A final note about Sosa

[Rocket Fan]

The series before Sosa was caught corking he had a 5 strikeout game followed by a game where he beat us in the 16th inning with an RBI single...

In the end the Cubs beat us by one game.... I know it does no good to make excuses and whine, but most people tend to believe he didn't just cheat on that one day.. so one must really wonder if he was cheating in our series after that 5 strikeout game.. It probably wouldn't have made a difference on that specific RBI and I didn't think too much about it at the time but when the season ended and we lost by 1 game.. can't help but wonder if he won a few games for the cubs while cheating this year..

[PhiSlammaJamma]

Good point. Seems like the media forgot about that.

[Rocket Fan]

I know it seems like bitterness to bring it up now.. I was just thinking about it earlier...


In a race that ended by 1 game... an extra few feet on one hr.. or getting around a little bit faster on one ball than you would normally without cork can make the difference...

I was just wondering why the media etc hasn't brought it up much either... your star player caught corking mid year and you win the division by one game.. makes you seriously wonder how many games the man did cheat in

[PhiSlammaJamma]

Just out of curiosity. Does anyone have his pre-cork stats to compare with his post-cork stats.

[A-Train]

I doubt that the corking helped him out that much. He was in a huge slump when he got caught corking, and he had his best month in July with a .305 average, .695 slugging %, and 13 homers

Sosa is one of the most notorious whiffers in this era...dude strikes out more than teenage boys on prom night. Extra bat speed doesn't help if you can't make contact

[Rocket Fan]

I'm sure it didn't help him out THAT much.. but enough for one game is my only thoughts lol....

wouldn't extra bat speed help you to make contact with a ball you normally wouldn't have caught up to?

[PhiSlammaJamma]

I would have to agree. The bat speeds helps him make better contact. And in my opinion, the bat speed increases distance as well... partly due to getting that better content.

[Rocket Fan]

Yes, I dont know if it actually helped anything or not.. I was just noting that the series before he was actually caught using it he was playing against houston..... so unless you believe that was the very first time he used it.. then he was most likely cheating vs houston.. I guess you really cant make a team forfeit a bunch of games for cheating though.. so not much mlb could do

[Rocket Fan]

although I wouldnt mind making the team faces a stricter penalty for one guy cheating... because I have to doubt all cubs wins this year before he was caught

[gr8-1]

If you have a tape of that 5K game, check out the bat he used when he hit that single. He switched to the black one. My guess, Miller, Lidge, etc. absolutely embarassed him and he needed a quicker bat to even make contact. I think he cheated.

I know he Ks alot, but that was a miserable funk he was in. Check out the tape though. His first 5 abs, he used a tan one. He switched to the black one on at bat #6.

[Rocket Fan]

wow, for some reason I was thinking it was the game before that he struck out 5 times.. but it was the 5 strikeout game that he got the winning hit in... I wasn't aware he changed bats, but that makes it even more believable that he switched to the corked bat during that game after going 0-5...

[Uprising]

I believe he was using that bat for quite a while. There is no way he "accidently picked up the wrong bat" BS is true.

Also, seriously, who in their mind would leave another corked bat around incase their current corked bat breaks? I mean....duh! If it breaks you are busted, so why the hell would you have another around for the officials to find?!
Mr. Corky cheated his way to a couple of Cubbie wins, and I do believe that his corked bat helped them in a few.

I am pissed seeing them on tv, and not the Astros.


dang...i can't post it...."the server is too busy"....I am clicking on the post button for the 8th time.....

[Uprising]

Originally posted by gr8-1
His first 5 abs, he used a tan one. He switched to the black one on at bat #6.

Dang! Did he change bats? That sucks if Corky used his cheating ways to win that game.

[NachbarSucks]

Quit your whining. Cubs were the better team.

[Rocket Fan]

They were the better team becaue they won by 1 game...? even if that 1 game was because a player cheated?

[Rocket Fan]

it wont let me edit.. but obvioulsy they dont make you go back and forfeit games.. but if a guy is caught with a corked bat in say the 7th inning are all the runs he bats in before that taken away.. the ones from earlier in the game just curious

[Uprising]

Originally posted by NachbarSucks
Quit your whining.

And your name states you never whine?

[robbie380]

Originally posted by Uprising
I believe he was using that bat for quite a while. There is no way he "accidently picked up the wrong bat" BS is true.

Also, seriously, who in their mind would leave another corked bat around incase their current corked bat breaks? I mean....duh! If it breaks you are busted, so why the hell would you have another around for the officials to find?!
Mr. Corky cheated his way to a couple of Cubbie wins, and I do believe that his corked bat helped them in a few.


Dude...the bat that busted had a giant freaking 'C' on the end of it. I think if the guy was trying to cheat he wouldn't have clearly marked the bats he had corked. I mean at least give him some credit for not being a complete and total moron. You would figure if you are going to cheat you are going to try to hide it and not leave clues on a bat that has a big C on the end of it.


