MONTCLAIR, N.J. — “I wanted personally to call you,” said the voice on the other end of the line, “and say thank you for your good work and all the defending that you have done all those years. I really appreciate the way you’ve stepped up to the plate.” It was Friday afternoon, rush hour in New Jersey, and I’d just been driving over the speed limit. Along with everyone else, I was getting away with it. Then the phone rang, and suddenly I was pulled over on the side of the road, listening intently to a stranger calling from exile. I hadn’t begun the day expecting to hear from Sammy Sosa.

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Earlier that afternoon, I appeared on the MLB Network, where I was quizzed about my Hall of Fame ballot. I’ve been a voter for the last three years. I’ve voted for Sosa every time. This puts me in a tiny minority. In talking through my rationale, I railed about the suspicion that clouds the Steroid Era. I lamented how no one could ever be certain about who did what, and when. I explained how I couldn’t serve as judge and jury to determine which players would be punished for the crimes of an era. That includes Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sosa, whose only actual documented link to steroids is far from airtight.

Shortly after the show ended, an email arrived from an unfamiliar address. “Mr. Sammy Sosa would love to say thank you for all the years of support,” the message read. “He just saw your interview on TV with MLB. Let me know if we can reach out.” A few minutes of Internet snooping confirmed that the sender was an associate of the slugger. In retirement, Sosa has rarely spoken to reporters. Getting him requires some doing. In at least one instance, he’d agreed to an in-depth interview only to go back on his word. Even when he has followed through, the subject of performance-enhancing drugs was almost always glossed over, likely a precondition of any interview. On the occasions when it does come up, it’s uncomfortable. In 2018, to mark the 20th anniversary of his magical home run chase with Mark McGwire, Sosa spoke at length to ESPN. His responses to questions about steroids were both evasive and cringeworthy. He has never admitted to using PEDs, and his denials have invited parsing.

Knowing this, I told the intermediary that I’d be happy to speak with Sosa, despite doubts that it would actually happen. At best, I figured this would all end with a polite message relayed through the surrogate. But on the drive home from the studio, my cell phone went off. Across my dashboard screen flashed a phone number from Miami, where Sosa makes his home. After some pleasantries, the associate patched through Sosa, whose unmistakable voice filled the cabin of my car. Immediately, I pulled over.

“Today, I saw the show,” Sosa said. “And I see you pretty much fighting, fighting, fighting. It really caught my attention. It touched my heart. And I just wanted to say I really appreciate it, buddy.”

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There were so many questions to ask, including the obvious: Had Sosa turned himself into a national icon by taking steroids? There were plenty of smaller ones, too. For instance, why was he watching the MLB Network on a Friday afternoon in January? Why would he bother keeping tabs on a game that has shunned him? In his rare interviews, he mentioned the business interests that take up most of his time these days. Why would he care about the opinion of a talking head? My first season covering baseball was in 2008. It was a year after he retired. I never covered Sosa. We had no prior relationship. Yet, here he was calling a stranger. What would possess him to do such a thing?

It sounded like Sosa had something to say. And the way he was talking, it seemed as if there would be time for questions,  on this day or another. I let him steer the conversation.

Sosa reiterated that he appreciated my vote for him the last few years. It was strange to hear. My stance is rooted in logic and consistency rather than any particular fondness for Sosa. It is not a personal crusade. I told him that I’m simply doing what I believe is right. Then I shared my belief that when compared to others shrouded by the cloud of PED suspicion, he has been disproportionately punished. “I agree,” Sosa said softly. “I agree with you 100 percent.”

Sosa knows that my opinion isn’t universal. He debuted on the ballot in 2013 alongside Bonds and Clemens. Both have steadily gained support through the years. Each remains short of the 75 percent needed for induction. But both now get the votes from a majority of voters. That sense of forgiveness has eluded Sosa, whose voting percentage has been mired in the single digits. “What hurts me the most is that I see other people, they don’t have the numbers that I have,” Sosa said, winding up to make a point about the summer of ’98. “And the great things that Mark and I did in baseball, to bring back baseball when it was down …”

Before Sosa could finish, the connection broke up. More than once, Sosa had mentioned his desire to keep an open line of communication. He asked where I lived and mentioned the possibility of meeting the next time he passed through New York. “If there’s any chance you need me for anything, definitely I will be available for you,” he said. While I thought the dropped call would likely be the end of our conversation for the day, I hoped this represented the start of a dialogue. It turns out he wasn’t done. A minute later, Sosa was back on the line.

