shelves is the power of one whose heart knows Christ. Thank you Alice for being that emissary from God's Kingdom. Thank you Jesus for Alice.

Friendship and Ecumenism in the Community of St. John, Part Four

My friend, Fr. Didier Marie, who I have written about in the previous three blogs, stressed time and again during my time with him that we must always move from the existence of a friend to the existence of THE Friend, Jesus. And when we know Jesus as THE Friend we can then move toward one another in His Spirit. The joy of God is found here, in the other. Joy is not primarily found in me seeking my own joy but rather in my seeking the joy of another. This truth is not understood by many Christians in our time, especially in popular evangelical teaching about self-esteem or in seeking to complete or maximize my own joy as the goal of my spiritual life, sometimes called Christian hedonism.

The Apostle John tells us that Jesus calls us His friends. Fr. Didier warned those who were priests that their role was never to entertain people in the Mass. The real priest must learn to “disappear” since “He must increase and I must decrease.”

Fr. Didier told some great stories about the founder of the Community of St. John, Fr. Philippe. I was moved by these stories and sad that I never got to meet Fr. Philippe. I was invited by the order to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary at the Vatican in 2005. I would have been afforded the joy of meeting this man but I had a commitment to teach a seminary course and felt I should not break my word. What attracted me to Fr. Philippe is what attracts me to my friend, Fr. Didier. He was transparent, real and human. He lived this way by joining, as I’ve already noted, the three great wisdoms: philosophical, theological and mystical.

Fr. Didier related accounts of how Fr. Philippe practiced friendship. (By the way, he was a close friend to John Paul II, the present pope, and the late Brother Roger, a famous Protestant monastic in France.) I privately spoke to Fr. Didier about Brother Roger and John Paul II. I was able to confirm how deep their friendship was on a personal level. I still recall how amazed I was when Cardinal Ratzinger, soon to become Pope Benedict XVI, communed Brother Roger first at the funeral Mass of Pope John Paul II. This act of love, which was not a surprise to those who knew about Brother Roger and John Paul, is a surprise to many “hard core” Catholics who insist that a person must always be a Catholic before they can be communed. An exception does not break a rule, I understand, but the fact is that this happened and behind it is a great story that will someday be better understood.

All of this is said to underscore a central point about friendship within Brother Didier’s relationship with me as a Protestant. He, like me, is deeply committed to ecumenism, not as a theory but as a way of life. He wants me as his friend and I want him as my friend because this friendship is at the heart of our love for the unity of Christ’s church. By coming close to one another, even for a few hours and only every few years, we come closer to Christ and his goal for all his people.

Within all of us is a deep sense of the need for spiritual order. If someone we love is to meet us at the airport we will be there and alert to look for them. So we must go to Jesus. Be alert and look for him. Go to chapel, prayer and communion with this desire. A materialistic vision will never satisfy us. Only a vision of Christ and his love for our friend will fulfill us. In each of us is a profound “potency.” This potency invites us to act in love. When we respond we go deeper into the love of Christ. Nothing can replace this. Theology is never a substitute for this. When we make the pursuit of theology a substitute for relationship we are truly dysfunctional human persons.

I came away from the Community of St. John, and the teaching and time with Fr. Didier Marie, realizing once again what I truly long for, especially in my earlier life when I saw theology and ministry in the so many wrong ways, was true friendship. I treasure my friends more than all the knowledge I have been afforded. I treasure time with friends as more important than reading my books, though I still have way too many books and read actively. The life of the mind is critical and there is far too little of this passion in our time. But the life of the mind will never satisfy us if we do not seek Jesus and others. Long to be a friend and long to draw close to Jesus as your true friend.

Friendship and Ecumenism in the Community of St. John, Part Three

The rule followed by the Community of St. John says, “Like the Apostles, praying with Mary in the Upper Room, the brothers will not cease to beg Jesus to send the Paraclete upon the Church, so that His promises might be fully accomplished.” Prayer, according to the Community of St. John, is common to all men. We all long to know the same Father, who “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Mt. 5:45). When people begin to know God they adore Him and entrust their cares to him. This is prayer. Jesus desires unceasing prayer from our hearts for everything that concerns us. He wants us to experience the reality that “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Prayer envelopes and accompanies our Christian life if we are to remain in the presence of Jesus. This is the central goal of contemplation in the Community of St. John.

