First, an inch really doesn’t make much of a difference at all. Maybe enough to give him one, at the most two, extra homers a game. Same thing with a foot or two. For most home run hitters, their balls are safely in the stands or on Waveland Ave. A foot or two just doesn’t make much of a difference, maybe three or four. If Sosa made his living just tapping balls into the ivy screens at Wrigley I’d sure. But he doesn’t. His shots are solid home runs.
I haven’t heard too much about him being an asshole. In fact most of what I’ve read or heard is that he’s generally a good guy. There are some issues about his sincerity level, and his occasional Diva attitude (i/e salsa music in the clubhouse), but most of the press about the guy is good.
Um, yes. Quite right - “extra homers a season.” And again, that’s a maybe as in maximum, not average. And he hit 66, so it’s a moot point anyway.
And it’s if he has been using the bat for the past several season, which I doubt since someone would have caught him long before now with all the bats he breaks.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a definite stain on him as a rule-breaker and a moron, but all this talk of wiping his records and stuff (not on the SDMB, but other places I’ve been) is just silly.
Why is it silly? Who the hell knows how many other times he “accidently used the wrong bat” and wasn’t caught. I don’t know about wiping his records, but I sure as hell question the validity of them now.
I believe that the advantage gained by using a corked bat comes from the bat being lighter, not from the cork helping increase distance. Several studies have shown that having cork in the bat does not help the ball go farther. Having cork in the bat does make the bat lighter which is definitely an advantage.
How many home runs has Sosa hit where one foot would have made a difference? That literally means the ball either hits the top of the wall and bounces over, or clears it by just a few inches. Probably not many.
I sincerely doubt that using a corked bat his entire career would mean more than 5 homers, and maybe not even 1, if the physicists are right. But that’s not the point. It wouldn’t matter to me if the corked bats gave him 25 homers a year or 0. He was TRYING to cheat. He’s a no-good weasel. Also, even if a corked bat doesn’t help your distance, the reduced weight WOULD help your ability to make contact, since your swing would be a little quicker and your bat control better, so even if it doesn’t give you homers it might give you more base hits. Any way you look at it it’s cheating.
Incidentally, as to “wiping his records,” he doesn’t hold any significant league records. He holds the Cubs team record for homers in a season, obviously. I think he holds the record for home runs in one month, but that’s not exactly a revered or meaningful mark. His raw STATISTICS are what they are - a record of what happened. You can’t “wipe” those.
I am suprised that nobody has pointed to the larger travesty here. His punishment/suspension/whatever will be decided by the Office of the Commissioner. Who runs that office? Why, Bud Selig of course, who just so happens to be the owner of the Milwaulkee Brewers, a team that competes in the same division as the Cubbies. What we have here is one owner deciding the fate of the star player on another team in his division. Integrity? HA! Nobody in baseball can even spell the word, much less know what it means.
RickJay, I’m in complete agreement. The actual value the corked bat might have added is indeterminable and, therefore, any changes in the numbers it produced would be pure speculation on our part.
What is disturbing though is that it would appear he deliberately tried to cheat. If true, he’s just disappointed a lot of baseball fans including a number of kids and, maybe to a larger degree, a number of countrymen from the Dominican Republic who held him in very high esteem.
I’m not ready to declare him guilty yet. I’ll still listen to all the explanations, but regardless of intent it was just a very, very stupid thing to let happen.
Well, someone might have brought it up if it would help the Brewers in any way to have Sosa out for a few games. But let’s face it, Selig could suspend Sosa for the rest of the season and the Brewers would still be in last.
True, but then again, what about players who trap balls and act like they caught them? Catchers who pull a pitch back in the zone? These are basically accepted.
Godfrey Daniels- were spitballs illegal in Perry’s day?
Troy, pulling a pitch back into the zone isn’t illegal, and neither is trapping a ball and acting like you caught it. Even the hidden-ball trick isn’t illegal, I think.
