Sosa caught with cork in his bat

Sosa shatters his bat and umpire discovers cork in his bat.Wonder how long this has been going on?I always figured he was putting something illegal in his body,but didn't think he was corking his bat.

 

Suuuuuuuurprise surprise surprise....

He will be referred to as 'Corky' from now on. Makes ya wonder who else is cheating, doesn't it?

 

So much for creditability

 

damn northside cheaters!

go sox

 

he's been striking out all this and last week with a corked bat....what a waste

 

said he used the bat for batting practice to put on a show for the fans. I'm calling bullshit. A baseball player KNOWS his bats like the back of his hand. He would have immediately known that was his batting practice bat and not his game bat.

 

amen on that one.......cork has ben berry berry gud to him

 

the chicago columnists are ripping him a new one.


By Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Talk about overkill.
Sammy Sosa needs a corked bat like Jennifer Lopez needs a little publicity. Or a new boyfriend.
Against those pitching-heavy Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the great Sosa should need to cheat about as much as Tom Hanks would to win the lead in a Drury Lane production. He should need a good woodworker about as much as George Clooney needs card tricks to impress women.
Yet, as Texas songwriter Jimmy La Fave says, desperate men do desperate things.
For a hitter, there isn’t much worse for his image than being caught with a corked bat. Albert Belle hit 381 homers in 12 seasons, but the first thing many people think when his name comes up is the Comiskey Park game in 1994 when he was ejected for using a corked bat. Graig Nettles still is haunted by the night in 1974 that Super Balls came flying out of his Louisville Slugger.
This is the honor roll of cheaters that has welcomed Sosa into its ignominious company. Corking his bat--which Sosa says he does for home run exhibitions--isn’t going to keep him out of the Hall of Fame, but it might as well be included in the inscription on his plaque.
Nobody’s going to forget it. Not now. Not next month. Not next year. Not ever.
Sosa achieved his status as a icon during the glory years for home run hitters, 1998 through 2001. Along with Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds, he has had to live with the suspicion that he has gotten some of his power out of a bottle or a syringe.
But this time it wasn’t cheap talk about steroids, which Sosa always has been able to deflect. This time it was a cracked bat that revealed doctoring.
Nope, this was not a false positive.
Sammy can’t say it ain’t so.
What a pity.

 

By Mike Downey, Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — It was as if someone had caught Superman using brass knuckles, or suspected Robin Hood of stealing from the poor, or accused King Arthur of rigging it so that the sword would slide easily out of the stone.
However it happened, a hero’s shining-knight image has been tarnished. And those who believe in him can keep right on believing if they so please, but those who govern over him could have a very sad judgment to make as to his future.
If the cork fits, they can’t acquit.
If it turns out to be absolutely, 100 percent true that Sammy Sosa came to bat Tuesday night at Wrigley Field with a bat that was stuffed with that stuff, then they have to suspend him from baseball.
For a week, for two weeks, for four, for more.
Oh, what a blow this would be.
For the Cubs, for the game, for the fans, for the man.
I do not believe for a minute that Sosa hit many, or even any, of his 505 home runs with anything but a perfectly legal slab of wood.
But the umpires didn’t boot him out of Tuesday’s game against Tampa Bay because they wanted to give the Devil Rays a fair chance.
They gave the heave-ho to Chicago’s greatest active superstar because when his bat split open in the first inning, they found something funny inside of it.
Chicago knows a corked bat when it sees one. Albert Belle’s was confiscated here once.
Tampa Bay also knows a corked bat when it sees one. Jose Guillen, a right fielder for the Devil Rays, got caught using one in 2001.
He drew a 10-game suspension, confessed that the illegal bat was indeed his and was quoted in the St. Petersburg Times of June 25, 2001:
‘‘I wasn’t the first one, and I probably won’t be the last one.’’
Pretty prophetic.
And pretty pathetic. Because with so much precedent set in disciplining Belle, Guillen, Wilton Guerrero and other hitters who got busted for something concealed inside their weapons, a player today hardly could say that he hadn’t been warned.
Sosa was kicked out of this game. If found guilty, he could get kicked out of many a game.
He probably wouldn’t be the last one, just as he wouldn’t be the first one.
But for baseball fans near and far, this could definitely be the worst one.

 

Albert Belle got 7 games suspension when he corked a bat. I am betting around 10-14. Court of public appeal will be a lot stiffer. Heres a great article about cheaters in baseball Baseball Cheats