Fr. Philippe believed, like so many in this tradition, that silent prayer was lifting our souls up to Jesus in contemplation of his love and as an extension of our thanksgiving. Silence is practiced in most contexts at the Community of St. John. Silent prayer is interior prayer, a direct contact of the soul with Jesus. St. Thomas called silent prayer a wedding between the soul and Jesus. It is close intimacy with the friend who has chosen to love us. We respond to His call, to His love, in silent adoration and communion. Prayer becomes a simple exercise of love and friendship.

It is with this commitment that Fr. Didier has taught me a great deal about friendship. He noted that friendship is rooted in this contemplation. It is a going outside of our selves to another, to love not as an abstract knowledge but as a real knowing. Our blind mind says, “I want to see Jesus” and we discover him in this other person. The longing we have for transcendence is mete in another who brings Jesus to us. What you contemplate will powerfully shape you actions.

To love a friend we must discover what the other is looking for. This longing must pass into action. You must learn to practice your longing for relationship. But too many of us love to fight rather than to love. Fighting becomes a kind of art we create and develop. Just as an army is trained to fight we build communities that engage in fighting.

I must be regularly awakened to Christ, in my mind, emotion and will. No one can open me up to Christ like a true friend. Jesus has called us “his friends” and by this friendship we learn to love and be loved. But this friendship does not mean we attain perfection in love. This is why I confess to a friend that I have sinned. Sin is the imperfection of love thus fleeing to another in confession of my sin is love.

But what happens when someone you love refuses your friendship. Eventually you may have to stay away. You will have to learn to accept separation. Love must not seek to please but to be true and faithful first. When you falsely seek the satisfaction of another you do not truly love. At the heart of a real friendship is a common commitment to seek the truth. Contemplative life invites you to pursue friendship at the deepest level. It is communion—real intimate life in the Spirit. But some people will not allow this to happen. They shut you out. You must learn to love and remain separate.

John Paul II said that the person who most desires communion with us is Jesus. If this is true we must not idealize our friendships. A perfect friendship can only exist between two virtuous people. None of us is perfectly virtuous but two can strive for it together. And each such relationship is unique. It is thus prudent to seek God to allow a friendship to thrive and mature.

The capacity to love is an act, not an emotion. Jesus most painful human experience, at least in terms of friendship, appears to have been the betrayal of Judas. The reason for this pain was that he loved this man so deeply. Thérèse said that too many priests were functionaries of the church but in reality they were called to be friends. Jesus calls us friends, not servants!

I found myself praying, while my brother was teaching on this type of friendship, “Lord, teach me to love and be a friend, not simply one who functions in ministry as your servant!” I sensed the Spirit’s embrace as I prayed.

Friendship and Ecumenism in the Community of St. John, Part Two

My friendship with Fr. Didier Marie, and the Community of St. John, has become a spiritual treasure to me. One of the reasons for this is deeply rooted in the nature of this order. The Community of St. John began in 1975 when several students of Fr. Marie-Dominic Philippe, who had been their professor at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), asked him to be their spiritual director. Five of these students began to meet regularly with a priest from the diocese of Versailles (France) in the summer of 1975. This priest had been a student of Fr. Philippe and had been authorized by the bishop to undertake studies toward a doctorate in theology at Fribourg, where Philippe still lived. Communal life was begun when these five students, and the priest who was there to study theology, met at 5:30 a.m. each day to pray silently and then celebrate the Mass.

Initially Fr. Philippe was not directly involved with these brothers since he did not believe the church had given him responsibility for them. His official duty was to teach philosophy thus he took care to send students back to their bishops or to their various religious congregations. The decisive change took place in Fr. Philippe through the intervention of a mystic named Martha Robinson. Philippe presented his dilemma to her and she said that he should not abandon those he had influenced so deeply. Based on this counsel Fr. Philippe accepted these brothers but would did not intend to found a new religious community. He sought an existing order to accept these men so they could find their place within the church. This led to a search. On December 8, 1975 the order was begun on a retreat at the abbey of Lerins. The date and place are significant because the brothers soon discovered that Pope Paul VI’s apostolic exhortation, Evangeli Nuntiandi, corresponded to what they deeply longed to be and to do.

