As Chris so helpfully pointed out (grrrr) in the comment on my Cubs post, it turns out that Sammy Sosa got caught with a corked bat tonight.

Those of you who don't follow baseball might now be asking yourselves what this means. To summarize the info in the link: it is naughty, as it is unfair. A corked bat allows skinny weaklings who could never ever hope to clear the infield (and Sosa is clearly that sort of person) to hit the ball as many as a few yards further. "Corking" makes the bat a tiny bit lighter, which adds to bat speed (which means you can come around a tiny bit faster on a pitch) and, more importantly, adds "spring" to the moment of contact between the bat and the ball (if you hit the ball with the corked part of the bat). It also makes the bat more fragile, and that's how Sammy got caught (his bat shattered: he's broken several bats over the years, by the way, and this is the first time there has been weapons of mass destruction in one).

And no, no member of the Atlanta Braves franchise has ever been caught with a corked bat. In fact, only a few players ever have. One more ugly mark in the record books for the Cubs.

Does this mean I have to stay abroad forever? I think John Asscraft planted that bat on Sosa.

"Shotgun" (Jr Walker and the All Stars)