Sammy Sosa is reportedly ready to retire instead of accept a non-guaranteed, one-year deal worth $500K from Washington Nationals.

Sammy's Scooter, that is the guy who is leaking Sammy's side, is quoted as saying, "Sammy doesn't think of himself as someone who has to beg for a spot on a big league roster."

Really? Did Sammy watch Sammy play last year?

He continues, "Sammy wants to get to 600 home runs, but he's not willing to humiliate himself to keep playing. He feels that the lack of interest in his services this winter constitutes a humiliation."

Remember when this prima donna was America's sweetheart, with the finger-kissing and the McGwire hugging? Rickey Henderson was supposed to be a conceited player, but he was willing to play independent ball in St. Paul and Newark just to get a shot to play in the majors again. Sammy won't even drive down I-95.

This is a guy who was caught corking his bat and seems to picked up a whiff of juicing, whether that is or is not justified. Sosa's just damaged goods. He may not be as much or a pariah as his ex-teammate, Rafael Palmeiro, but his legacy has been damaged, perhaps irreparably.

Besides he's 37 years old and has seen all his batting ratios drop every year starting with his career 2001 season (from .328/.437/.737/1.174 in 2001 to .221/.295/.376/.671 last year) along with his home runs, runs batted in, and runs scored. He just isn't aging well.

But maybe we are being a pit tough on Sosa. This is a guy who has hit 588 career home runs and had 35 taters just two years ago. Could he bounce back?

Well, I looked up all the players 36 or older who registered an OPS at or below .700 with at least 200 plate appearances. On average their OPS's continued to plunge by 11 points while they lost about 108 at-bats the next year. Only a handful registered an OPS over .800, a number that would be respectable for a corner outfielder:

So is a Sammy revival out of the question? No, but the odds are not good. Only 17 men out of 301 that met the criteria made our list. And of those 17 only seven has 200 or more at-bats.

As for me, I'm fine with him retiring with less than 600 homers. Not that I have anything against Sosa, but I don't think he's anywhere near the level of Aaron, Ruth, Mays, and Bonds. Especially, if it causes poor Sammy a little "humiliation".