Sammy Sosa - WTF?

[Beanpot]

As Big League Stew asks:

 

What in the name of Michael Jackson is up with Sammy Sosa?

 

Retirement, or something, appears to be changing Sammy Sosa(notes). He and wife, Sonia, were recently in Las Vegas for the Latin Grammys, which included a tribute on Wednesday to singer Juan Gabriel. Photogs caught the Sosas on the red carpet and Sonia looks fabulous as always. As for Sammy ... well, there's no getting around it, but Sammy looked kind of pale.

 

His skin is undeniably lighter than at any time since he broke into the majors in 1989. Is it an illness, or a condition such as Vitiligo, in which depigmentation occurs? Is Sammy just bleaching his skin for fashion's sake? (Heh, "just.")

 

I wonder if he is changing his look, simply because his eyes are a different color. Sammy was born with brown eyes. He's taken to wearing green contact lenses and, quite frankly, they are extremely creepy. Is he co-starring in the upcoming "Twilight" sequel? The plastic suit also bothers me, just because it does.

 

Sammy, who hasn't played since 2007, has been accused of using modern chemistry to help him attain 609 career homers — including three seasons of 60-plus. Perhaps he's turning to science to give him a different veneer as he approaches his 41st birthday. Below, check out a few comparison shots to judge for yourself.

 

Thanks to my parents for putting me through wikipedia school, I've read that vitiligo affects 1-2% of the population and that half of those develop the condition before their 20th birthday. Now even if my profs somehow got those numbers wrong, it's pretty clearly a rare-ish condition.

 

So maybe it's the viti thing or maybe it's a ton of makeup or maybe it's bad lighting (too many pictures for that to be the case) but he sure as hell doesn't look like he did back in the day...or even back in the May of this year:

 

 

 

Beanpot

[Cowsrus]

Wow, that is a shocking picture for sure.

 

After I read this post, I googled, Does Sammy Sosa have Vitiligo and I didn't readd all of the things that came up (and there were plenty of hits) a lot of the articles are asking the question, can steroid use cause Vitiligo?

 

Also when Michael Jackson died and the subject of Vitiligo of course came up and a Doctor said that a lot of people who have it choose to take a medication that turns the skin white I guess faster so it's not blotchy.

 

If his name was not attached to that picture, I don't think I would have recognized him at all. It loos like his eye color has changed as well from brown to green. Of is it my imagination? Either way, it might explain why he hasn't been seen lately in public. At least not that I know of.

 

Heidi

[kshutchins]

The only thing I have to say is, "how odd."