OT: What Did Sammy Do?

[pjstp20]

Originally posted by JonInMiddleGA
Am I the only person who thought the Neyer piece was pretty damned weak and came across like he was the chosen shill for the position best for ESPN?

No I thought it was weak too, doesn't matter if it helps or not, that's debatable, problem is he cheated. ESPN is really trying to do spin control on this because they know baseball can't get any more black eyes, especially when they have games running on their network till September. However, I don't think Sammy is a bad guy and he'll get through this, but it will always be with him.

Panerd- that Enron quote was hilarious.

[Radii]

Originally posted by JonInMiddleGA
Am I the only person who thought the Neyer piece was pretty damned weak and came across like he was the chosen shill for the position best for ESPN?

I thought he made clear, concise points in a well written article.

[pjstp20]

Originally posted by Neuqua
MLB checked up on the 77 bats taken from the clubhouse which were supposed to have belonged to Sosa, and not one came back with cork in it..

Take it for what it's worth..

I'm not saying this isn't true, but outside of Sammy Sosa, Major League Baseball has the most to lose if there were more than a few corked bats.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally posted by pjstp20
I'm not saying this isn't true, but outside of Sammy Sosa, Major League Baseball has the most to lose if there were more than a few corked bats.

And herein lies the biggest problem with this whole thing. A lot of people will believe the worst, always, and ignore any facts to the contrary.

And they have a perfectly legitimate reason to do so. You cheat, intentionally or otherwise, you're screwed.

[SirFozzie]

Seventy Six bats, not one corked. I think this pretty much shuts down the "habitual cheater stuff" considering the amount of attention likely focused on the Cubs locker room the second Sosa was ejected, so moving them out is not an option, also, I've seen an at-bat for sosa a few weeks back (before he went on the DL) where he fractured a couple bats, and everything seemed to be cool.

Here's the main reason why folks put cork on the bat, deface the ball, because they BELIEVE it works! Belief is a pretty powerful tool.

[MrBug708]

Originally posted by Neuqua
MLB checked up on the 77 bats taken from the clubhouse which were supposed to have belonged to Sosa, and not one came back with cork in it..

Take it for what it's worth..

So you're saying that what most likely happened was the ONE time he used the bat, it shattered? OJ had a better defense then this

[cmp]

I don't know why. But for some reason I believe Sammy. He may have done it knowingly, may not of. Until I hear for sure I believe him. If he knowingly did it my opinion of the man will greatly change though.

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by MrBug708
So you're saying that what most likely happened was the ONE time he used the bat, it shattered? OJ had a better defense then this

Originally posted by SirFozzie
Seventy Six bats, not one corked. I think this pretty much shuts down the "habitual cheater stuff" considering the amount of attention likely focused on the Cubs locker room the second Sosa was ejected, so moving them out is not an option, also, I've seen an at-bat for sosa a few weeks back (before he went on the DL) where he fractured a couple bats, and everything seemed to be cool.

Like CW said, this is where the problem comes in: everyone has already made up their mind.

"MLB is just covering for Sosa" or "See, he's innocent" was what everyone was going to say today regardless of what they found (short of 100 corked bats).

Myself, I'll stick with the logic of "he's broken bats before and none of those were corked so since they found nothing in his others his story checks out".

SI

[MrBug708]

I'm not saying he's a cheater. I always liked Sammy, except when he left his charity high and dry, I find it a little unlikely that the one time he used an altered bat, it shattered

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by MrBug708
I'm not saying he's a cheater. I always liked Sammy, except when he left his charity high and dry, I find it a little unlikely that the one time he used an altered bat, it shattered

Nah, I'll meet you on the middle ground there. I'm guessing this isn't the first time it's happened but I'm guessing it's not all that frequent either. If dude has 76 other bats, then it probably happens roughly once out of 75 times. And that's if he takes no precautions to try and avoid picking it.

SI

[INDalltheway]

Sosa update... Tonight he is 0-3 with 3 K's. Tell me he isn't feeling any pressure at all... Lets go Sammy!

[pjstp20]

I really can't believe that some of you can think that this is an isolated incident. Let me get this straight so I'm sure I'm understanding this. In Sammy's 8000 at bats he's only used a corked bat one time, and in that one at bat it shatters and, oops, there's a cork in there. Please.

