Sosa a cheat and a liar

[IrishHand]

Probably all over ESPN by now, but Sosa was busted today using a corked bat. His masterful defense?

"I use that bat for batting practice,'' Sosa said. "It's something that I take the blame for. It's a mistake, I know that. I feel sorry. I just apologize to everybody that are embarrassed.''

Apologize to everybody that are embarrassed? You mean yourself, right big guy? Or maybe all the people who thought your 505 home runs didn't have a little assistance outside the rules? At any rate - his name may now be appriopriately linked to Albert Belle. Thankfully, a 10-game suspension or so should be forthcoming - although if it were up to me, I'd make it longer for the pathetic "it was a BP corked bat" excuse. You see...I have all these different bats. Some are for BP, some are for games, and still others are for later on in the hotel room. Sometimes I get messed up...it happens. For the record, I only use steroids prior to practice - never before games.

[Glenn]

He should be suspended for a year. I don't think the cork helps THAT much but it is such a stupid thing to do I have no sympathy. It really detracts from the game and they shouldn't put up with it.

[John Ho]

Getting caught using a corked bat doesn't mean anything compared to his (and many other players') steriod use. That is what is making a mockery of baseball.

Lots of guys used corked bats. He should get the same suspension other guys who have been caught have gotten.

[Ray Zee]

any time an athlete does feats that are beyond the other top ones, you must look very carefully into the circumstances. he should lose all his records as everything he has ever done is now suspect. cheating at baseball is worse than using canned apples in pie.

[Dr Wogga]

....I just had my wife toss the Comstock apple pie filling /forums/images/icons/shocked.gif

[bentlyman]

I agree with you guy that the guy should be suspended at least 10 days but as far as eliminating his records and a longer suspension, I think we have to wait until the facts come out. Harold Renyolds mentioned on TV that it is possible to make a mistake and use a BP bat in a game. MLB confiscated some 80 of his bats for analysis. If 5 or more of those turn out to be corked I say fry the guy. Don't get me wrong, I still am pretty sure that he is guilty, especially after seing his shifty eyed interview at the park with ESPN announcer. He kept saying "sir" after everything he said which sounded like he was on trial.

I say fry him later once all the facts are in.

[John Ho]

Baseball should test for steriods...which at this point they don't.

[IrishHand]

Apparently the 77 bats of his they took were sans cork. What does this mean? Not a heck of a lot if you ask me. It's like searching a suspect's house, finding a shirt with dried blood on it, and then him saying "but wait! My 77 other shirts have no blood." Next to steroids, corked bats are the best way for a batter to gain an illegal advantage (although the lack of anti-steroid enforcement in baseball opens the argument that it's illegal in name only).

The fact that he had 77 normal bats only means he wasn't stupid enough to cork them all (a la Albert Belle), thereby providing the built-in excuse in the rare event that one shattered that high up. (Normally bats shatter near where they grip it, precluding the likelihood that a corked bat would be "unmasked" by a routine bat shattering.)

For those, like Joe Morgan, who are now claiming it was an honest mistake based on his "that was my BP bat" defense:
(a) if you had a bat you were using outside regular games and knew it was a blatant violation of baseball's rules, wouldn't you clearly mark that bat to prevent a "mistake" from happening, and
(b) hitting is timing - why would you use a different bat to warm up with? "Making fans happy" is fine and dandy, but I don't know any pro athlete who will "make fans happy" and risk screwing up his hitting.

[J_V]

I heard some collectors opened up the 498 HR bat...worth 10K to "prove" Sammy's innocence. It came up clean. Take it for what it's worth.

[HDPM]

One other thing. Sosa has to be so FOS with this excuse. Any successful world class athlete can tell the difference in their equipment. To be an advantage, a corked bat has to be significantly lighter than a regular bat. Anybody swinging the regular bat as much as Sosa does (or purports to) would have to be able to tell the difference immediately. Tiger Woods can feel a fraction of a gram difference between drivers. Sosa isn't as exceptional as Tiger, and baseball and bats not as precise as golf or golf clubs, but come on. He must be able to tell the difference instantly. No way could this be an accident. And I'm a Cubs fan FWIW. (Although I have never been a huge Sosa fan for whatever reason.) So Sosa will get his 10 games off. But then be ridiculed and qustioned forever. Oh well.

P.S. My favorite Sosa moment has nothing to do with sosa. Harry Caray doing a run of the mill meaningless game and sosa is at bat. He starts a diatribe about names. "Steve, you ever notice that sosa spelled backwards is "Asos?" That sounds like a word. Asos. Yeah, Asos. Strike on the outside part of the plate. And your name backwards is "enots." (I don't remember this part of the diatribe exactly) Ball inside. Silence......... I'm sure glad Vizcaino isn't up." Steve Stone then has to go get some beers himself. /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

[IrishHand]

If they did, they're idiots. As far as I know, you can x-ray the things without damaging them if you really want to know.

[IrishHand]

FOS? Otherwise - what you said sounds good! /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[andyfox]

[KJS]

Rob Neyer says on espn.com baseball that they don't, and provides a pretty good reason why. Just fuel for the fire.

KJS

PS> Who makes these bats for big leaguers? Maybe the league should have a talk with them.

[IrishHand]

Thanks! /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[SKatuska]

In response to KJS, yeah, they said on SportsCenter that the bats don't add that much, but it's still illegal, and Sosa knew that. Also, in regards to the weight of a bat, there is an old Ted Williams story. He was once mad at a batmaker for giving him a bat that he claimed was a little off, so in order to test him, the batmaker made 6 or so bats each differing by an eight of an ounce. He was able to put them all in order. Now, I know Sosa is no Ted Williams, and Ted Williams had all the bats there to compare, but anyone who has swung a baseball bat as much as Sosa has can definately tell is all of a sudden one of them is lighter. He KNEW going up to the plate that he had the wrong bat, but he made sure to leave himself with a convenient excuse.

Another anit-Sosa tirade: (I'm sure most of you have heard his, but to those few of you that haven't) Last year, Sosa came out and said that he wanted to be the first one to get tested for steroids when that was made mandatory, so that he could prove that all his records were legit. So, Rick Reilly, a sportswriter for Sports Illustrated, called him up and said that there was a clinic about ten miles from Wrigley Field, and that any time Sosa was free Reilly would pick him up and pay for any testing, because Reilly said he wanted to help Sosa clear any rumors, and also because Reilly felt it would be good for baseball. However, Sosa rejected this idea, and then he flipped out at Reilly the next time that Reilly was in the Cubs clubhouse. Know I know that we are all innocent until proven guilty, but if Sosa had nothing to hide, then there was no way he would have turned down not only an opportunity to finally prove himself, but an opportunity to gain an ENORMOUS amount of fan support in the process. Now I'm not saying that he is neccessarily using steroids, but this screams out that he is abusing some sort of performance enhancing drug.

Well, I guess thats my two cents...