Father Philippe, whose writings I have discovered through the Community of St. John (there are only a few of his written works in English), was born in 1912 in northern France. (My dad was born in 1912.) He only died last year. From almost the beginning of this young order there was an emphasis on what are called the three wisdoms: philosophical, theological and mystical.

The philosophical wisdom was central to my friend’s teaching on friendship last week, as it was for Fr. Philippe. My first impression of this philosophical wisdom was not entirely positive. I am not an admirer of Thomism, the philosophical tradition of those who have followed St. Thomas Aquinas. But I have discovered, to my surprise in a way, that those who followed Thomas are not always using Thomas in the best sense. I have discovered the same experience with people who call themselves Calvinists and yet have little relationship to the actual writing and spirit of the Genevan Reformer. Seeing this was an "ah ha" moment for me.

The wisdom of philosophy is used by the Community of St. John to probe the enquiry into who man is, both his purpose and his aspirations. This pursuit follows the thinking expressed in John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio #25-28, which says:

All human beings desire to know, and truth is the proper object of this desire. . . . The truth comes initially to the human being as a question: Does life have a meaning? Where is it going? . . . One may define the human being, there, as the one who seeks the truth.

It is this approach that is pursued by these brothers and it is this use of philosophy that formed Brother Didier’s teaching on friendship.

Fr. Didier spoke of the necessity of holy fear if there is to be truly deep friendship. We must fear that we can displease Jesus more than any other fear. This perspective, noted Fr. Didier, was that of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897), the French Carmelite nun who was so loved by John Paul II. You cannot prove love mathematically. Love requires trust, not logic. We are afraid of friendship because we do not want to truly trust. To love a person requires us to entrust ourselves to that person in a unique way that is deeply rooted in our trust in Christ. Real friendship, when rooted here, will not seek to escape from others when problems arise. (How the monks must learn this or they cannot survive!) True friendship will seek all the more to grow, learn and trust. I want to know my friends in this way.

Friendship and Ecumenism in the Community of St. John

The Community of St. John is one of a number of newer monastic communities within the Roman Catholic Church. These communities of brothers, living a simple, contemplative life in an apostolic (or mission) context, grew significantly during the pontificate of John Paul II. The Community of St. John was founded by a French Dominican, Fr. Marie-Dominique Philippe, in 1975.

I have visited the Community of St. John on three different occasions over the past four years Through these visits I have made some meaningful friendships with several of these brothers. My original visit was my first retreat taken in a monastic community. It opened my eyes to the way these men witness to the love of Christ through a simple, uncluttered life of prayer and service. The brothers, and sisters (located on the same grounds), have chosen to consecrate their lives to God through silent prayer in a common, constant search for the truth and fraternal charity. When I say this is an apostolic community this means that it carries out the work of preaching, teaching and working with the poor.

Following the Rule of Life, the community follows this purpose statement:

The Congregation of St. John wants to be a Community of children of the Father and friends of Jesus, gathered together by the Holy Spirit, in order to live a fully evangelical life, by following Christ and in intimate communion with Him. . . . a life of adoration and of contemplation lived in close proximity to Mary.

My visit at the Community of St. John in Princeville, Illinois (diocese of Peoria) requires a three and a half hour drive in a very rural part of central Illinois. I always find the drive fills me with a certain expectation as I look forward to this place and being with these brothers. On June 10–11 I made a visit to Princeville to share time with Fr. Didier Marie, who has become a wonderful friend. Fr. Didier is an excellent teacher and a dear man who has been inclined to build a unique friendship with me. On this trip I discovered more of the reason why this is the case as Fr. Didier lectured on friendship during the time I was in the community.

I took some extensive notes of Fr. Didier’s comments and thus share some of this teaching with you. In the first address Fr. Didier spoke about the eyes and how our eyes will welcome the other into our hearts. The way to seek to know another person is not primarily through understanding but by doing. St. Augustine said faith searches for understanding and the same is true in relationship with friends. We first love and then we understand. If I discover someone who is truly good I cannot use them for my own ends.