The fact that he cheated isn't as bad as all the lying, lame excuses and cover ups offered by Sammy, MLB and ESPN. I know this isn't as big a deal as some, myself included, are making it but pleeeeeease, stop pissing on my leg and telling me it's raining. I'm not stupid enough to buy that.

[MrBug708]

Bats examined


The bats were taken today, during the game. If your Sosa on Tuesday, isn't the first thing you do is grab all the "tampered" bats from the locker room?

[GrantDawg]

I think the biggest problem with this (which I've already pointed out) is that he claimed that he was not juicing. Many believed him (including me) because he was an upright kind of guy. This proves that he is not above cheating, which makes you go back and question the statements he made about steroids.

And yes Jon, I agree that article was weak. What is the difference between Gaylord Perry and Sammy Sosa? Perry always cheated with a wink and a nod, and made a show of showing people how to cheat. He always played "catch me if you can" and never has denied cheating. Sammy is the "innocent victim" who only made a "simple mistake."

I'm not arguing that Sammy doesn't deserve the HOF when he comes up, or that he should be run out of baseball, or anything of that like. He should get the full suspension, fine, and whatever else may be coming to him. What this does do, however, is tarnish his clean record and will always leave a bigger question mark on whether he it was steroids that helped him hit all those homers.

[GrantDawg]

Originally posted by MrBug708


The bats were taken today, during the game. If your Sosa on Tuesday, isn't the first thing you do is grab all the "tampered" bats from the locker room?

As someone said earlier (execpt in the other direction) if you want to believe something, you'll buy any evidence that comes your way.

[Philliesfan980]

Corked Bats or no Corked Bats, Sammy's not the same player he was in previous years. I think he's off the roids because of all the pressure from MLB. That combined with the fact that he's getting up there in years is the reason for his decline

[SirFozzie]

The real reason for his decline? Getting nearly killed by a fastball. he's so gun shy he's flinching EVERY time someone throws him a curve ball. Watch the video from today, a regular curve ball, and he's diving backwards before the break.

I can understand it, and forgive it, unfortunately it's a part of baseball

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by MrBug708
Bats examined


The bats were taken today, during the game. If your Sosa on Tuesday, isn't the first thing you do is grab all the "tampered" bats from the locker room?

No, no, no. That was poorly worded. The bats were taken yesterday and examined today. They were not taken today and tested today. The espn story is more carefully worded: Link

SI

[Happy29]

What would be even more strange is the probability that he had another cork inside that corked bat.

[FishFan]

Looks like Sammy was just bringing himself down to the level of his competition. What a thoughtful guy.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0604/1563204.html

Wouldn't it be interesting to see him go on a tear now that he can hit the ball farther with an uncorked bat? All this fuss about nothing...

[pjstp20]

Originally posted by FishFan
Looks like Sammy was just bringing himself down to the level of his competition. What a thoughtful guy.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0604/1563204.html

Wouldn't it be interesting to see him go on a tear now that he can hit the ball farther with an uncorked bat? All this fuss about nothing...

God ESPN is getting on my nerves. Now they have physics nerds telling me what gives you an edge in baseball and what does not? Anway, that isnt the point, he had something in his bat he shouldn't have had and whether it helped him or not, the integrity of Sosa and baseball are gonna be hurting for a while.

Lets entertain this article for a moment though. According to these scientists, a cork won't help distance just bat speed and the amount of time a player can recognize a pitch before he swings. If you throw a hitter in there with Sosa's power and I see a formula for hitting home runs: Bat Speed + Pitch recognition + power= 505HRs

Now I don't think Sammy used this for all 505 HRs or even a quarter of them, but if ESPN tries to feed me any more horseshit I might believe he did cheat for all 505 out of spite.

[panerd]

I am very much anti-Sosa so take this for what it is worth. But I wouldn't think you would have more than one corked bat going at a time either. So the 75 out of 76 clean bats is sort of misleading. Somebody needs to go thru old WGN tapes and see if he is always using that black bat or if he uses all sorts of other bats. The way I look at it is this...

1. I decide I am going to use a corked bat.
2. I cork a bat.
3. I decide the only reason I will ever have to use another bat is if my corked bat breaks.
4. If my corked bat breaks than I will be in a little bit of trouble.
5. So I will create no more corked bats.
6. If they ask me after the corked bat breaks I give them the batting practice story and I also tell them to check all of my other bats.

Didn't OJ tell someone to check all of his other gloves and cars that didn't have blood on them?

