Sammy Sosa blows off negative reactions to his altered appearance

“Those people they sometimes criticize me, they don’t know me, they don’t put food on my table and they don’t pay my bills,” Sosa said. “So when you pay my bills, you have an opportunity to talk about me. And sometimes I laugh because they make a comment like they grew up with me together, like they were in the Dominican Republic and was a shoeshine boy with me together. And they make a comment like they don’t know me for years. These people never seen me before. They never have a chance to speak to me.

“You don’t need negatives in life, you need positives. When you’re in an environment with positive people, why do you want to listen to somebody who’s gonna ruin your day? That’s impossible. I stay away from that. You know what I mean? That’s the devil talking. I stay away from that. I’m here. I’m in a good place.”

Kaplan observes in his report stemming from the interview that while Sosa’s skin “is noticeably lighter,” the former MLB star’s “appearance is nowhere near what people have perceived it to be after seeing a handful of photos online over the past few years.”

Given how some photographs that have surfaced online made Sosa appear, that certainly is an interesting and arguably encouraging observation.