Sammy Sosa was ejected from tonight’s game against the Devil Rays after the umpires found cork in his broken bat. I’d have thought that a big strong guy like him would want a slightly heavier bat, not a lighter one…
I think this is the first corked bat incident of a star player since Albert Belle (another big guy, there goes my ‘big guys like heavy bats’ theory). What a shame. I wonder how long his suspension will be – I think it should be at least 2 weeks, cheating cannot be tolerated.
UPDATE: I saw Sosa’s press conference where he claimed this was supposed to be a batting practice only
Looks like his other bats have checked out. Reading Joe Morgan’s article in ESPN, I think it legitimately might have been a mistake.
Let me clarify… an accidental mistake on Sosa’s part for using his corked BP bat in a real game.
Some questions though: Did he have a way to identify his corked bat from his normal bats. Did he use just one corked bat for all of BP? What if he broke that bat… would he get another one made?
I agree, it appears that the facts back up his side of the story fairly well. However, he should not have had any corked bats in the first place. He will be suspended for 6-10 games, and rightly so.