Cubsfan

http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0603/1562772.html


Oh man, this is really disappointing. I hope his explination is true, but I'm not really counting on it.

whitak24

i hope so too.

sosa has always seemed to me to be a model of citizenship, decorum, and sportsmanship, not to mention great athletic talent.

i have a hard time buying this supposed explaination, but i'd like to think the best of him.

i guess we'll see how it develops.....

brainsmile

maybe he was going to bottle some whine later It's disappointing but then again they're under a lot of pressure. It's not surprising in the whole scheme of things.

IrishSS

I dont mean to stir up any contraversy here, but can you honestly say Sammy is a completley honest player? Look at him and his numbers over his career. He was a super scrawny tall kid who hits 20, 25 HR's a year. Now, hes a huge mother of a power hitter who belts 68? I don't think so. Can you say steroids? Same goes for Barry... guy hits 20, 30 a year and then explodes for 73 at age 40-something? Please... That has Steroids written all over it.

Now Sammy may be a great person and all, but I don't for one second believe he's a legit player. Remember when Jim Rome (I think that was who it was) asked Sammy to make good on his promise to get tested for 'roids and Sammy went into a tirade and refused? Another point against him...

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coleslaw

One argument in Sammy's favor is that when the bat broke, he didn't hang on to the handle as he ran to first. If I was using a corked bat that shattered, I'd hang on to that handle, get thrown out at first and then sprint for the other part of my bat before anyone else got to it. The way Sammy was acting, it didn't appear that he knew.

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gear02

I for one would like to believe him, but my instinct tells me he's lying. This is bad for him, since now he'll be placed in the same category as all the others. Down the road when another such corked bat gets revealed, they'll show footage of him just like they showed footage of Wilton Guerrero and others.

whitak24

i agree with you here. i have to question both sosa and bonds as far as whether they've been on the juice.

of course, MLB could solve the problem with a comprehensive steroid ban and testing program, but that would make too much sense, so the players' union opposes it

coleslaw

It seems to be taking them a while to check Sammy's other bats. How long does it take to take a hack saw to a few bats and report back with the findings?

asker

whitak24, you forgot Mark McGwire. He too looks nothing like he did when he was with the Oakland A's. I'd like to through out a lot of these "records" that are being set by guys who are doing a lot more than weight training and eating healthy. I don't know if Sammy's guilty or innocent. If this was his regular practice I would think that this would have been discovered long before now.

nairda9

Isn't the point of having a corked bat making the bat feel lighter? So even if it did get mixed into his "regular" bat supply, wouldn't he have felt the difference?

As for the Bonds-Sosa roids subject. I have no doubt that a lot of players take them, but at the same time it takes a lot more than just being strong to hit homers. Bonds batted 328 when he hit 73 homers, and 370 last year. Dunn for the Reds is leading the majors in homers this year with 18, but his batting average is 200. Strikes out more than he walks.

xsiled2

yeah this is pathetic and his excuse was horrible, why would you use a lighter bat for practice that doesnt make any sense. bonds on the other hand is a pansy wearing 2 inches of armor because he stands on the plate. i say throw for the head.

coleslaw

Imagine what might have happened if someone like Tony Gwynn was as physically strong as Bonds, Sosa and McGwire. Sure, Tony was a big guy, but not all of that bulk was muscle. Someone hitting close to .400 for as long as he did could do a lot of damage in terms of HRs.

Merlin

FYI - The bats are x-rayed. They don't cut them open unless the x-rays show that the bats have been hollowed out.

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coleslaw

Really?? I did not know that!

Why is this done? Is it so that if they do not find anything inside, they can return the bats to the player?

Merlin

Yes. The point of corking a bat is to make it lighter. Remember your high school physics - the lighter the bat is the less inertia your body overcomes and the more acceleration you get into your swing. With baseball the amount of strength you have or mass of the bat is far less important than "bat speed." Lighter bat = more bat speed = more home runs.

xsiled2

random fact: Nettles(sp?) used super balls in his bats...

