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• 1 2017-12-06T10:21:59-08:00 Sammy Sosa 5 plain 2018-01-22T17:12:57-08:00 The superstar, record-breaking, controversial retired Dominican baseball player, Sammy Sosa embodies the classic success story. Coming from an unfortunate, poverty-stricken community in San Pedro de Macoris, at the age of 15 Sosa fell in love with the sport of baseball, proved to be a natural athlete, and even acquired the attention of several scouts from the MLB. As soon as he became eligible to compete and earned his first significant amount of playing time with the Chicago Cubs, he began setting new records and rewriting history. Eventually he became a competitor in the race for most home runs hit in a single season. With all of this success that Sosa has had, there also came a handful of setbacks, beginning with allegations of using a corked bat to improve his swings. An investigation would lay this theory to rest, but Sosa also began to struggle with injuries for the first time in his professional career, as well as with accusations of steroid use, which he actively denied. Unfortunately, his career began to fizzle out as his relationship with team managers and players began to deteriorate and as he had to deal with trades and national drug investigations. Since this downward spiral, the latest insights into the private life of the famed player revolve around another strange, disappointing event-- the apparent lightening of his skin.
  
  
  During an ESPN Deportes’ coverage of the home run derby, fans went wild after Sosa made a brief appearance wearing a pink outfit with noticeably lighter skin. Sosa did not address speculation about his skin color at that point. While some were quick to notice Sosa’s latest looks and compared him to cartoon characters and other celebrities accused of bleaching their skin, others questioned his mental health status. The physical change appears to have caused a mixture of feelings for his fans and spectators, including disappointment, fear, and worry. One twitter user took to Sosa’s visible change in a personal manner, writing “Can I just say that the stuff where people make fun of Sammy Sosa’s lighter-skinned appearance makes me deeply uncomfortable? Not even from a racial perspective, but mostly from a health/mental health perspective. Lay off.” Another example of similar sentiments is a message that reads: “Idk what Sammy Sosa is going thru at this point in his life but this picture is terrifying,” Twitter user Brandom Williams wrote.
   
  
  
  
  An inside look by a Beverly Hills dermatologist allows us to understand the magnitude of the implications that this skin de-pigmentation has on the baseball legend. Dr. Peter Kopelson says that, “I’m not Sammy’s doctor, so I can’t speculate as to why he would do something like this, but unless he does have a skin condition such as Vitiligo, this definitely isn’t normal… To completely remove the pigment from his skin, Sammy would have had to use a medication called Benzoquinone,” Kopelson explained. “It leaves the skin unprotected against skin cancer, so he would have to make sure that he uses a lot of sunscreen and wear hats everyday and clothing that cover up his skin… He is absolutely at a greater risk for cancer than a regular Caucasian person because he has completely taken the pigment out of his skin. Again, this is a very strong medication that is not commercially available. Not that many people have used it because it’s basically illegal in the United States without getting an approval from the CDC, and it’s rare that they allow it to be used. The only extreme case that I’ve ever seen of skin de-pigmentation to this magnitude was Michael Jackson.”
  
  
  
  So, why would an accomplished, respected, ground-breaking Latino superstar put himself in this uncomfortable position of self-inflicted risk? One possibility is that because Sammy Sosa began his career in the MLB at such a young age, he was still growing up as he developed as a player and a person, consciously and unconsciously picking up different social and cultural traits from the places in which he now lived and played in the US. These gradual and natural adjustments that he encountered over time as he experienced culture shock in a society different from the country in which he was raised, are likely to have influenced his personality and beliefs. While the player never directly addresses the reason for the treatment, it could be argued that playing 18 seasons in a country different from your own, feeling like the ‘other’, adjusting to new practices and routines and so on, has an impact on the identity of the person going through it. In this case, the conflicts and struggles on Sosa’s identity seem to have lead to his ultimate decision, which can be seen as a form of lashing out-- a recurring theme of the Latino experience in the MLB.