Sammy Sosa’s Playhouse is proud to have given you all the first ever high-ish resolution close up of Sammy Sosa together with President Barack Obama, but that does not mean we are not constantly wondering about the context that brought these powers together. Why was President Obama meeting with Sammy Sosa? Sammy Sosa retired from Major League Baseball in 2007, two full years before Obama took office. Some might say that Obama is a Chicago man and arranged to meet with one of his Chicago sports heroes from the 90s, but that just raises more questions than it answers. If that were the case, the media would have jumped at the opportunity to portray a human side of Barry O' and show enthusiasm over their celeberity-political heroes, but no, this picture has only ever been seen hanging up in the background of Sammy Sosa’s pointing house. Why was their meeting behind closed doors? Why did it take The Playhouse to first decode the completion of the image?

We must also take a moment of retrospection with respect to Sammy’s relationship with the Clintons. There are twelve known images of Sammy with the Clintons during his heyday of the late 90s. These documented meetings range from Sammy with Bill, Sammy with Hillary, and Sammy with both Bill and Hillary. Some have Sammy meeting up with them in official venues of the District of Columbia, while there are other instances of Bill Clinton specifically meeting with Sammy Sosa in the Cubs dugout, not interacting with the other Cubs players. Sammy Sosa was also a guest of honor at President Clinton’s 1999 State of the Union Address, but not only was he present as a guest, he was seated directly next to Hillary Clinton. Being seated with the active First Lady is usually an honor relegated to powerful voices in the government. Celebrities have always had public interactions with the US Government’s Executive branch, and the 90s were certainly an innovative time in the establishing the celebrity statues of professional athletes, but it is generally just to appease the media looking to get the collective lowest common denominator’s affection aroused. Sammy Sosa’s relationship with the Clinton family seemed to be far more complex and personal, oddly enough. Why?

Some may reason this with Sammy Sosa’s prominence as a Dominican icon, which was sincerely a new and inspiring thing at the time, but even Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente - who, by all objective accounts, did vastly more for Civil Rights than Sammy Sosa ever did - were never this close with their respective presidents. Others may point to Hillary being an Illinois native as this, but she would later retroactively claim to be a lifelong New York sports fan, which in itself was retroactive continuity with regards to her former pledge to Arkansas loyalty while acting as gubernatorial First Lady; *ahem* #WhichHillary #NotMyBleacherBum. Even as presidential First Lady, she never pandered to Northern Illinois constituencies to any degree, let alone one where she would have to befriend Sammy fucking Sosa.

Believe it or not, Sammy Sosa is tied to even more political forces. George W. Bush was once the owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, and his tenure correlated with the upbringing of Sammy Sosa into the organization and ergo the league. After Bush became president, Bush would later state that trading Sammy Sosa was his biggest regret. It seems like an obvious joke, and Dubya is known for his often unintentional but sometimes genuine sense of humor, but we have to consider the possibility that this statement is more than just a postmodern Bushism. If the speculation of Sammy Sosa’s ties to the Clinton administration are, in fact, substantial, there is no doubt that Vice President Al Gore was prominent in the association. Looking at the 2000 election, still coinciding with the golden age of Sammy Sosa, Slammin Sammy’s endorsement of then-Governor Bush could have been massively influential in the state of Illinois, but that is not the point that should be addressed. What ought to be addressed is the possibility that Sammy Sosa was in constant communication with the Clinton administration(which was still active) at the time during President Clinton’s massive intelligence chase of Osama bin Laden. We know that, as president elect, Bush’s cabinet-to-be had multiple high level briefings with the Clinton administration in which Slick Willy warned Dubya of the dangers of al Qaeda. Of course, Bush would ignore those warnings and vacation at his Texas ranch extensively during his first year as president and the rest is history. What does this have to do with Sammy Sosa? The connection is Sammy Sosa’s genuine (and we cannot emphasise that adjective enough) foreign policy experience. We will address that in the following paragraph, but we'll also be getting back to George Dubya Bush, so stay sharp.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi was a noted associate of Sammy Sosa’s during the late 90s. Again, Sammy Sosa was a prominent figure at the time and the precedent is well established for those of his celebrity status to meet with politicians, but international leaders? Well, yeah, baseball is immensely popular in Japan and Sammy Sosa’s legendary 1998 season put the sport back on the map in the US and intensified the worldwide prominence as if a liberal dose of Flintstones Vitamins have just been applied. So is it that peculiar for Prime Minister Obuchi to meet with Sammy Sosa? Not in the off-season, but he met with Sammy in the Cubs clubhouse in Chicago. Chicago does not house many institutes of diplomacy that hold international notability, so why was he in Chicago? Well, according to reports from WGN at the time, it was just to meet with Sammy Sosa. Keep in mind that Keizo Obuchi is not known to be a vacation enthusiast on the job like US Presidents Bush II and Obama have been. Sammy Sosa’s celebrity status simply was not strong enough to warrant a visit from Obuchi, even in the 90s.

