SURPRISE, AZ -- I’m not convinced, and maybe I should be, but I’ve been fooled before and I don’t want to be fooled again. I’ve just seen Sammy Sosa launch a first pitch junk pile of a fastball from old-as-dirt right-hander Livan Hernandez onto someone’s red-and-white picnic blanket upon a grassy knoll in left field some 420 feet away from home plate at Surprise Stadium. Every time I hear about a shot from the grassy knoll (especially one pertaining to the state of Texas), I grow leery, and remember that amid the excitement, it’s easy to be deceived.

So the Texas Rangers allowed Gary Matthews Jr. to leave and brought in Sammy Sosa. Nice deal. The Angels signed the $50 million headache that carries the world’s loudest no-comment stance. The Rangers took a flier on Sosa, who began his baseball career 21 years ago with the Sarasota Rangers as an expressionless kid just off the plane from the Dominican Republic, comparatively paying him not much less than they are paying him now on a minor league contract.

After spending last year in unemployment exile, Sosa is bouncing around the ballpark like he was never gone, like no one remembers his last year in Baltimore, like nobody remembers that he skillfully feigned ignorance in Washington D.C., like all 30 clubs were foolish to force him to entertain thoughts of playing in Japan or in some bush league independent circuit.

It’s not even the issue of steroids anymore, it’s that his act is old, and what right does a guy who didn’t touch a big league field last year, who hit 13 home runs in his previous year and looked feeble doing it, have to hop around the field like he never left? Are we supposed to forget? Does a career of achievement entitle a player to show stop? When did I go to a baseball game and a slam dunk contest break out? He makes sack dancers look humble.

Sosa hasn’t lost a step when it comes to showmanship. He prances when he takes his warm-up jog before the game. When he comes to the plate, he marks the dirt with the barrel of his bat and then jumps out of the box to take his practice swing like a toreador.

When he settled into the box against Hernandez, who tried one of those fastballs that used to blow hitters away a decade ago, Sosa put the ball under the beer sign on the scoreboard in left field. This was his loudest indication yet that he refuses to be done with the industry that would probably prefer that he run away and count his money. It was his second home run in four games, and for a spring training home run, it was about as significant as can be found. Sosa is playing for more than to prove that he’s worth more than a minor league contract. He’s playing to prove that he still deserves to behave like Sammy is the star and all else are admirers. It’s a pathological need. His home run had hardly landed when he began to hop around the base paths like he was Elvis, but like the King, Sosa’s career is dead despite sightings to the contrary.

He will be 39 in August. I don’t want to see another surge of power from another home run hitter who, biologically, should be past his peak. I want to see younger talent. I want to see fresh arms and speed. I want to see passion, not self-indulgence. I want to see respect, not by someone who says, “I don’t want to disrespect anybody. Like I say, I want to make the team first. Whatever the skipper wants, I bring here.”

I want to see someone act their age, because there’s no harm in getting old in this game, but there is harm in returning to alternative, un-tested for, methods that might otherwise create moments such as witnessed in Surprise. No one can hit a ball at age 38 as far as they could at age 18. No one should act 18 at age 38. I’ve covered teenagers who have more sincerity.

In his next breath, when it was delicately suggested to Sosa that he panders for applause, performing as much as he is prancing, he said, “That’s coming in the package.” Then, he flashed the smile that forced the notebooks closed.

The smile is wonderful. It’s the wattage I don’t believe.