Sammy's sin

Cheating wasn't Sosa's downfall, it was how he cheated

We will probably never know whether Sammy Sosa cheated once, cheats all the time or just made an honest mistake when last week his broken bat was found to have more cork in it than the cheap wine I drank in college -- and, frankly, it's a little surprising that so many of us seem to care. In these jaded times, for the public to pay attention to a celebrity scandal for longer than it takes to read the headline, it usually has to involve sex, drugs, violence or at least a little gambling. But the uproar over Sosa's illegal bat seems to have legs, which is reassuring in a way, because it means that it's still possible to offend our sense of right and wrong.

But if our moral compass were really pointed in the right direction, we wouldn't be so concerned with whether Sosa's other bats were found to have cork in them, or whether he really only meant to use the corked bat in batting practice and home run contests, as he claims. The fact that the Cubs slugger had a doctored bat in his possession is damning enough. It's a little like having a joint in your pocket at work and saying you only smoke on your days off -- even if it's true, it's really not the point. Sosa wasn't supposed to have corked bats, period, and he certainly wasn't supposed to use them in any major league setting. He did, however, and that fact alone, no matter how he or anyone else tries to spin it, reveals him to have been dishonest.

The more interesting issue for the rest of us is why we find Sosa's transgression so much more troubling than the other forms of cheating that go on in sports every day? (We're talking only about on-the-field cheating here. If we dealt with the rule-breaking that goes on away from the games, we'd be here for weeks.) It is accepted, for instance, that many pitchers will try to do the equivalent of corking a bat when they have a baseball in their hands. Dozens of hurlers have been known, or widely suspected, of tampering with the ball to make their pitches move more sharply. Gaylord Perry is in the Hall of Fame even though he did everything but give the ball a lube job when he was on the mound. But Perry's cheating was considered almost amusing by most people.

Flagrant cases aside, athletes cheat in less obvious ways all the time, and it's not only condoned; in many cases it's admired. The wide receiver who tries to make it look as though he caught a ball when he knows that it skipped off the turf first is cheating, just like the basketball player who flops to the floor on defense to make it look as though the offensive player has run him over. They are both knowingly trying to fool the referee into making the incorrect call. How is Sosa any worse than any other athlete who tries to skirt the rules or gain an advantage through deceiving the people who are supposed to enforce them?

But those other examples, of course, are considered a natural part of the game. In fact, players who can pull off those sorts of deceptions are applauded for being crafty and being willing to do whatever it takes to win. They pass on the tricks of their trade to younger players and they're praised for their wisdom.

We've made such a fuss over Sosa's act not because it was cheating, but because it was a rarely detected form of cheating. It was a natural outgrowth of the attitude that the breaking of rules in pursuit of an edge is part of sport. The substance in Sosa's bat may have been surprising, but the attitude in his mind is not.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button topic every Monday on SI.com.

 

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