No need to keep writing unchanged Sosa story

CHICAGO — Ask a suspected jewel thief if he committed a jewel heist. If his response is, “I didn’t trip any alarms,” you can stop asking questions.

So this ongoing fascination with Sammy Sosa and illicit performance enhancements during his playing days with the Cubs, while still evidently compelling fodder for countless columns and sports-talk debates, seems a futile endeavor.

“I never failed a drug test,” Sosa told Sports Illustrated, which was looking back on the season 20 years ago when he hit 66 home runs, surpassed that season only by Mark McGwire’s 70 and both unprecedented. “So why are you asking me about that, when they don’t have nothing on Sosa?”

Asked and answered, Perry Mason.

Let’s move on to Secretariat’s grave and start stomping, so we can report, “Yep, still dead.”

For a guy we’ve written off, we still do an awful lot of writing about Sosa. (Yes, this column included.)

This fascination tells us more about ourselves than Sosa, who is demonstrating that foolish consistency said to be the hobgoblin of little minds.

We all have a vested interest in the sun rising in the East each morning, but it won’t rise to the level of newsworthiness until it doesn’t.

Until and unless Sosa changes his story, there is no story. His charge is size, power and performance during baseball’s PED era, combined with the New York Times reporting he was among 104 players who tested positive in 2003 before Major League Baseball had penalties for doing so.

“I never had a test positive in this country,” Sosa told ESPN in an interview that ran on “E: 60” on Sunday.

ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap dug in, asking specifically about whether he used performance-enhancing drugs.

“No, my friend,” Sosa said, prompting Schaap to take another pass.

“No, I never missed any test at the major league level,” said Sosa, who, pressed once more, stuck to his line of defense, or at least his line. “Once again, I never tested positive.”

Which reminds me of a joke.

Knock, knock. “Who’s there?” “Sammy Sosa.” “Sammy Sosa who?” “I never tested positive. Why do you keep asking Sammy Sosa this?”

In the space of two months, there have been at least eight Sosa headlines on chicagotribune.com.

The first seven neatly summarize the Sosa saga, such as it is.

“Sammy Sosa would welcome Wrigley return ‘for fans,’ says criticism is ‘devil talking’”

“Don’t be fooled by the Sammy Sosa on your TV screen”

“Sammy Sosa still treats the truth like it’s a cutoff man”

“Sammy Sosa’s old mansion in Florida’s Golden Beach is ready to field offers”

“Real Sammy Sosa revealed in SI piece: Ernie Banks ‘has a statue, and I don’t have nothing’”

“Sammy Sosa prolonging his exile from Wrigley Field”

“The 2014 Sammy Sosa tell-all interview that fell through: By saying nothing, he said everything”

Sosa’s the one who has to look at himself in the mirror — or at least someone who almost kind of looks like him; that’s another thing — and until his story changes, there’s no need to keep rewriting it.