Now, trade in your flannel and skateboard for some black hair dye and a hair straightener, because we are taking you from the 90s to 2005. Sammy Sosa is no longer the Dominican Darling of Chicago, in fact, he is not even playing in Chicago. He was now the right fielder in the domain of Martin O’Malley, for the Baltimore Orioles. His popularity is no longer soaring, as he had been negatively impacted in the public eye for the corked bat controversy of 2003 (which, incidentally, happened one day after the U.S. House of Representatives voted 370 to 0 in favor of naming Sammy Sosa a national role model), in 2004 he greatly soured relations with teammates and Cubs fans, with his egotistical attitude coinciding with slumping statistics and a losing record. He was not included in Senator Mitchell’s eponymous Mitchell report, but he testified in front of Congress anyway, infamously “forgetting” English in the testimony, which was not convenient in any way nor was it to his benefit, but I'm sure it made sense to Sammy Sosa's beautiful mind at one point. While we remain envious that he got to listen to then-Congressman Bernie Sanders rant about the top 1% (no, really), we shudder to think how a man of Sammy’s ego must have felt when he had fell that far. Indeed, this was a different time. The 90s had ended. Sammy Sosa was no longer a public darling, Sonic the Hedgehog sucked, and Ray Wilson was no longer in Genesis. Quoth the Cobain, Nevermind. Why? Because despite his lack of popularity in the public, he was still politically  prominent.











He met with then-Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, but this time his interactions with the Japanese government could not be covered up as a gleeful love of baseball; they were EXPLICITLY diplomatic. We swear we are not shitting you. Dominican President Leonel Fernandez had hired Sammy Sosa to assist him in matters of diplomacy. It’s not as weird as you might think, Sammy was still beloved in his home country, but to be lifted from his occupational duty to play baseball to act as an international diplomat in Japan? We respect Sammy’s genuine priorities, as most would agree that international politics are more important than baseball, but he explicitly broke MLB rules to do this, with no punishments given to him.

That’s where Bush comes in. Dominican-Japanese relations were opened up as a result of Sammy Sosa’s diplomacy. During Bush’s administration, Asian relations from the Clinton years and prior declined due to disapproval of Western intervention of the Middle East breaking into the international economy, not to mention the disapproval of Toonami being moved to Saturday nights. Sammy Sosa is apparently a damn good diplomat, and he’s apparently beloved by the Japanese, and given American economic dependence on East Asia, Sammy Sosa would have been a godsend for the Bush and co. To this day, Sammy Sosa remains associated with powerful world leaders that have been ignored by the post-Reagan United States, as clearly shown by his work with Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spancer. We couldn’t make this up if we tried.
 

Sammy Sosa has been quoted as saying that he is open to becoming the Dominican president, "Listen, you never know. If that moment comes in, I will be ready. I don't say that it's going to happen tomorrow or the next day, but I'm going to continue to take care of my family and taking care of the rest of the people, I feel comfortable already and I feel like I'm a president doing that."

Let’s dissect that quote. Some may immediately dismiss it as another comical Sammy Sosa eccentricity, perfectly displaying his egotism and lack of knowledge pertaining to how the world seems to function outside of his own psyche. What we are observing is a Freudian slip, Sammy Sosa saying more than he should have. It may seem that he is neglecting how the democratic process works in his statement relating to simply being asked to assume presidency, but with Sammy Sosa, that’s actually what would happen. He could easily circumvent democracy, as he already is the unquestioned representative of the Dominican Republic. For some reason.