[Taur]

Wow all these posts and not a single mention of the most famous "Illegal Bat" in my time. Does anyone remember the George Brett affair?

[Neuqua]

I think this will end up being an either your "with him or against him" type of story. Me, I've been a Cubs fan all my life. I've watched Sammy when he was a younger hitter and then mature into the slugger we all know. He's broken many bats in his career, and not once was there any suspicion of any of them.

76 bats, and not another cork. They x-rayed his HR #498 bat, all wood. They x-rayed the bat Sosa used to crank out 20 HRs in June which is now at Harry Caray's resteraunt, no cork.

The guy saved baseball, and for that I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

[Ksyrup]

Originally posted by Taur
Wow all these posts and not a single mention of the most famous "Illegal Bat" in my time. Does anyone remember the George Brett affair?

Well, the bat may have been illegal, but the ruling was overturned. The HR stood and the Royals (finally) won the game a month or so later.

[Easy Mac]

But the fact remains, bat number 76 was corked, and thats all that matters. If it happens once and you're caught, you're a cheater. I really don't see how its wrong to label him that from now on.

[Philliesfan980]

"Well, the bat may have been illegal, but the ruling was overturned. The HR stood and the Royals (finally) won the game a month or so later."

Wow really? Thats the part of the story that you really don't hear about that much. Why did they overturn it if he had illegal pine tar usage?

[Easy Mac]

dola

and if he saved baseball, something is wrong. I was bored by the McGuire/Sosa HR derby. The people who watched that did just that. People didn't watch it and say "baseball is great," they said those 2 are great. Those people don't watch the game anymore. Personally, the only thing saving baseball for me has been my Braves, its the only baseball I can watch from start to finish, and the only baseball I've followed since the strike.

[Easy Mac]

Originally posted by Philliesfan980
"Well, the bat may have been illegal, but the ruling was overturned. The HR stood and the Royals (finally) won the game a month or so later."

Wow really? Thats the part of the story that you really don't hear about that much. Why did they overturn it if he had illegal pine tar usage?

They said it had no actual bearing on his ability to hit the ball, and the rule was as asenine as a Kodos poll

[Philliesfan980]

"They said it had no actual bearing on his ability to hit the ball, and the rule was as asenine as a Kodos poll"

LOL that makes sense. Yeah I never really saw the corelation between putting sticky stuff on the bat and hitting the ball further, doesn't really make any sense. I guess the Yankees were just looking for something to save the game.

[SackAttack]

Originally posted by pjstp20
If you throw a hitter in there with Sosa's power and I see a formula for hitting home runs: Bat Speed + Pitch recognition + power= 505HRs

That's misleading, though, because power is directly related to the mass of the bat you're swinging. If you're swinging a lighter bat, even if you're swinging it FASTER, it's not going to travel very much further at all. I think somebody else pointed it out earlier in the thread, but it's simple high school physics - the total momentum of a system can be represented by F = mv. Force = mass * velocity. If you increase the velocity, but decrease the mass, you're not going to hit the ball farther, because you're not putting the same force on the ball.

Now, bat speed + pitch recognition WILL help a fella add a few points to his batting average. If you can get around on the fastball more quickly, you're gonna make contact with it more often. It still isn't going to affect your home run total much at all (outside of maybe Denver), but you'll get an extra 10-20 hits a year if you're any good.

Josh

[RonnieDobbs]

The Physics of Baseball - Amazon

This is the book that has been referenced in this debate. Although some may scoff at a "physics nerd" discussing baseball, it is really a great read and makes you think about the game in a different way. Check it out.

[Travis]

I think this has taught us all a very valuable lesson.

Don't smoke crack.

Give Sammy a hug next time you see him too, he needs our love.

[RonnieDobbs]

Originally posted by SackAttack
That's misleading, though, because power is directly related to the mass of the bat you're swinging. If you're swinging a lighter bat, even if you're swinging it FASTER, it's not going to travel very much further at all. I think somebody else pointed it out earlier in the thread, but it's simple high school physics - the total momentum of a system can be represented by F = mv. Force = mass * velocity. If you increase the velocity, but decrease the mass, you're not going to hit the ball farther, because you're not putting the same force on the ball.

Now, bat speed + pitch recognition WILL help a fella add a few points to his batting average. If you can get around on the fastball more quickly, you're gonna make contact with it more often. It still isn't going to affect your home run total much at all (outside of maybe Denver), but you'll get an extra 10-20 hits a year if you're any good.

