Chicago White Sox Slugger Sammy Sosa broke his bat on a RBI last night. The broken bat revealed illegal cork inside. He said that he mistakenly used a corked bat from batting practice in the game.
Certainly Sosa has shattered another bat or two in his day, right? Say since 1998 when he exploded, do any MLB fans (or Chi-Sox Dopers) remember him breaking a bat? (that presumably was uncorked).
Can anyone think of a reason, other than to impress fans, that a MLB player would use a corked bat in batting practice?
On the news tonight, a memorabilia dealer or a collector of some sort, had one of Sosa’s bats…don’t remember which milestone bat it was, apparently one of the important ones, and he was shown destroying it by cutting it open. It was clean.
Count me in… I’ve only been to one game that didn’t have BP beforehand, because it was family day or something and all the players had their kids on the field with them during pre-game…
BP is often open to the public. And since his other 76 bats were X-rayed and found to be cork-less, he might just be telling the truth - implausible though I thought his explanation was.
This bat may have had some value in the not too distant future. Why destroy it? Why not just take a bundle of money and destroy that? With all the memorabilia people are willing to pay obscene amounts of money for (a wad of chewed gum sold for $10,000!!), I would think a game used bat, used to break some record or achieve some rare feat, especially by arguably the games most popular player, would be safe from destruction.
Sure, it proves that he didn’t have cork in this bat, but what good is a chopped up bat? I just don’t get it.
Well, Casey1505, consider what the two halves of the bat behind a glass frame might bring, with the caption, “Sammy Sosa’s milestone bat, tested to ensure it was unmodified.” Arguably, it adds more history, and perhaps value, to the piece.
Actually, I think this factoid makes him seem more guilty, not less. He has 77 bats to choose from, and just happens to grab the one that he perceives will hit better? What’s the odds of that happening just by chance?
Also, I would guess that he didn’t have all 77 bats out on the field - that’s probably his total supply, a smaller number of which he had on the field, including the corked one he was taking batting practice with, if we are to believe his story. And the odds wouldn’t be 1:N, where N is the number of bats - he’s probably not just choosing from them at random. In particular, if his story is correct, he must mark the corked one, at least, so that he can pick it out (some stories have been stating that he had a “c” stamped on the end of it).
When I first heard the story, my immediate reaction was “yeah, right!”. Now, I’m willing to admit the possibility. For one thing, apparently it has been common practice for some of the high profile hitters to take batting practice with corked bats in order to give the fans a show, just as Sosa suggests. Given that, it’s hard to say whether he made a simple mistake, or thought he could get away with sneaking in a few at-bats with the corked bat.
The SENSIBLE thing that might come out of this would be a rule change stating that illegal equiptment simply isn’t allowed on the field, so that such mistakes or “mistakes” couldn’t occur.
The problem I have is that it’s a built-in excuse. He even marks it with a “C” to show that he’s not guilty. Maybe I’m overthinking this, but if I was going to break the rules where there’s a pretty good chance I’ll get caught, I’d try to figure out an exit plan. This would be a perfect one.
“If I was trying to cheat, why would I clearly label my bat? Why would only one of my bats be tainted?”
I never thought of it like that. Even so, it would be like destroying a rare document to authenticate it, then displaying the shredded pieces of it. I guess there are suckers, er, people, who would pay more for a chopped bat. This drifts into IMHO territory, so I will digress.