His was a voice of reason that not everyone shared. In the cramped clubhouse before the game began stood Nomar Garciaparra, who played briefly with Sosa in Chicago. He wouldn't offer specific thoughts on Sosa. He deflected questions about whether baseball should release all the names, saying he had doubts about the testing's fairness.
"I don't believe what I hear or read," he said. "So how can I believe this?"
What was that about slippery?
I figured I'd get more from the man who stood in the next-door locker: Jason Giambi. Snared in the doping trap since 2003 grand jury testimony in which he allegedly admitted steroid use was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, Giambi first trotted out the old Mark McGwire play: How about let's move forward?
Fair enough. So I asked if releasing the entire 2003 list would help baseball do just that, only in a real way.
"It could," Giambi said. "I don't know. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it."
What was that about misdirection?
Look, as much as the players wish it weren't the case and hope we'll all soon be ground into not caring, the questions won't stop until baseball comes all the way clean.
It'll be hard and ugly and still only an initial step -- baseball still doesn't test for human growth hormone, after all. It'll be shocking and painful and scandalous. But it needs to happen.
The sooner all the names come out and shoes stop dropping, the sooner we can do what's best for baseball: we can begin to move on.
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kurt.streeter@latimes.com
