Sammy Sosa's batting incident

Dionysus · #1 06-05-2003, 05:53 PM

Your thoughts?

I'm curious how long this has been going on if he did intentionally use the corked bat.

Even if he did intentionally use that bat, I just hope this little incident won't turn into a big issue (yeah right), I believe many more baseball players and other athletes use performance-enhancing drugs...and questionable equipment. Yeah, there's also a chance that he is using PE drugs too.

It's unfortunate that his reputation will probably suffer because of this. What was he thinking?

Kevin · #2 06-05-2003, 05:59 PM

What gets me is the way this guy hits, he doesn't need a corked bat! He's usually hitting them out of the park.. His story seems pretty lame.

Eclipse · #3 06-05-2003, 06:11 PM

According to what I heard on the news this morning all 50+ of his other bats (do they really need that many bats??) tested o.k., so maybe his story about his "trick bat" for the fans was true. I know I thought Mark McGuire was on something the year he beat Sammy for the home run crown, so I was truly put out whe n I heard this

Dionysus · #4 06-05-2003, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Eclipse
I know I thought Mark McGuire was on something the year he beat Sammy for the home run crown, so I was truly put out whe n I heard this

Andro, I think.

DeltaSigStan · #5 06-05-2003, 06:18 PM

Yep, androstinedione.

Steeltrap · #6 06-05-2003, 06:26 PM

Been taking some. This Skip Bayless column from the San Jose Mercury News is a howler:

Posted on Thu, Jun. 05, 2003

World sees Scammin' Sammy

By Skip Bayless
Mercury News

Finally the cover has been knocked off a beloved slugger known for knocking the cover off the ball.

Finally an all-time great con artist has been exposed. As I've written many times, including in the newspaper that owns the Chicago Cubs, Sammy Sosa is the biggest phony I've encountered in any sport. Baseball's most popular player is Madison Avenue's most successful marketing fraud.

Finally the world has seen that its cartoon superhero -- sweet, cuddly Sammy -- has feet of cork.

If you think that's far too harsh, please understand that nothing poisons my pen like heroic hypocrites. While many fans, through the Great Home Run Race of 1998, were conned into seeing Sammy as this heart-tap-kissing, bunny-hopping buddy and rival of Mark McGwire's, the sly-eyed guy I often heard about or observed off-camera was a profane bully with highly questionable integrity.

There's some Martha Stewart in Sosa, and vice versa. Here is a great actor who can be a bad actor. I'll say it again: At least Barry Bonds is always exactly what he is.

Yet fans believed the Mark-and-Sammy fairy tale they badly wanted to believe. A mystified McGwire privately told St. Louis reporters he had no idea why Sosa kept telling the media they were close friends. McGwire knew Sosa only from conversations at first base and never played golf or socialized with him.

Does anyone remember that Sosa, as a member of the Chicago White Sox, was accused of spousal abuse? No. Does anyone remember that his family-operated Sosa Foundation set up to help rebuild his Dominican Republic after it was ravaged by storms in '98 collapsed under accusations of corruption? No.

Now maybe some of the wide-eyed Sosa worshipers will narrow their eyes with skepticism. Now maybe some of the companies whose products he pushes will rethink paying millions to Say It Ain't Sosa. No, he's no worse than a lot of wealthy superstars. But the corked bat he was caught using proves he isn't the baseball-saving role model so many fans were sold.

My educated guess: Sosa cheated, got caught and lied about it.

Yet fortunately for Sosa, his bat shattered in the bottom of the first inning, revealing the illegal cork and getting him ejected. He had the rest of the game 1) to remove other possible weapons of corked destruction from his clubhouse bat bin before baseball officials confiscated them for inspection; and 2) to rehearse his apology and excuse.

Not surprisingly, the league office announced no cork was found in the 76 bats examined. Sosa's no fool, and neither are baseball executives. He remains one of baseball's biggest draws.

Answering ``yes, sir'' and ``no, sir'' to TV reporters' questions, Sosa has begged forgiveness while claiming he accidentally picked up the one corked bat he uses only ``to make the fans happy'' by hitting tape-measure home runs in batting practice. That's only slightly less believable than former Alabama Coach Mike Price's story that he awoke in his hotel room bed with a woman he'd never seen before.