Merlin

Yeah. Otherwise you'd have managers insisting that players "lucky bats" get destroyed all the time. Remember, if a manager thinks an opponent is using a loaded bat he can request it examined. But they won't destroy it unless there is a reason.

cheapie

it was rick reilly from SI

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Cubsfan

Well, I don't think it reduces the weight super-drastically, so he might not feel a few ounces difference.

nairda9

This I know, I was more thinking along the lines of Sosa should have felt the difference between a corked bat and his regular one. So in case of the corked bat getting mixed in, he should have know and changed his bat. I mean they are corked and lighter for a reason, if corked bats felt the same as regular bats why bother using it?

nairda9

I saw on ESPN when they showed how to cork a bat, that there is about an ounce difference. It might not be much but, these are their tools. If they are so fussy about how much pine tar they use, to how thick the handles are. I just think they can feel the difference between a few ounces.

Merlin

When you just pick it up and go it is really difficult to tell if something is a ounce or two lighter. You may not feel it too much but it'll show up in your swing. And in my humble opinion there was no mistake. He knew which bat he had.

The part of this that really baffles my mind is trying to figure out what these guys are thinking. I mean really, we see several bats break every game. You've got to realize that it is only a matter of time before your breaks as well. And there is no hiding it then. A corked bat is something you just can't get away with for long.

whitak24

i assumed mcgwire was a given, as he admitted that he was using supplements which are banned by basically every other athletic league.

but yes, he definitely was chemically enhanced.

faither

Sosa's a longtime major league baseball player. There's no way I could believe he grabbed the wrong bat. Players treat their game bats like religious icons -- with reverence. They treat them better than their wives or girlfriends. He's full of crap. They confiscated the rest of his bats at Wrigley last night and I'd be interested in what they find. They should x-ray those in Cooperstown, too.

As a cheater that's been caught, he has tainted his accomplishments as a player.

nairda9

Worse of all, he was playing against Tampa Devil Rays. The Rays are like a double A farm club.

IrishSS

Now we all know that Mark was using Andro, but at the time, it was perfectly legal to do so, and I think it still is in MLB. But look at it this way too. He hit 49 HR's his rookie season when he was scrawny and new to the league. Was McGwire using supplements in 98? Yes. Did it contribute to his record-setting HR year? Possibly. Hard for me to say one way or the other. But if you look at his history, he's always been a .285 or so hitter with a ton of power, regardless of his body build. When he stayed healthy, he was probably the best HR hitter of our era. Lest we forget, he has the best HR/AB ratio ever. He did get gradually bigger as the years went on. It wasn't an explosion like some other players...

attgig

cuz he's a showman.
he has been since he started to hit the hr's
I'd buy that excuse. it's consistent to who he is.




actually if you watched baseball tonight last night about corking bats, they showed buck showalter corking a bat...
the difference was only one-1.5 ounces...prolly can't tell the difference between a 32 ounce bat and a 30 ounce bat.

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coleslaw

That may be true if you were trying to maximize distance while bunting (i.e. keeping the bat stationary in relation to a moving ball), but when you consider a baseball bat, both objects are moving towards each other before impact. Given this scenario, which would you rather hit a ball with? A very tightly drawn trampoline, or one that has a little "give" to it?

The key factors in determining the distance of a projectile launched from a collision are the speeds of those objects before the collision and the time of impact. A shorter impact time will result in a greater amount of power transferred from the more massive object to the lesser one. Of course the elasticity of the objects figures into these equations as well, but having a more "elastic" surface would only result in a longer impact time.

CynJon

As a long time softball and baseball player, I know that you can ABSOLUTELY feel the difference of two ounces. I used a 30 oz. bat for the past 10 years or so playing "A" level (ASA league) ball, and this past year switched to a 28 oz. and it has required a big adjustment on my part--frustrating at times. At the major league level, I can guarantee that these guys feel a lot more difference than I do. Also, where the weight is removed makes a huge difference. Weight removed from the end of the bat has a larger effect than weight removed from the handle end. Additionally, I believe that there is a maximum amount of drop (length of bat to weight ratio) that is allowed. Example: for a -3 oz. drop, a 28 oz. bat can weigh no less than 25 oz. (I'm not sure what the max drop is for MLB). This way you can have a bat that is labelled as being legal, yet is under the minimum weight. Less weight=more bat speed.

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gear02

I've been listening to ESPN radio and they've had a bunch of people say that corking a bat does not do anything for you physically, but pyschologically. Baseball is a mental game and if he thinks that the bat is juiced, then he'll probably think he hit it better.