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The player in question is Chris Sabo, former third baseman of the Cincinnati Reds. In this instance he was using a "corked bat." Sabo played in the late 80's, early 90's when both batters and pitchers tried to take advantage by altering equipment.
Pitchers were known to scuff the leather surface of the ball, or apply "foreign substances" (grease, spit, etc.) to make pitches slide, curve, or drop as they were much harder to hit. Hitters would slice off the top of the bat and drill a hole down through the center of the barrel, fill the hole with cork, and glue the sliced off top back on the bat. "Corking" a bat made it lighter (faster swings) and made it livelier (the ball would jump off the bat).
Neither doctoring the baseball nor the bat is allowed by MLB rules. If you watch closely on the video, when Sabo's bat shatters small pieces of cork can be seen flying out of the bat. When the ump retrieves the bat you can see the drilled hole through the barrel. Sabo is on the bench, knows he's been had, and gets ejected for using an illegaly corked bat.
Most of the equipment cheating fell to the wayside when the later years saw steroid use become the method of cheating in baseball.
Why? So everyone is on a fair and even playing field and not gaining an advantage through rule breaking.
Also funny was when Albert Belle was called for a corked bat. One of his teammates tried to steal it from the umps room and replace it with another so they did not have the evidence. However, he used someone else's bat as a replacement, presumably because Belle did not have a non-corked bat to swap out the corked one with. Nobody was fooled.
Or what about Craig Nettles and his "super ball" juiced bat? lol.
Most, not all. Sammy Sosa not only was nailed as a PEDs user, in 2003 his bat broke on a groundball and the umps found the cork.
Yeah and slammin' Sammy claimed it was his "batting practice bat" that he used to wow the crowds pre-game and he grabbed it on accident during the game. Yeah right.
Maybe someone should create a new MLB, MLB-X or something and allow anything. Corked bats, aluminum bats, legal steroids etc... It'd be fun to see how far a roided up guy can hit a ball with an aluminum bat. Yes, we'd have to build new stadiums and enclose the fans in a bubble but it would be quite fun to watch. lol
Yeah and slammin' Sammy claimed it was his "batting practice bat" that he used to wow the crowds pre-game and he grabbed it on accident during the game. Yeah right.
Yeah, I suppose he also took the PEDs to wow the crowds during batting practice, but reverted to his natural muscles only once the game began.
Scammin' Sammy was also the guy who suddenly forgot how to speak English when he was hauled before the Congressional committee in 2005.
The player in question is Chris Sabo, former third baseman of the Cincinnati Reds. In this instance he was using a "corked bat." Sabo played in the late 80's, early 90's when both batters and pitchers tried to take advantage by altering equipment.
Pitchers were known to scuff the leather surface of the ball, or apply "foreign substances" (grease, spit, etc.) to make pitches slide, curve, or drop as they were much harder to hit. Hitters would slice off the top of the bat and drill a hole down through the center of the barrel, fill the hole with cork, and glue the sliced off top back on the bat. "Corking" a bat made it lighter (faster swings) and made it livelier (the ball would jump off the bat).
Neither doctoring the baseball nor the bat is allowed by MLB rules. If you watch closely on the video, when Sabo's bat shatters small pieces of cork can be seen flying out of the bat. When the ump retrieves the bat you can see the drilled hole through the barrel. Sabo is on the bench, knows he's been had, and gets ejected for using an illegaly corked bat.
Most of the equipment cheating fell to the wayside when the later years saw steroid use become the method of cheating in baseball.
I've heard about pitchers putting pine tar on the ball and scuffing it. Do you feel that it's more psychological or do you really feel he ball moves more?
Having mastered the art of throwing a pretty fair spitter in Legion ball, it definitely dropped like it fell off a table. Scuffing was more of a grip thing and would imagine the same for pine tar. The grip would make a breaking ball break sharper. Also, it would help a fastball rise or tail from side-to-side.
If a pitcher is throwing 95 anywhere near my head I hope he has a good grip on the ball. So if pine tar helps him to get a better grip I have no problem with it.
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