Chicago Cubs: Remembering the Sammy Sosa Corked Bat Game

Chicago Cubs: Cool off, Sammy

Followup research from scientists puts into question whether a corked bat makes a ball go further with one researcher noting the advantage of a corked bat is mostly a psychological one. Others say that a faster swing (that corking a bat encourages) allows players to put the ball in play at a higher rate and avoid those pesky strikeouts rather than adding distance to well-struck balls. 

Of course, regardless if corked bats offer an advantage in the long ball department or not, MLB doesn’t allow hitters to use corked bats. So Sammy did cheat either way.

After examining the shattered bat and seeing the cork where wood should have been, the umpire crew ejected Sosa. He received an eight-game suspension for the incident.

Which brings us to the million-dollar question: did he do it on purpose?

Sosa immediately admitted to using the corked bat (which he kind of had to since the evidence was right there). But, he said it was an accident per a 2003 article from the New York Times:

‘I just want to say that I first want to apologize to my teammates, the fans, and the commissioner of Major League Baseball. What happened today was something that wasn’t meant to have happened. I took the wrong bat and I went up there and it happened. It’s a bat I used for batting practice. It’s a mistake. I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I guarantee to you, I never used anything illegal. I feel bad and I take the blame for it, and I have to move on.”

Sosa said that he used corked bats in batting practice to put on a show for the Wrigley Field faithful. He had unknowingly grabbed a batting practice bat for an in-game plate appearance.

Sosa’s manager Dusty Baker, General Manager Jim Hendry, and his teammates came to his defense.

Chicago Cubs: So which one was it?

MLB launched an investigation and found that the other bats in his possession hadn’t been corked; this was an isolated incident. Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Sullivan reports the Cubs got a 10-minute warning before the investigators were allowed in the locker room to look at Sosa’s bats. Hence, as Sullivan puts it, there was “ample opportunity to hide any evidence.”

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Seventeen years later, there are a lot of people who don’t believe Sammy when he said it was all an accident. If he had played again at Wrigley after the team traded him away, it would have probably made our awkward reunion lists.

Throughout their history, oddities have riddled this Cubs franchise. Sosa’s corked bat incident is right up there among the oddest of them all.

From the corked bat incident to performance-enhancing drug allegations, many will always want to put an asterisk next to Sosa’s 609 career home runs (ninth-most of all time).

Shunned by the team he made a name for himself with, and mostly out of the public spotlight at least in the United States (an excellent 2018 Sports Illustrated article details his new life in Dubai), we’ll probably never know for sure if the corked-bat incident was intentional or an accident like he claimed and MLB concluded.

The pitch that cracked his corked bat was out of the zone, so he could have saved himself a lot of trouble by just taking a walk. If he had done this and the whole PED thing didn’t happen either, then the Cubs would have probably retired his number by now.

Gotta’ love revisionist history.