Josh

I was trying to think of a good way to explain this right. Let's assume that a player has a set amount of base power, which when combined with the momentum of the bat swing leads to the power of the hit. The base power won't be changed by corking at all. As SA explained above, the corked bat won't increase the momentum of the bat at all. In reality, his ability to hit for power hasn't been effected at all assuming that he mass difference vs. velocity difference is negligle (which I have ever reason to think is true).

I wanted to see what the effect of a corked bat might look like in the statistics then. So, let's say a player used a corked bat for an entire season. We'll guess that that will raise his batting average 20 points (arbitrary, I know). In 1998, Sammy Sosa hit .308. Adding 20 points to that gets .328. He had 643 at bats, so with the improved bat speed he would have hit 211 hits instead of 198, or 13 additional hits. Exactly one third of his hits that year were home runs, so the 13 additional hits would net him 4 more home runs. So, obviously, to say that his home run hitting ability has been invalidated or questioned by this controversy is ridiculous.

I'm not trying to be a Sosa apologist here, just trying to put some perspective on this. By MLB rules and by common baseball sense, he's a cheater. He took a risk that was stupid and never should have been taken.

[pjstp20]

Originally posted by SackAttack
Now, bat speed + pitch recognition WILL help a fella add a few points to his batting average. If you can get around on the fastball more quickly, you're gonna make contact with it more often. It still isn't going to affect your home run total much at all (outside of maybe Denver), but you'll get an extra 10-20 hits a year if you're any good.

Josh

Alright you missed my point. The corked bat itself adds no power, but the fact that a player who already has substantial power and has more time to recognize a pitch, will increace the number of times he makes solid contact. If that "fella" is a 235 pound Sammy Sosa, those few extra hits will travel 400 feet.

It looks like you guys didn't play much baseball or you would understand the longer you see a pitch the better your chance of hitting it on the sweet spot of the bat, and thats what leads to HRs. A persons strength is secondary to that.

[FishFan]

Originally posted by Neuqua
...I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

I think Sammy deserves this. I am amazed by the number of people who are not in Sammy's camp. He is one of the few class acts in the game and I really, truly believe this was an honest mistake.

Let's x-ray the warm-up bats of all the sluggers out there and see what we find. This whole mess has been blown out of proportion.

[pjstp20]

Originally posted by FishFan
I think Sammy deserves this. I am amazed by the number of people who are not in Sammy's camp. He is one of the few class acts in the game and I really, truly believe this was an honest mistake.

Let's x-ray the warm-up bats of all the sluggers out there and see what we find. This whole mess has been blown out of proportion.

So your post with the article link was serious? I could have sworn you were being sarcastic. So Sammy was just trying to even the playing field huh?

[MrBug708]

No, no, no. That was poorly worded. The bats were taken yesterday and examined today. They were not taken today and tested today. The espn story is more carefully worded: Link

So, when Sammy was tossed, you don't think there might have been a chance that he grabbed a few of his bats as he left the stadium? Not saying he did and not saying he didn't. Its as likely as his story he gave

[daedalus]

Originally posted by Philliesfan980
LOL that makes sense. Yeah I never really saw the corelation between putting sticky stuff on the bat and hitting the ball further, doesn't really make any sense. I guess the Yankees were just looking for something to save the game.

I remember reading something about the fact that that rule came about from one of those stingy owner who wanted it in there because having the tar higher on the bat makes the ball go icky (not technical term) and then they used up more baseballs.

[Neuqua]

Originally posted by MrBug708
So, when Sammy was tossed, you don't think there might have been a chance that he grabbed a few of his bats as he left the stadium? Not saying he did and not saying he didn't. Its as likely as his story he gave

See, trying to look deeper into the situation with something like that merely starts a conspiracy and for that reason like I said before, it's all about what you personally decide to believe.

[KWhit]

You guys are amazing. If it would have been an unpopular player, no one would believe that story. But since it's Sammy, we have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Give me a break.

Everyone who breaks the rules has some sort of story to try to get out of (or lessen) the punishment.

[Cards4ever]

I don't think he was using corked bats, hell, there hasn't been any corks popped in the Cub clubhouse in almost 100 years!

[Maple Leafs]

This is just getting dumb.

