So, Sammy Sosa is now implicated as a PED user. This did not shock many people; after all, it’s Sammy Sosa. Anyway, as you may recall, Sammy Sosa went to that infamous Congressional hearing in 2005, and pretended he didn’t know English, and didn’t do much talking. That was cute.

But it also may have been a stroke of genius. Because if you lie to Congress in any sort of judicial proceeding, you get slapped with a perjury charge, and that’s just a whole other headache. But wait, Sosa’s statement did have a lot of denial in it, so the perjury charge should be coming any day now, right?

According to ShysterBall’s Craig Calcaterra — who is also a lawyer, the man is multi-faceted — Sosa’s camp played this one perfect. (Buster Olney argues the same thing today as well.)

He said “To be clear, I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.” He said “I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything.” He said “I have not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic. I have been tested as recently as 2004, and I am clean.” All of those statements allow for the possibility that he used substances that were legal in the Dominican Republic that would have been illegal to use in the United States.

I’ve said in the past that, contrary to the naysayings of others, Sosa was well-advised to have used an interpreter during his Congressional testimony. In light of yesterday’s news, this is even more true, because it now appears that he needed to thread a very tiny needle to keep himself out of legal jeopardy. From what I can see, he threaded it brilliantly, and as a fellow shyster, my hat is off to whoever advised Sammy back in 2005 for pulling off what I can only call a work of legal art.

Well, isn’t this an interesting twist. Looks like Sosa will have no legal problems at all. Let this be a lesson to all our kid readers out there: you too can cheat along with all your friends, and through some clever wording, get off scot-free.

Thanks for teaching us how, Sammy!

See also: The NBCs