Apologies for starting another Sosa thread...


I have contended that the argument "Sosa gained no advantage from using a corked bat" is hogwash because it doesn't matter if he got benefit or not - he THOUGHT he got a benefit, so it was still cheating.

BUT -

I just read something that could shoot holes in the entire argument put forth by The Physics of Baseball that corking doesn't help.

Sammy's bat was corked near THE HANDLE (according to ESPN). The main reason that the physics guy says corking doesn't help is that typically when a bat is corked, the batter gains bat speed (good) but loses the bat barrel density (bad). This assumes that the cork is placed IN THE BARREL of the bat.

On Sammy's bat, it was in the handle. So he got the benefit of faster bat speed but did not get the problem of less bat barrel density.


Not that it matters, because he cheated, period. But I wish Sosa apologists like ESPN would think about this a little bit and stop focusing on whether he gained a benefit or not.

What I've been wondering about is not necessarily the bat speed caused by corking, but any extra "bounce" the bat could possibly supply. I mean, you always hear of balls being juiced if they're wound tighter or if the core is livelier. Can you make the core of the bat livelier by changing its contents - hence the occasional use of superballs?

I saw the clip ESPN had of Showalter cutting up cork and superballs to put in a bat...as far as the superballs are concerned, I would think the best approach would be to melt them and pour them into the bat...completely filling the bat cavity.

I occasionally use superballs.

I bounce a super ball over a 3-story building... anyway, whatever.

Originally posted by Easy Mac
I bounce a super ball over a 3-story building... anyway, whatever.

Easy there, Tobias V.

This is a simple conservation of energy question. How far the ball goes is determined by its initial velocity off the bat. This is determined by the amount of energy the batter supplies to the bat, which is then transfered to the ball.

The increase in bat speed and loss of mass in the bat will cancel out exactly, no matter where the cork is. By moving the cork closer, you move the center of mass further from the handle, and thus make it harder to accelerate. i.e. you will not get the increased bat speed you are looking for.

Not only that, you make the handle weaker, and thus, the bat more likely to break. Corking the handle would really be a stupid thing to do.

I do agree, though, that Sammy is guilty of cheating if he thought he was getting an advantage, even it he wasn't.

If you were just going to cork the handle, you could just have them make bats with thinner handles for you. I think that would give you the same effect.

what the hell would be the point of corking the handle???

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Samdari
This is a simple conservation of energy question. How far the ball goes is determined by its initial velocity off the bat. This is determined by the amount of energy the batter supplies to the bat, which is then transfered to the ball.

The increase in bat speed and loss of mass in the bat will cancel out exactly, no matter where the cork is. By moving the cork closer, you move the center of mass further from the handle, and thus make it harder to accelerate. i.e. you will not get the increased bat speed you are looking for. [/QUOTE

You need to also consider linear momentum transfer, mainly the (e)lastic deformation value for the bat and the ball. That is where the whole juiced ball thing comes in. The higher the e value is for the bat and ball, the more energy is transfered to the ball. The rest gets converted into restoring the shape of the ball, bat and generating sound. Also the location of the cork can change the size of the sweet spot on the bad. However I have forgotten the correlation between density interfaces. The reason to use cork in a bat is that filling the hole gets rid of the hollow sound of the bat. People have used styrofoam, cork, superballs, really anything as long as it is lighter than wood and fills the void left by the wood.

A long time ago they acctually used to pound penny nails into their bats to make them heavier in the belief that a heavy bat would make the ball go further. While this is the case, you still need to swing that bat just as fast to see the difference.

Okay I'm sorry I brought this up now.

I guess I'm too dumb to understand what the hell everyone's talking about.


He still cheated though.

:)

He may have gotten some benefit out of it even if thephysics say the force is still equal. Hitting a baseball is such a difficult thing that added confidence could in fact translate into more and/or harder contact. Think of it as a placebo effect for hitters.

Its always important to remember that a machine's data doesn't necessarily duplicate a human's efforts.