But look at America, too. Sammy Sosa is associated with the past four presidential administrations, three of which belonging to two major political families - the Clintons and the Bushes. While we will take off my aluminum conspiracy hat (which has photorealistically-depicted oriole patched onto it in this case) in earnest for one moment to acknowledge that Sammy Sosa probably did not have explicit relations, sexual or otherwise, with George H.W. Bush regardless of his ties to Dubya, it is undeniable fact that he is far closer to the Clintons and the Bushes than any other 90s athlete. Who else had ties to the Clintons and the Bushes, specifically in a fiscal context? “The” Donald J. Trump. Who was Trump also associated with? Sammy Sosa.



Again, it was the 90s, you might say. Sammy Sosa and Donald Trump were both big celebrities, both having their own lines of comically narcissistic and ironically exploitable memorabilia, both appearing on many different commercials. It is less odd that Trump would be associated with Sammy Sosa, though it would also, in the same, non-Art Bellian context, hold weight that they have met in both professionally commercial and personal contexts. That is speaking with a backwards baseball cap and an Alice In Chains album, though, because in 2016 and onward, Donald Trump is and will always be associated with his current presidential run.

So let's look at the 2016 election. Friends of Sammy (like friends of Dorothy, but with more metrosexual powershots) Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the two front runners in their respective parties, and Jeb! Bush was running until the South Carolina primary. In the post-Citizens United world of Super PACs, dark money, and Russ Feingold's tears, not only has oligarchy strengthened in the American political world, it has simultaneously gained a dangerous amount of anonymity. We know the Koch brothers and Karl Rove shamelessly buy elections, but what of Sammy Sosa? Could the 1998 National League MVP be the mastermind of the future political system? After all, Joe Ricketts, father of current Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, runs a multi-billion dollar GOP establishment Super PAC against Trump, and Tom Ricketts is as noted for combating Sammy Sosa as he is for resembling Donald Trump's primary combatent, Ted Cruz. What if the Republican establishment isn't afraid of Trump, but they're afraid of Sammy Sosa?


When Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council took power over the Democratic Party in the late 80s to correspond the Democratic Party with Reagan Republic politics, what if it was more than an ideological alignment with that class of neocons? What if the Clintons and the Bushes, who are noted friends, were orchestrated by Sammy Sosa to manipulate the electoral duopoly? George W. Bush did not regret trading Sammy Sosa because he never hit 66 homers in a Rangers uniform, he regretted the trade because Sammy Sosa was at odds for power with Bush’s owner Karl Rove during the aughts. Dubya knows that him becoming president with the funding of the Rove machine angered Sammy Sosa and caused his dissociation with him. That is why Sammy Sosa became an international juggernaut of diplomacy during the Bush administration, to build up a worldwide Sammy Sosa empire. That is why Jeb! Bush lost in the Republican primary, because the Bushes are now on the hit list of Sammy Sosa, so he brought in his good friend Donald Trump to act as his political surrogate for the right wing. Sammy Sosa is orchestrating a Clinton vs. Trump election because that will give him the power over the United States government. When Sammy Sosa controls America, he will assume the presidency over the Dominican Republic, let America start a world war under either Clinton or Trump, and Sammy Sosa will lead the small island country to stop the fascist superpower. The world whole world will idolize the Dominican Republic for stopping the fascist United States and show their appreciating by will be filling our homes with assorted household items that Sammy Sosa will point at. The world’s wardrobe will be a Yellow Sweater, and it will be an international symbol of prosperity and salvation. Like how many major religions wear jewelry to remind them of their respective saviors, the populace will proudly don a collective Yellow Sweater while applying a jar of Creme de Sosa to their skin.

Let us dispel once and for all with this fiction that Sammy Sosa does not know what he is doing. He knows exactly what he is doing. Sammy Sosa is undertaking a systematic effort to change this planet, to make the rest of the world like Sammy Sosa’s postmodern avant-garde penthouse. That's why he points at pictures of Obama and the computer monitor and the camera and the off-camera emptiness. It is a systematic effort to change America, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Antigua, and Barbuda. When Sammy Sosa president of the Dominican, he is going to point at all the things that made him the most personified entity of irony in the post-Jimmy Carter world and he is going to leave our children with what they deserve: the brightest yellow sweater in the history of the world.