To everyone else...didn't yall see the piece on ESPN where they said no one even knows if corked bats are an advantage or disadvantage to a hitter? Further, why would more speed matter if you have a lighter bat? Here...I just found this...short and sweet so read it... http://www.gmi.edu/~drussell/bats-new/corkedbat.html

[PhiSlammaJamma]

That article actually supports the argument that cork makes a difference. Basically they say that

Corked bat = more reaction time and more contact
Corked bat = less distance but it is minimal at best

What they didn't add was that

Corked bat = more sweet spot shots

so, if you have a corked bat you have a greater chance of hitting the sweet spot becasue of the increased reaction time and you don't have a major reduction in distance.

Therefor, more HR's.

[robbie380]

Originally posted by PhiSlammaJamma
That article actually supports the argument that cork makes a difference. Basically they say that

Corked bat = more reaction time and more contact
Corked bat = less distance but it is minimal at best

What they didn't add was that

Corked bat = more sweet spot shots

so, if you have a corked bat you have a greater chance of hitting the sweet spot becasue of the increased reaction time and you don't have a major reduction in distance.

Therefor, more HR's.

Ok maybe I need to quote from the article. Not trying to sound condescending but I really don't think you read it.



Corked bat = more reaction time and more contact
Corked bat = less distance but it is minimal at best

article
Less mass (lower inertia) means faster swing speed. A bat which has less mass, and especially which has a lower moment of inertia, may be swung faster. 1.5oz may not do much for an amateur player, but for a professional it means being able to watch the ball travel an additional 5-6 feet before having to commit to a swing. Plus, research has shown that faster bat swing speed results in faster batted-ball speed, though the change in ball speed would be minimal for most players. The moment of inertia could also be effectively lowered by choking up on the bat, by using a shorter bat, or by shaving some wood off of the handle, all of which are legal methods of reducing bat mass.
Less mass means a less effective collision. Lowering the mass (and moment-of-inertia) may increase the bat swing speed, but the lower mass means that the collision between bat and ball is less effective. If the swing speed is kept constant, a heavier bat will always propel the ball faster and farther. So removing mass from the bat will actually reduce the batted-ball speed.


What they didn't add was that

Corked bat = more sweet spot shots

article
"A corked bat has (slightly) less mass. By drilling out the center of a wood bat and replacing it with cork a player can shave about 1.5 ounces off of the weight of his bat. More importantly, the location of the center-of-mass of the bat would shift slightly towards the handle end of the bat. This means that the moment of inertia of the bat would decrease and it would be easier to swing."

so, if you have a corked bat you have a greater chance of hitting the sweet spot becasue of the increased reaction time and you don't have a major reduction in distance.

Therefor, more HR's.

article
No scientific advantage? Reducing the mass (lowering the moment-of-inertia) increases the swing speed - which increases batted-ball speed. But at the same time the lower mass reduces the effectiveness of the collision - which decreases the batted-ball speed. Which effect is greater is a toss-up. But since the two effects offset eachother, there appears to be absolutely no scientific advantage to using a corked bat - at least for hitting home runs. There would be an advantage to just making contact, however. Because the bat is lighter and can be swung faster, a player can wait a few milleseconds longer before commiting to a swing. This means he can watch the pitched ball travel about 5 or 6 more feet before deciding to swing. For a slumping player this may help make contact with the ball more often. But, a corked bat will not make the ball go faster or further.

article
Why use cork? Well, the hollowed out portion of the bat needs to be filled with something or the bat would sound significantly different than a solid bat, giving away the illegal modification.

article
Psychological Advantage? I read a quote by a major league player in one of newspaper reports covering the Sammy Sosa incident that went something like: "I don't care what all those MIT professors say, if players didn't think it made a difference, why have they been doing it for all these hundreds of years?" Baseball is a very superstitious sport - look at all of the rituals batters and pitchers go through before and during a game. Some players have lucky socks, shirts, hats which they refuse to wash for fear it might ruin their current streak. Other players have a set ritual before each game or each at-bat. The key factor to the corked bat would seem to be that if a player thinks it will make a difference in his game, then it very likely might make a difference. The effect is psychological, not a result of increased performance from the bat itself. Detroit Tigers' Norm Cash admitted to using a corked bat in 1961 when he won the batting title with a .361 average, but the next year he slumped to .243 with the same corked bat.


