Derrek Lee (link) and Kerry Wood (link) voiced their support for Sosa in separate articles in the Trib today.

First, from Lee:

But first baseman Derrek Lee believes the Cubs organization should pay tribute to Sosa with a day in his honor after the retirement becomes official, as it did with Greg Maddux.

"I think he carried this franchise a long time," Lee said. "I think it would be fitting. Obviously he has had the [steroid] allegations against him, but nothing has been proven. I think you have to do something for him. "The guy was the franchise for a long time, put up Hall of Fame numbers, and put fans in the seats."

-snip-

Should Sosa be elected to the Hall of Fame in spite of the suspicions?

"His numbers [say so]," Lee said. "Nothing has been proven. I don't think you can keep him out just on the assumption. I guess you have the corked bat stuff [from 2003], but that's all you have that's proven against him. I think if you look at the numbers, he's easily a Hall of Famer."

From Wood:

Asked about the Hall of Fame credentials of ex-Cub Sammy Sosa, Wood said:

"Sammy never failed a drug test, never got caught up in any of that stuff and there's no evidence that anybody has against him that he did something wrong. As his teammate for many years, he's one of the guys I remember who came in and was prepared to go every day. What he did in his career was amazing and he deserves some credit for it, I think."

It's not quite the ringing endorsement that Lee gave Sosa, but this is huge coming from Woody. From what I've heard there's no love lost between him and Sosa and rumor has it that he was the one who destroyed Sosa's boombox. Wood was with the Cubs during Sosa's peak years and is classy enough to not let his personal feelings towards Sosa affect his recognition of how valuable Sosa was to the team and baseball in general during those years.