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Sosa's mistake shakes baseball to its very core (SEMI-BARF ALERT)
Chicago Sun-Times ^ | June 6, 2003 | RICK TELANDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Posted on 06/06/2003 10:13:28 AM PDT by Chi-townChief

THE WAY I SEE IT

I look at my scorecard from Tuesday night's Cubs game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and it's almost funny. My blue-pen notations go through the Devil Rays' first four batters--Julio Lugo, Marlon Anderson, Rocco Baldelli, Aubrey Huff--and in my sloppy, semi-disinterested scrawl show that the players got one hit between them in the first inning but did not score.

Then I have the Cubs' Mark Grudzielanek getting hit by a pitch and going to third on Alex Gonzalez's double. Corey Patterson has a ''K'' in his box. And the next batter, Sammy Sosa, has beside his name ''4-3''--second baseman to the first baseman for the out--with a little ''1'' in the lower right corner for the RBI Sammy earned for knocking in Grud from third.

Then I have nothing.

For the rest of the game.

Correct that. Written in the right margin of my scorecard is, ''Run taken back in 1st inning.''

And on the left margin I have scribbled the philosophical and inpenetrable query, ''What?''

But nothing else.

The moment Sosa's corked bat exploded into a pair of historical footnotes, the score of this game became irrelevant.

As I looked down from the press box on the curious twilight scene being played out--umpires intently and thoroughly inspecting a jagged bat shard, Grudzielanek going back to third, Gonzalez going back to second, the run coming off the board, nobody arguing hard, Sammy leaving the game--it dawned on me, as it did on everybody at Wrigley Field that night, that there was something very different going on afield.

And I still feel that.

In the frenzy of venting and moralizing that has come since Sosa's illegal bat was discovered, there has been a lot of hyperventilating, too.

We all need to take a deep breath, perhaps, and a step back from the scene of the crime and figure out what the infraction really means, if anything. Me, too.

The shock of seeing something so unexpected as a corked bat in Sosa's arsenal is only now losing its effect. After all, was there anybody out there even thinking about the almost-comically retro notion of a drilled-up bat being a factor for any slugger these days?

Drugs, yes.

Alcohol issues, yes.

Contract situations, yes.

But cork?

Isn't there something more modern--helium or a mini-solar turbine or maybe low-grade uranium--that would go into a millionaire's bat and produce better results than the old stuff from bulletin boards?

Sosa himself seemed not to fully understand the post-bat situation and on Wednesday even portrayed himself as a baseball martyr, sacrificed on the altar of media gluttony. Why, the media had virtually turned him into ''a criminal,'' he said.

He was hurt badly, he said.

But not because he had used a corked bat. That was an accident.

Like putting on an unmatched sock.

No, he was hurt because he ''screwed up,'' as he put it, made his apologies, and still the damn media wouldn't let it go.

But there's a reason for that.

Sosa expects us all to accept the modern public-relations technique for moving past blunders of admitting (some) wrongdoing, hanging one's head briefly, taking a penalty, then starting back where one left off.

That works, except when the culprit didn't really come clean. Or when something deeper was damaged.

It simply defies logic to believe Sosa picked this loaded bat--and who knows if corked bats even help most batters?--by acccident.

''Look,'' Anaheim Angels right fielder Tim Salmon told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, ''you get a supply of bats, save the good ones for games and put the bad ones aside for batting practice. It's the tool of our trade. You should know, and I think everyone does, what you're carrying to the plate.''

Angels manager Mike Scioscia called Sammy's use of a corked bat, under any circumstances, ''mind-boggling.''

''When you get right down to it, it strikes me that someone should check to see if Sosa's head has been corked--or if it is merely bone,'' David M. Carter, who teaches the business of sport at USC, told the Times. ''After all, it seems to me he took or allowed for an enormous and totally unwarranted risk.''

And that is what Sosa, and those blind fans who say, ''What's the big deal?'' are missing.

It's not the bat, per se.

It's the idea of it.

The ready-made, shoulder-shrugging excuse when caught.

The cynical risk.

It implies that there is a moral wasteland in the little banded baseball world that we believe is better than the crappy one we deal with each day.

You do not take your own illegal bat to the plate by mistake.

You cannot.

It is not possible.

