Sosa's mistake shakes baseball to its very core (SEMI-BARF ALERT)

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | June 6, 2003 | RICK TELANDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

[Chi-townChief]

'"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.

[gov_bean_ counter]

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?)

[over3Owithabrain]

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.

[Chi-townChief]

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.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

Sosa's mistake shakes baseball to its very core...

And it's soft and spongy.

[tomakaze]

They basicly ruined Pete Rose over what amounted to BS, but somehow I think Sosa will escape any similar consequences.

[Atlas Sneezed]

It's a game!

Who really cares?

[gov_bean_ counter]

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.

[Chi-townChief]

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.

[LandofLincoln]

does baseball really matter anymore

[Dr. Frank fan]

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.

[Chi-townChief]

I still enjoy baseball but I guess I'm part of a shrinking minority.

[gov_bean_ counter]

Mrs. Government Bean Counter wants to know why, if cork makes the bat easier to swing, they aren't all corked.

[Chi-townChief]

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.

[Billthedrill]

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.

[Blzbba]

Wow. We think a lot alike.

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

great minds...great handles...

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

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.

[You Dirty Rats]

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.

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

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.

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

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.