Last night at the National Press Club, Nats fans got a few minutes of Nationals president Tony Tavares’ time. He appeared with the W. Post’s John Feinstein, NPR’s Scott Simon and moderator Marvin Kalb, as part of Kalb’s semi-annual “Kalb Report” interview show/discussion panel.

Besides the always-hot topic of steroid abuse, one of the evening’s big subjects was Sammy Sosa and published reports that D.C. came thisclose to getting him. Responding to talk that another million or so could have closed the deal, Tavares flatly denied it: “Money had nothing to do with this trade.”

But the Nats could have had him, possibly. The Cubs were at wits end with their aging superstar and shopped him to anybody in the league at nearly any price, provided that the more of Sosa’s salary Chicago had to shoulder, the more talent they wanted for him. Nationals GM Jim Bowden wanted Tavares to at least look at it, and he did. But Tavares said: “We never really were in negotiations.” Pressed to describe the talks that did take place, he allowed that there were “light discussions.”