That is because the very ownership makes one always culpable, always a participant in whatever happens with it.

''A doctored bat in Sosa's hands seemed to amount to willful defilement of the game's mythology,'' wrote USA Today.

Oh, of course, we'll get over this.

Maybe the 2003 Cubs will even march along and complete the magic season fans have dreamed of for nearly a century.

But Sammy's mistake will come back to haunt us in small, almost trifling ways, perhaps far in the future when we least expect it. Maybe with things that have nothing to do with sport.

Like when we try to figure out what is true.

And what is merely hollowed out.

Contact Rick Telander at rick@ricktelander.com


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: mlb; sosa
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'"A doctored bat in Sosa's hands seemed to amount to willful defilement of the game's mythology," wrote USA Today.'

What a load of BS!! Guys getting caught cheating IS part of the game's mythology. Sammy deserves to get the rap on this and take his punishment and whatever hits that may come in the future but cut the hand-wringing crap. Of course, most of the hand-wringing comes from the same clowns who vigorously defended Clinton's BJ cover-up.
1 posted on 06/06/2003 10:13:29 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
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To: Chi-townChief
Guys getting caught cheating IS part of the game's mythology.

Gaylord Perry "spit" his way into the Hall of Fame. (He is in the Hall, right?)

2 posted on 06/06/2003 10:16:31 AM PDT by gov_bean_ counter
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To: Chi-townChief
Well, Sosa did cheat, as you imply. But his piss-poor Clintonesque lying excuse of bringing his BP bat to the plate is especially irksome. People wishing to continue their hero-worship are falling hook, line and sinker for that load of bull. He cheated, he's been cheating for years on steroids just like Bonds, McGwire, etc. I love baseball, but MLB has become a sick joke - it's all about phony HR's and selfish, cynical millionaires dishonoring a great team sport.
3 posted on 06/06/2003 10:20:33 AM PDT by over3Owithabrain
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To: gov_bean_ counter
I thought that Gaylord's contribution was the Vaseline Ball. He'd load up the back of his scalp with that greasy kid stuff before the game and then load up the ball with it during the game.
4 posted on 06/06/2003 10:22:09 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
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To: Chi-townChief
Sosa's mistake shakes baseball to its very core...

And it's soft and spongy.

5 posted on 06/06/2003 10:22:46 AM PDT by Only1choice____Freedom (If somebody has to tell you, it's already too late.)
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To: Chi-townChief
They basicly ruined Pete Rose over what amounted to BS, but somehow I think Sosa will escape any similar consequences.
6 posted on 06/06/2003 10:23:01 AM PDT by tomakaze
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To: Chi-townChief
It's a game!

Who really cares?
7 posted on 06/06/2003 10:24:41 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed
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To: Chi-townChief
Thanks for the clarification. My bigger problem with major league bb is the way the wimps get pi$$ed off with the inside pitch. Come in tight and someone charges the mound

Darn it, Bob Gibson owned home plate and if you got to close you were going down. Everybody knew it was business. Grrrr.

8 posted on 06/06/2003 10:26:11 AM PDT by gov_bean_ counter
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To: over3Owithabrain
I didn't imply that Sammy cheated - he DID cheat and deserves to get his ass kicked for it. And I agree with you on the steroid and millionaire issue. However, I still get a charge out of these stories of doctored bats and balls or Ty Cobb's sharpened spikes or Babe Ruth having a few beers between innings.
9 posted on 06/06/2003 10:27:13 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
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To: Beelzebubba
does baseball really matter anymore
10 posted on 06/06/2003 10:27:21 AM PDT by LandofLincoln
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To: Chi-townChief
Sosa expects us all to accept the modern public-relations technique for moving past blunders of admitting (some) wrongdoing, hanging one's head briefly, taking a penalty, then starting back where one left off. That works, except when the culprit didn't really come clean. Or when something deeper was damaged.

No, then it still works. Like when Janet Reno "took responsibility for" Waco (meaning, she said the words "take responsibility for".)

It's not the bat, per se. It's the idea of it. The ready-made, shoulder-shrugging excuse when caught. The cynical risk. It implies that there is a moral wasteland in the little banded baseball world that we believe is better than the crappy one we deal with each day.