“We brought the game back,” Sosa said, a reference to McGwire, before shifting the focus onto himself. “What hurts me the most is that I see a lot of players that don’t have the numbers that I have and they have more points than me and I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness.’” He’s referring to the Hall of Fame vote, which has relegated him to his own special form of purgatory.

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For years, Sosa’s voting totals have been consistently weak, but not low enough to knock him off the ballot entirely. This is the fate that awaited McGwire in his first year of eligibility. Though Sosa remains eligible for votes, there’s virtually no chance that the writers will send him to Cooperstown. Sosa could still gain admission via committee, though this also feels like a longshot given his status as an exile of the realm. “They treat me like I don’t deserve anything,” Sosa said at one point during our conversation. Although it’s not clear precisely who he means by “they,” there are plenty of choices.

The Cubs remain steadfast in their excommunication of a franchise icon. The Ricketts family has indicated that a return to the team’s good graces hinges upon a mea culpa on the topic of steroids. This is problematic. It doesn’t help his credibility in Chicago that his exit had been an all-time bad breakup. In 2004, with the Cubs out of it, Sosa asked out of playing the final game of the season. He departed Wrigley Field before the end of the first inning. That was later confirmed by security footage that was leaked to the media. In what has since become part of local lore, furious teammates took turns bashing Sosa’s belongings, beginning with the boom box that he used to blare salsa music. To some, it had been a constant source of annoyance. He had not been a universally beloved teammate. Nor had he been totally forgiven for a transgression from the year before, when he got popped for using a corked bat. Sosa was traded to the Orioles after the 2004 season. He hasn’t been back to Wrigley Field since the day he stormed off.

Sosa’s defenders within the fan base have moved on. This sector believes that the sour ending shouldn’t be enough to blot out his contributions to the franchise. It’s a point that I raise with him directly. “The numbers don’t lie,” Sosa said. “My numbers are there. I did so much for this game.” There’s no disputing the latter, especially amidst the gloom following the 1994 strike. As for the numbers, that argument is more complicated. Advanced metrics don’t bolster Sosa’s case. Because he was a free swinger, he didn’t walk as much as he could have. This made it easy to argue that as a hitter, he was one-dimensional.

Of course, there’s also such a thing as overthinking it. Sosa hit 609 home runs in the major leagues. In the history of the sport, only eight other players have more. Twice, he hit 30 homers and swiped 30 bases in a season. In addition to speed, he possessed a strong arm early in his career. Above all, he was a superstar when a wounded game badly needed one.

“You know, I ask the question myself,” Sosa said, when I bring up his weak support from the writers that elect Hall of Famers. “Because when I was playing, I was great with the reporters. I never said no to anyone. Definitely, you’re going to have people that they’re going to hate you no matter what, but to my circle when I was there, I was talking with everyone.” Of course, Sosa pinning his tepid support on relations with reporters feels like self-preservation.

In doing this, he sidestepped addressing the most obvious factor. His link to steroid use has been so oft-repeated that it has become undisputed fact. It hardly matters that the reality is far murkier. Sosa’s only documented link to steroids is from anonymous survey testing from 2003, the results of which were leaked to the New York Times. The validity of those tests have since been called into question by baseball commissioner Rob Manfred. The remainder of Sosa’s association with steroids is based on innuendo and speculation and the eye test. The whispers began with obvious changes to Sosa’s body. Then the home runs followed. For many, this was enough to affix him with a scarlet letter.

