Sorry, Sammy Sosa, but former Chicago Cubs star Ryne Sandberg wouldn’t welcome you into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“They use the word ‘integrity’ in describing a Hall of Famer in the logo of the Hall of Fame, and I think there are gonna be quite a few players that are not going to get in,” Sandberg told ESPN 1000 radio in Chicago. “It’s been evident with the sportswriters who vote them in, with what they’ve done with Mark McGwire getting in the 20 percent range.

“We have some other players coming up like [Rafael] Palmeiro coming up soon, and it’ll be up to the sportswriters to speak loud and clear about that. I don’t see any of those guys getting in.”

Did Sandberg suspect something was up?

“I was around Sammy for about five years before I retired, and there wasn’t anything going on then,” he said. “I did admire the hard work he put in. He was one of the first guys down to the batting cage, hitting extra. I figured he was working out hard in the offseason to get bigger. It was just happening throughout the game, that even myself was blinded by what was really happening, maybe starting in the ‘98 season.

“I think it’s very unfortunate. I think suspicions were there as they are with some other players. Those players are now put in a category of being tainted players with tainted stats. I think it’s obviously something that was going on in the game. Players participated in it and as the names have come out I think that they will be punished for that.”

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while wondering how the Cardinals got two runners picked off base in one inning with the No. 4 hitter at the plate:

• What’s more painful than watching some of these Cardinals try to hit off-speed pitches?
• Is Jerry Manuel having any fun managing those depleted Mets?
• Will Tyler Hansbrough take a plunge in the NBA Draft? Or will he get the respect he earned at North Carolina?
• What is going on between Joe Girardi and Alex Rodriguez?
• Does anybody believe WWE star Brock Lesnar isn’t on the juice?
• Who really cares what a placekicker thinks about international relations?

NEWS CONFERENCES TO DANCE TO

Nice beat, eh?

A REMIX OF THIS GUY WOULD RULE

This football coach is aces at the old chit-chat. Lots of enthusiasm here. Perhaps lots of caffeine, too.

Did he really say “when we can’t run the football, I feel like we’re kind of out it a little bit, like we’re trying to sell bubble gum in a lockjaw ward”?

Never once did Scott Linehan come up with something like that/

FEHR STRIKES OUT

Retiring players association czar Donald Fehr is not getting a warm send-off from some of our favorite pundits:

Gorden Edes, Yahoo! Sports: “Marvin Miller will forever be known as the Great Emancipator for bringing free agency to players kept in servitude by the reserve clause. Donald Fehr goes out as the Great Enabler, the same steroid-stitched badge of dishonor that will be attached to Bud Selig when the commissioner elects to depart, something Selig, five weeks shy of his 75th birthday, has shown no inclination to do.”

Kevin Blackistone, FanHouse: “Had Donald Fehr played the game from which he announced Monday he was walking from after 30 years, we’d marvel at his accomplishments like a 700- or 600-plateau home run hitter during that span or a pitcher who managed 4,500 strikeouts. We’d talk about him like a multiple MVP winner and as being one of the greatest ever at his position or any position. We’d talk about him as a surefire first ballot Hall of Fame inductee. Then we’d throw it all in the nearest trash bin. We’d chuck it all for the same reasons we do the accomplishments of so many of those sluggers and strikeout artists and MVP winners during Fehr’s reign.”

Jeff Schultz, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “The first thing I thought when I heard Donald Fehr announced his retirement Monday was: Does he have to leave behind the usual items when he cleans out his office? You know: desk lamp, stapler, the box of bartered souls in the corner.”

Gwen Knapp, San Francisco Chronicle: “The Major League Baseball Players Association served its members very well during Fehr’s administration, with only exception. It wasn’t the strike of 1994-95, for which Fehr and his rival, Commissioner Bud Selig, were universally reviled. The union did the right thing then, showing the owners that even the relatively pampered players of that era would not be pushed around, giving in to the kind of salary restrictions that their football and basketball brethren had accepted. Fehr did his job then. But when his union resisted steroid testing, Fehr failed. The stand violated the union’s fundamental responsibility to protect the players.”

MEGAPHONE

“Actually, I suffer a little bit from LSE (low self-esteem). I’m a little insecure and I’m working on it. . . . A lot of females that are in a position where they’re really successful might just go home and be a little insecure.”

Tennis star Serena Williams.