No, it implies that there is a moral wasteland in Sammy Sosa's head, if anywhere.


11 posted on 06/06/2003 10:28:30 AM PDT by Dr. Frank fan
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To: LandofLincoln
I still enjoy baseball but I guess I'm part of a shrinking minority.
12 posted on 06/06/2003 10:30:17 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
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To: Dr. Frank
Mrs. Government Bean Counter wants to know why, if cork makes the bat easier to swing, they aren't all corked.
13 posted on 06/06/2003 10:31:05 AM PDT by gov_bean_ counter
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To: gov_bean_ counter
I'm pretty sure that corking is an old wives' tale. What you gain in bat speed you lose in momentum (mass x velocity, if I recall my high school physics) so there's little, if any, net gain. However, I think it's one of those "psychological edge" things.
14 posted on 06/06/2003 10:33:54 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
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To: Chi-townChief
Great heavens, the Union is in peril! The stars have frozen in their courses and the moon has fallen out of the sky!

Sammy screwed up. For whatever reason he took illegal equipment into the game and got caught. He's been given an eight-game suspension.

There are, I believe, 25 players per roster at this point in the season, of which Sosa is precisely one. The game went on. The stars did not freeze in their courses and the moon is pretty much where it's supposed to be. It's a game. A game I love, to be sure, subtle and complex and many-faceted, but it's just a game. This columnist really needs to get a grip.

15 posted on 06/06/2003 10:41:00 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Beelzebubba
Wow. We think a lot alike.

I was going to type "It's baseball - who cares?!"...

great minds...great handles...
16 posted on 06/06/2003 11:18:10 AM PDT by Blzbba
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To: Billthedrill
Exactly, but this collumnist is part of the growing majority of sports-dorks (aren't all sports columnist dorks?) who love to be outraged and angry...sounds like a certain political movement.

As an unrelated side, and I mention this in passing, from FoxSports to Espn's website and network, their people are notoriously left of center when they are political. Hmmm.
17 posted on 06/06/2003 11:21:21 AM PDT by PeoplesRep_of_LA (Press Secret; Of 2 million Shiite pilgrims, only 3000 chanted anti Americanisms--source-Islamonline!)
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To: tomakaze
Pete Rose signed a statment admitting that the Commissioner had grounds to ban him from the game permanently.

The only infraction of baseball's rules that will get you banned permanently banned from baseball is gambling on your own team.

Rose bet on his own team while he was a manager.

The 1919 White Sox threw the World Series, tainting the Cincinnati Reds World Championship forever.

The only thing that is BS about Rose is the refusal of Rose or his apologists to face the above facts.

Pete Rose and Sammy Sosa were two of the most beloved ballplayers in history. Baseball correctly promoted both as icons of the game. These two knuckleheads ruined their own and baseball's reputation through greedy, dishonest behavior -- then refuse to be honest about it.

Cheats & liars. They both deserve nothing but scorn.

18 posted on 06/06/2003 11:28:06 AM PDT by You Dirty Rats
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To: over3Owithabrain; Chi-townChief
But his piss-poor Clintonesque lying excuse of bringing his BP bat to the plate is especially irksome. People wishing to continue their hero-worship are falling hook, line and sinker for that load of bull.

As someone who has defended Sosa on here from the easy, cheap cynical tear down of the man, I take exception to calling his excuse "Clintonesque" or any comparison of his character to Bill Clinton. See Joe Morgan's collumn on this.

it's all about phony HR's and selfish, cynical millionaires dishonoring a great team sport No arguement here, but other than impolitely playing his Salsa music in the locker room too loud, you couldn't possibly be crucifying more of a wrong person for this.

19 posted on 06/06/2003 11:35:31 AM PDT by PeoplesRep_of_LA (Press Secret; Of 2 million Shiite pilgrims, only 3000 chanted anti Americanisms--source-Islamonline!)
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To: You Dirty Rats; tomakaze
Cheats & liars. They both deserve nothing but scorn.

Wow. Settle down there, first stone caster.

No one let this guy around a torch of pitch fork.

20 posted on 06/06/2003 11:39:03 AM PDT by PeoplesRep_of_LA (Press Secret; Of 2 million Shiite pilgrims, only 3000 chanted anti Americanisms--source-Islamonline!)
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