6.6. As in percent.
That's how much support one-time Chicago Cubs star slugger Sammy Sosa received from baseball writers who had a say in Tuesday's election for Baseball Hall of Fame membership.
IT WAS FAR from the 75 percent standard required for induction. But it was higher than the 5 percent minimum level a ball player much reach if he is to appear on the next year's ballot for future consideration.
Sosa, of course, is the guy who hit in excess of 600 home runs, is the only ballplayer who ever topped 60 home runs in a season three times and had a six-year span (1998 through 2003) that is downright Ruthian (as in Babe). Which usually would have made Sosa a shoo-in for induction back when he was first on the ballot in 2013.
But there are those who are convinced his home run-hitting was merely a product of steroid use, which erased all the good will he built up when he was the living parody of Garrett Morris' "Chico Escuela" character from Saturday Night Live of old. This is a debate that baseball fans will continue to have for many years.
Although what amuses me the most about the Tuesday vote tallies was that 6.6 percent support level -- which somehow seems appropriate for the man who captured the nation's attention by hitting 66 home runs in 1998.
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