Some players prefer slightly heavier batting-practice bats so their regular lumber will feel lighter during games. But Sosa has struggled of late after being hit in the head with a pitch and missing some games with a toe problem. When he returned last weekend, he looked as overweight as his bat looked slow. He struck out eight times in two games.

So Tuesday night, with runners at second and third, it was probably no accident he reached for the hollowed-out bat he could swing a little faster. It's highly possible Sosa has occasionally tried to put a cork in a home-run slump.

Experiments have shown corked bats provide only an approximate 1 percent improvement in distance. That, however, could occasionally mean the difference in a ball hitting high in Wrigley's ivy instead of catching the home-run basket. Now you wonder how many of Sosa's 505 homers were cork-aided. Five? Ten?

For sure, a corked bat can provide a psychological edge for a slumping slugger.

And Slammin' Sammy has sometimes desperately looked for ways to live up to the image he created in '98. He returned in '99 sporting about 30 more pounds and announced: ``I am a slugger now.'' Is it much of a stretch to believe, if he resorts to corked bats, he might have used testosterone boosters to build his body? He has repeatedly denied using them, but Cubs insiders have long suspected he has.

But do most fans really care? No, most just want to be awed by home runs bouncing across streets and splashing in coves no matter what it took to produce them. I'm for outlawing performance-enhancing drugs to protect the players who don't want to risk using them but have no choice if they want to compete. But I'm for stiffer corked-bat penalties because it's time our national pastime stopped glamorizing cheating.

My fairy tale would be baseball sending a tape-measure message by suspending Sammy Sosa 20 games, instead of the usual seven or eight for getting caught swinging cork. But we'll sooner see world peace.

Nor will this incident damage Sosa's Hall of Fame chances. Spitball specialist Gaylord Perry was enshrined after seasons of being portrayed as colorfully crafty for illegally doctoring baseballs and avoiding detection. Then again, crusty old Gaylord wasn't sweet, cuddly Sammy.

Sosa's image has taken a fitting hit. This just in: Sosa no angel.

KSigkid · #7 06-05-2003, 08:56 PM

Do I think that Sammy honestly grabbed the wrong bat...yeah.

Do I think he's used a corked bat before in games - now I'm not so sure, but I may be inclined to say yes.

Who knows - but it does come at a bad time, what with Sammy just passing 500, and gaining a ton of support as a first-ballot Hall of Famer when he is done.

I've read a couple of other columns like the one Steeltrap posted about his "show" for the cameras...but I think you'll see a lot more of those type articles now that he has been exposed a little.

Fair? I'm not sure, but it will be interesting what some media types say about Sammy now.

SniffDNZ098 · #8 06-05-2003, 09:01 PM

it was an accident...

DeltAlum · #9 06-05-2003, 09:40 PM

Fifty or sixty other bats tested OK. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

alphachiohmy · #10 06-05-2003, 11:10 PM

I was at the game when it happened and at the game it was not that huge of a deal ... of course we were in the middle of talking to the miller lite vendor when it happened... he was taken out and we later found out why. But as soon as we left the friendly confines it was all over television news and the papers in the a.m. I still have my tix stub - wonder if it ill be worth anything???

DeltAlum · #11 06-05-2003, 11:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by alphachiohmy
I still have my tix stub - wonder if it ill be worth anything???

Only if you have a part of the bat to attach it to.

docetboy · #12 06-05-2003, 11:26 PM

If only Baseballs classic greats were still around...

Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?
a nation turns it's lonely eyes to you... (ooo ooo ooo)

What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away (hey hey hey, hey hey hey)

Kevlar281 · #13 06-05-2003, 11:41 PM

Athletes know their equipment I doubt it was an accident.

steelepike · #14 06-05-2003, 11:54 PM

well too bad that this had to happen. Hopefully he can pull out of the whole funk he's in this season and come back from his suspension and get some quality numbers after his return.

Hootie · #15 06-06-2003, 01:39 AM

I don't like the guy but like others have said, if 50 tested fine then it was probably an accident.

BTW! I, of all people, should know what a cork bat does exactly but I don't. I assume it allows baseballs to fly farther. Anyone know what year they outlawed using them during games and why?