Reaction to the Sammy Sosa corked bat incident:
"I just hope it doesn't taint what he's done, corked or not corked," said Seattle second baseman Bret Boone, who told the Seattle Times that he has never used a corked bat, even in practice. "This guy has as much power as anyone in baseball except Mark McGwire, who probably had as much power as anyone in history. It's very unfortunate, and probably embarrassing for him. If you could cork a bat and get away with it, I'd do it, but the bat can break, and you can get caught. I've never done it. Of course, I'd say so anyway, but it's for real. If I was guaranteed I wouldn't get caught, I probably would."
"It's unfortunate," said New York Yankees Manager Joe Torre. "It's a dirty mark when you consider what he's accomplished. Even if he never used a corked bat back (in his younger days), you'll never convince people of that. It's really unfortunate for the game. The most important thing for this game is to respect it for the people who played it before. I'm not saying you didn't used to try to get away with a spit ball, do stuff like that, but this is unfortunate."
"It's a shame. I just hate it," said Yankees southpaw Andy Pettitte, who is scheduled to pitch against the Cubs this weekend, "He's a great guy and he's going to get a lot of bad publicity. You hate to see that, with what he's done, it's all going to be in doubt now. It's going to be hard for people to believe that he has been hitting without a corked bat."
"It's very sad for people in the Dominican," said Yankees second baseman Alfonso Soriano, who, like Sosa, is from the Domincan Republic. "He's a hero there, so it's sad for everybody. Maybe a lot of people will think he's been doing this for his whole career, maybe some people will think it's just been a couple of games. Who knows? Only he knows. It's very sad."
"The balls he hit off me, it didn't matter if it was corked or not," said pitcher Brett Tomko of St. Louis, who has served up four home runs to Sosa in his career.
"We had some insider information that it was corked because (Albert Belle's) bat didn't explode," said Gene Lamont, who was manager of the Chicago White Sox when Belle's bats were found to be corked. "We decided we were going to contest it, or whatever (the phrase is). They took his bat into the umpire room, but someone crawled through the ceiling and took it and replaced it with a Paul Sorrento bat."
"I've never seen anybody cork a bat, I really haven't," said Houston first baseman Jeff Bagwell. "I saw one when I was in the minor leagues. I don't think it's a rampant thing at all. It's too easy to get caught. It breaks and stuff like this (Sosa incident) happens."
"I definitely am not going to look at Sosa the same way," a Cubs fan, Tom Sommer, told the Chicago Sun-Times. "How can you? No one from the Cubs disputed it. No one said a word."
"He denied the steroids pumped him up," said Cubs fan Bill Rider. "Now you have to wonder - was this his first time with a corked bat, or was this the first time he got caught? I found it hard to believe, but of all the power hitters in the game, it makes you think how many home runs has he really hit."
"Come on people, let's be easy on the guy," said an unidentified respondent member responding to an AOL poll which was almost 4-to-1 against Sosa. "We're talking about a player that has worked extremely hard to get where he is today, just like every other ball player, and I'm sure he didn't get there by cheating. He is truly an exquisite ball player who displays a tremendous amount of effort in his games. I really do not think it is fair to say now that Sosa has always cheated in the past. That would be like saying every ounce of effort this guy ever put into baseball is worth nothing just because of one incident."
"Sosa cheated baseball, the fans and himself," said another. "Anything he has ever done in baseball is in question!"
"They barred Pete Rose from baseball for betting on baseball," said another. "They should bar Sosa for cheating by using illegal bats. After all, cheating is worse then betting."