From the other link on the page you can goto an interview with Robert Adair who wrote "The Physics of Baseball" http://www.ajprint.net/archive_authors/canfield/interview.html

Q. Why would a player cork a bat?
A. ...Your timing is off, so in desperation you go down to your basement and cut roughly a quarter of an inch off the top of your bat and then you bore a 1 1/4 inch hole into the barrel and you fill it with something like cork. Then you've got a bat that's an ounce and a half lighter. That gives you about six inches on the fastball, so you start hitting again. Of course, maybe you don't. But if you do you tell people how great a corked bat is, and you stick with it for the rest of your life. What it amounts to is, you can't say it doesn't help somebody.

again he points out that only timing is effected with a lighter bat, not the actual force. which makes sense in terms of physics.

article
Q. How could the same result be achieved without breaking any rules?
A. You could choke up 3/4 of an inch. You could basically saw off 1/4 of an inch so you have a shorter bat or you could put the bat in a lathe and take 1/16 of an inch off the barrel. You could do it legally.


article
Q. VANITY FAIR recently had a story that suggested Pete Rose might've swung a corked bat. But he was a singles hitter. Aren't corked bats for home run hitters?
A. Personally, I think its does more good to the singles hitters than it does the home run hitters. A light bat doesn't hit the ball quite as far for most people.

here he states a possible advantage of a corked bat, but not for homerun hitters as most people would like to believe.

the idea of a corked bat helping someone hit homeruns has always confused me. it has confused me because it doesn't make sense in the realm of physics. so you guys take the physics for what they are worth or just keep on believing that corked bats help you hit homeruns and that a corked bat is something completely different than a lighter bat.

[PhiSlammaJamma]

His physics are correct. I'm not doubting his physics. His conclusion is wrong. A corked bat helps both singles hitter and HR hitters because they hit the sweet spot more often. Distance is negligible. But sweet spot isn't. Naturally if you hit the sweet spot the ball will go further more often. It's quantity that you need to be considering. Not distance.

[Rocket Fan]

well my main argument was that the bat helps him make more contact period.. whether it be a single or whatever.. in this game in question in which he may have used the cork bat he hit a game winning single....

bottom line to me is.. if it didnt help him he wouldnt have used it....


as for the C.. i thought it was mentioned on tv that the C stood for cubs more than likely and that many of his bats had c's...??

[gr8-1]

Not whining. I'm surprised the Cubs didn't win my a larger amount.


I also don't think he grabbed the wrong bat. Aren't alot of players really pecuiliar about their bats?

He was getting embarassed that game (and that series) and I think he finally said "screw it. I need corky to even make contact on these guys."

I don't know about distance, but I do know that you can swing a lighter bat quicker than you can swing a heavy one.

[Fegwu]

Originally posted by Rocket Fan
The series before Sosa was caught corking he had a 5 strikeout game followed by a game where he beat us in the 16th inning with an RBI single...

In the end the Cubs beat us by one game.... I know it does no good to make excuses and whine, but most people tend to believe he didn't just cheat on that one day.. so one must really wonder if he was cheating in our series after that 5 strikeout game.. It probably wouldn't have made a difference on that specific RBI and I didn't think too much about it at the time but when the season ended and we lost by 1 game.. can't help but wonder if he won a few games for the cubs while cheating this year..


The game that changed The Cubs fortune for the better was the one we almost had in the bag here in Houston in which Wade Miller went into the 7th inning against Carlos Zambrano with a 3-1 lead and still going pretty well - - - - - - until Dusty Baker defied conventional wisdom and allowed Carlos Zambrano to bat for himself against Wade in the top of the 7th with a man on 1st with 2-outs. The rest is history. The Cubs went from potentially falling 6 games behind us to inching closer and remaining only 4 games behind (a huge 2 game turn around or turnover if you so choose). That was the turning point methinks - I marked that game and that play (Zambrano's HR :mad: ) and said to myself - if the Cubs win it all, THIS IS THE GAME THAT DID IT FOR THEM. :(


Anyway I will take the Cubs winning the division title over us that those 'useless' Cards (Co-division Champs my behind :rolleyes: ).

[Wild Bill]

I'm as big an Astro fan as their is, but wasn't Sosa suspended for seven games? I think that probably evened it up. He cheated one at bat but lost 35. The Astros lost. The Cubs deserved to win. Its depressing, but true.

[Mr. Mooch]

Had to find a thread to vent...


I ****ING HATE THE CUBS!!!

Okay, that feels better.

[blu_monkey]

It was Houston's division to lose.
Splitting the last 4 at home to MIL...C'mon, that's what we should be scrutinizing.

[Rocket Fan]

I know as well as anyone that we chocked down the stretch.. but that doesnt change the fact that I believe it is very likely that sosa won at least one game with that corked bat.. but oh well

[Rocket Fan]

just amazing that we stayed as close as we did all year

[blu_monkey]

i feel ya rox fan.
but you gotta admit that CHI/ATL was a pretty entertaining series

[Timing]

Originally posted by Rocket Fan
I know as well as anyone that we chocked down the stretch.. but that doesnt change the fact that I believe it is very likely that sosa won at least one game with that corked bat.. but oh well


What was their record while he was suspended though?