Real friendship is rooted in a metaphysical question: “What is it to exist?” To know who we are, and who another is, we must cultivate admiration and this means we must go beyond routines. If you ever stop admiring, you will lose the friendship. Friends are chosen, not to change them, but because I have discovered in the other a true friend. In this sense I do not make a friend, I discover them. There is a humble, open reciprocity in this that allows two to see more clearly because they are together.

Books cannot open you up to friends. They can inform you and teach you but they never can replace the commitment of friendship. If I love another I will realize that:

1.    I love them because of their service to me (usefulness).
2.    I love them because they are pleasant to me (pleasure).
3.    I love them because they are honest with me (transcendence). They open up to me, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Tomorrow I will share more about Fr. Didier and the friendship that I have come to treasure with him as my brother in Christ.

The Sad Legacy of Sammy Sosa

The breaking Chicago news, on Tuesday evening, was: “Sammy Sosa took performance enhancing drugs to become a superstar slugger.” Surprise, surprise! And this is the same guy who told the U.S. Senate committee that he never took drugs. But the June 16 New York Times report on baseball players who tested positive included Sammy's name. Now we know.

Anyone who watched Sosa’s career as I did, living here in the Windy City, knew Sammy was not built the way he became in the late 1990s because of simple hard work. He went from a slender young ballplayer to a huge slugger within about two years. Following the 1997 season, when Sammy saw Mark McGwire getting all those accolades for hitting big home runs, things changed for Sammy big time. Sammy drank up what he saw in the Cardinal star and Sammy needed the same attention. Says Barry Rosner, a great Chicago baseball writer, “Sosa craved attention and drank it up when he got it.” After 1997 he got it. In 1998 he weighed in at least thirty pounds more than he did at the end of the ’97 season.

This Sammy Sosa is also the same guy who corked a bat and then said it was for batting practice only. This Sammy Sosa is also the same guy who walked away from his team before the season ended a few years later. And this Sammy Sosa is the guy I watched run out to right field to the cheers of his adoring fans during his glory days with the Cubs. But this is the same Sammy Sosa who tarnished the sport and ruined his chance for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, an honor he craves.

The sad part is that many feel that Sosa could have been a very good five-tool baseball player who would have been a star without cheating. But Sammy had to have the praise and he was willing to pay the price to get it. Sadly, the Chicago Cubs looked the other way too. So did Bud Selig, the excuse for a baseball commissioner that we have lived with for far too long. Sammy fooled the public for a decade but in the end it bit him.

The Great Home Run chase of 1998, which the commissioner said saved baseball, turns out now to be a farce. Barry Rosner says he traveled with Sosa, knew him and observed him during these years. He writes: “I can tell you that Sosa was nothing like his new 1998 image and that the only thing more overwhelming than his ego and arrogance was his ability to charm when it suited him.”

For those who say, "So what. Everybody juiced up so this should not keep anyone of them out of the Hall of Fame." No way. The Hall is for players who played the game the right way, even if they were not always likable personalities. Look, I have watched Chipper Jones, a player I admire, play through pain and injury and adversity for years. He earned all of the honors he will get from baseball. Can you compare him to Sammy Sosa when it comes time to evaluate true greatness? It discredits the importance of the Hall of Fame to even consider that Sammy could get in. The voters will never do it. The response to Mark McGwire, a sure-fire first ballot choice if ever there was one, proves this to be true. Now Sammy has to watch his reputation go down in flames along with McGwire, Bonds, Palmeiro and a host of others who all cheated the game and their fans.

What a sad legacy. I still recall seeing Sammy hit number 61 and feeling like a kid again. I lived through the Roger Maris pursuit of 61 in my childhood and seeing it done again was a great thrill at the time. I even went to dinner that evening after 61 with several players who told me what a thrill it was to see “history unfold right before your eyes.” It was magical. But it was all a charade. Rosner says Sammy once told him that he hoped that his tombstone would compare him to the great Roberto Clemente. Well, there is no chance of that ever happening. We all know the difference between the two men and Sammy surely was no Roberto! This is the legacy of Sammy Sosa and baseball needs to say so and restore dignity to the game. We could start with an honest admission from Bud Selig but I am not expecting to hear one.