There’s a common defense for treating Sosa differently from others suspected of using PEDs: Bonds and Clemens had been viewed as Cooperstown-bound before their initial links to steroids. By contrast, Sosa has been a total chemical creation, his accomplishments artificial. The entire Steroid Era is defined by its vagueness. Yet, not only do many voters remain convinced that they know who cheated, they also believe they know when that cheating took place. Look at those biceps. Look at that hat size. Look at that bacne. But the strongest of suspicions still fall well short of fact. In re-watching interviews and re-reading stories, I’m struck by the conviction of the doubts surrounding him. In the public sphere, it’s as if there can be no other explanation for Sosa’s power except for steroids.

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Yet Sosa made well-documented changes to his approach when he was traded to the Cubs from the White Sox, where longtime hitting coach Walt Hriniak had been a proponent of hitting the ball up the middle instead of launching it into the air. Maybe Sosa hit more homers by simply freeing himself of Hriniak’s influence. There’s statistical evidence that he hit more balls in the air immediately after joining the Cubs, and more balls in the air could lead to more home runs. Does this mean that I believe that Sosa is clean? Absolutely not. But without the technology to measure abnormalities in the baseball, or to measure the launch angle off the bat, I’ve often wondered how much of today’s home run surge we’d be blaming on a PED renaissance.

I don’t profess to know conclusively that Sosa cheated his way into the history books. That holds true for every other player of that era. I probably will never know.

“I just wanted to call to let you know that I heard your voice and it made me very, very happy, very happy to see you fighting,” Sosa said, our brief conversation wrapping up now. “I just wanted to make sure to talk to you personally. So, we’ll see each other in the future.” More than once, he has made reference to staying in touch. “I would like to sit with you a little bit and talk over it,” he said at one point. “There’s a lot of things that I would love to share with you.” When I thanked him, he responded with a vow. “Anything you need,” Sosa said, “we’re going to make it happen.”

Soon, I was back on the road, speeding along with everyone else, and not getting punished for it. Technically, we’re all breaking the law. We all know it. We also know that it would stop with stringent enforcement. But until that happens, there’s no reason to change. So I’ll go on doing 60 in a 55, playing the odds that I won’t be one of the few to get caught.

Over the next few days, I thought often about my conversation with Sosa. We were on the phone for less than 10 minutes, but in that short time he struck me as more genuine than I would have guessed. It’s possible that I’d based my expectations on the collective public caricature of Sosa, he of the noticeably lighter complexion, and all the awful social media commentary that has accompanied it. During an interview Sosa had granted to a former Cubs employee a few years back, he compared himself to Jesus Christ. That went over poorly. In other interviews, he seemed to go out of his way to showcase his blinged-out life after baseball. Maybe it had helped that this had been a spontaneous call to someone that he perceived as a sympathizer.

With me, he hadn’t gone to the trouble of putting on a show. Despite his public persona, Sosa was understated. It made him sound more real.

On Sunday morning, I reached out to Sosa through the same intermediary that facilitated our call a few days before. I wanted to take him up on his offer. The timing makes sense; Cubs Convention is coming up this weekend, and Sosa’s standing with the organization is a good talking point. So too would be his thoughts on the upcoming Hall of Fame announcement. I made it clear that I would have to ask about PEDs. I also made it a point to say that his participation will not impact my future Hall of Fame vote. I proposed a conversation for the upcoming week.

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The response arrived a few hours later. Through his surrogate, Sosa professed his “love for the game of baseball, the city of Chicago and Cub fans.” He’d said he’d be happy to discuss these points in the future. But for now, he’d rather not discuss PEDs, or the double standard that he seems to face with the Hall of Fame.

I get his decision, though I hope that one day, he reconsiders. Still, I wondered from his perspective about the point of this whole exercise. Why bother hinting at openness only to back away? I thought back to something he said in the car. It sticks with me now. He was talking specifically about the Hall of Fame voters, though it could have applied to everyone else.

“They cannot have an excuse to put me in the dark,” Sosa said. “To forget about me, to forget about my numbers.”

It is a characteristically incomplete answer because the obvious “excuse” is steroids. It is also an honest self-evaluation. Every passing year makes it that much easier to forget. Sammy Sosa, baseball outcast, doesn’t want to be reduced to a painful memory. For that, it’s hard to blame him.

Top photo: Kirby Lee / WireImage