Baseball players have been corking bats for the better part of a half century, but one physicist says it doesn't help and suddenly everyone is a disciple.

Even if you can twist your head around enough to believe that corking a bat wouldn't add any HRs, as someone has already shown above it will damn sure add up to 20-30 points to your average, which leads to more runs, RBIs, SLG, etc. Oh, and another million or two on the next contract.

I'm willing to wait and see about the whole "batting practice bat" story. Given time, the truth will come out, so I don't mind waiting. But if he was corking intentionally, he's a cheater. Period. All the fancy physics formulas you can find don't change that.

[Easy Mac]

The people who are quoting the "Physics of Baseball" are missing the point.

Sammy said he corked the bat for "exhibitions" to give the fans a show. Obviously, he was of the opinion that using these bats gives you greater distance. Whether it really does or not is irrelevant, since Sosa thought it did. Sammy knowingly had a corked bat that he used for the purpose of gaining an advantage in the distance and frequency of his hits.

So can you explain that, since in this situation quoting physics makes little sense.

[INDalltheway]

Easy Mac- It is a physcological thing. If you have a corked bat you would think you would hit the ball further, but in reality it doesn't add any distance. That is just the way I take, I could be wrong.

[clintl]

Let's put this in perspective with some other sports. NASCAR for example. Guys get caught using illegal parts all the time, and typically, they get fined and lose their points for that race as the penalty. It's happened to Jeff Gordon, among others. Yet no one argues that because he was caught once or twice that his 4 WC championships are tainted.

This is exactly the same situation that Sosa faces, but Sosa's entire career is being called into question over one incident. Has he used a corked bat before? Probably, but there's no real evidence he has, and so far, every check of bats used in his historic achievements has come up clean.

Next, there is the question of physics. The Sacramento Bee today had an article which, among other things, discussed tests performed on corked bats by a UC Davis physics professor. His results were that hit balls travelled 2% farther - that's 6 feet on a ball hit 300 ft. Sammy does not hit cheap HRs, so even if he used a corked bat all the time (which it is proven that he did not), it's doubtful that his HR total would have been greatly affected.

Now for the argument about being able to wait longer. The difference in bat speed from swinging a lighter bat only gives a hitter about 6 inches of advantage in recognizing a pitch. The mound is 726 inches from the plate, so that less than 1%. There is no way that such a small difference can amount to anything remotely in the area of 20 points in batting average.

There's no doubt that Sammy cheated, and that he should be fined and suspended something like 5-10 days. There's justification for calling into question his ethics. But there's absolutely no evidence for calling into question his past accomplishments based on the evidence we have right now. Even if he was a habitual cheater (and the evidence so far suggests otherwise), it simply would not have resulted in significantly different results, because the perceived advantages of corking bats is largely mythical, and has been shown to be so not only by theory but by experiment.

[ctmason]

There is a lot to be learned from all of this.....

....what it is I have no idea.

Stop all the fuss, people. Players cork bats, shoot roids and pop greenies. They do it all. They slap kids who ask for their autograph and defile places of public worship.

Nobody's picking on Rafael Palmero and we all know he uses a little cork in his bat, if you know what I mean.

[Cuckoo]

Originally posted by Easy Mac
dola

and if he saved baseball, something is wrong. I was bored by the McGuire/Sosa HR derby. The people who watched that did just that. People didn't watch it and say "baseball is great," they said those 2 are great. Those people don't watch the game anymore. Personally, the only thing saving baseball for me has been my Braves, its the only baseball I can watch from start to finish, and the only baseball I've followed since the strike.

I can't say he saved baseball, but I can say that he brought me back to the game, and I've been here ever since. I watched baseball religiously in the eighties and early nineties but stopped after the strike. As a lifelong Cubs fan, the HR chase in 98 coupled with the Cubs wildcard ride brought me back. I would have to speculate that it brought a number of others back to the game as well.

I'll have to agree with Neuqua on this. I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt at this point. It's not like he had too many stains on his record.

Edit to add: That said, even if you believe his story, he deserves to be punished for his mistake. I think maybe labelling him a cheater is going a bit far but a suspension is definitely warranted.

[KWhit]

Originally posted by Cuckoo
I'll have to agree with Neuqua on this. I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt at this point. It's not like he had too many stains on his record.

Except for the stigma of possible steroid use and alienating many fans with his contract negotiations.

[sachmo71]

Baseball smells.