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- Nov 9, 1999
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Sosa's legacy could be broken beyond repair
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By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
He's going to get suspended. But that's not Sammy Sosa's biggest problem.
He lost an RBI. But that's not Sammy Sosa's biggest problem, either.
Sammy Sosa at home plate before it all came apart.
No, Sammy's biggest problem now is that he lives in a video age. And he has just been handed a life sentence in America's National Videotape Prison.
It isn't our intention right now to play judge, jury and prosecutor over what Sammy Sosa did or didn't do Tuesday night. He did what he did. He explained it how he explained it. You can believe him or you can not believe him.
But the videotape isn't going away. Not ever. He can ask Billy Hatcher. He can ask Wilton Guerrero. He can ask Albert Belle. He can ask Graig Nettles.
For years now, the image of Sammy in most American minds was Sammy hugging Mark McGwire during the Maris Chase in 1998. Or Sammy racing out to right field waving his little American flag after Sept. 11, 2001. Or Sammy doing his little hop step as another home run sailed off toward a Waveland Avenue rooftop.
But not anymore.
Now the image is going to be Sammy hitting a dinky little broken-bat ground ball to second base -- on the night his world changed forever.
Now people will ask if he has cheated his way to those 505 home runs, even though all the cork in Portugal wouldn't help a man hit 505 home runs if he couldn't hit.
Now people will ask if his whole career, his whole rise from raw strikeout machine to one of the great sluggers of all time, was phony and tainted -- even though Sosa's maturation as a disciplined hitter who learned the strike zone and hit great pitches to every field was not something he could have accomplished with a drill and some cork.
Now people will look at a man who was once one of baseball's most beloved figures and ask: "Why?" And no matter how reasonable or unfathomable the explanation, will anyone be interested in accepting it?
That's not a place anyone wants to be in this world we live in. But it is Sammy Sosa's place now, whether he likes it or not.
"The first thing that went through my mind," said his former Cubs teammate, Turk Wendell, on Tuesday, "was why would a guy like that be using cork? In my eyes, I could see guys who are little shortstops, who hit two or three home runs a year, using a corked bat so they could maybe hit one or two more homers. But Sammy doesn't hit paint-scrapers. He doesn't need help getting his balls to go out of the park. He hits moon shots. So I don't understand why he'd use a corked bat."
“ Now everything else he's done has question marks around it. His home run records, everything. It's all surrounded by question marks. ”
— Turk Wendell
His first order of business, Sosa understands, is to await the formal portion of his punishment. Bob Watson, baseball's vice president in charge of discipline, was already on the case Tuesday night before the Cubs had even left the field. And he will be handing down a suspension of at least a week.
Belle got seven games for corking his bat nine years ago. Guerrero got eight games for his cork-a-pade six years ago. Hatcher was nailed for eight games in 1987
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
He's going to get suspended. But that's not Sammy Sosa's biggest problem.
He lost an RBI. But that's not Sammy Sosa's biggest problem, either.
Sammy Sosa at home plate before it all came apart.
No, Sammy's biggest problem now is that he lives in a video age. And he has just been handed a life sentence in America's National Videotape Prison.
It isn't our intention right now to play judge, jury and prosecutor over what Sammy Sosa did or didn't do Tuesday night. He did what he did. He explained it how he explained it. You can believe him or you can not believe him.
But the videotape isn't going away. Not ever. He can ask Billy Hatcher. He can ask Wilton Guerrero. He can ask Albert Belle. He can ask Graig Nettles.
For years now, the image of Sammy in most American minds was Sammy hugging Mark McGwire during the Maris Chase in 1998. Or Sammy racing out to right field waving his little American flag after Sept. 11, 2001. Or Sammy doing his little hop step as another home run sailed off toward a Waveland Avenue rooftop.
But not anymore.
Now the image is going to be Sammy hitting a dinky little broken-bat ground ball to second base -- on the night his world changed forever.
Now people will ask if he has cheated his way to those 505 home runs, even though all the cork in Portugal wouldn't help a man hit 505 home runs if he couldn't hit.
Now people will ask if his whole career, his whole rise from raw strikeout machine to one of the great sluggers of all time, was phony and tainted -- even though Sosa's maturation as a disciplined hitter who learned the strike zone and hit great pitches to every field was not something he could have accomplished with a drill and some cork.
Now people will look at a man who was once one of baseball's most beloved figures and ask: "Why?" And no matter how reasonable or unfathomable the explanation, will anyone be interested in accepting it?
That's not a place anyone wants to be in this world we live in. But it is Sammy Sosa's place now, whether he likes it or not.
"The first thing that went through my mind," said his former Cubs teammate, Turk Wendell, on Tuesday, "was why would a guy like that be using cork? In my eyes, I could see guys who are little shortstops, who hit two or three home runs a year, using a corked bat so they could maybe hit one or two more homers. But Sammy doesn't hit paint-scrapers. He doesn't need help getting his balls to go out of the park. He hits moon shots. So I don't understand why he'd use a corked bat."
“ Now everything else he's done has question marks around it. His home run records, everything. It's all surrounded by question marks. ”
— Turk Wendell
His first order of business, Sosa understands, is to await the formal portion of his punishment. Bob Watson, baseball's vice president in charge of discipline, was already on the case Tuesday night before the Cubs had even left the field. And he will be handing down a suspension of at least a week.
Belle got seven games for corking his bat nine years ago. Guerrero got eight games for his cork-a-pade six years ago. Hatcher was nailed for eight games in 1987
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