Sosa incident dominates the news

There were, at press time, over 100 articles on the ESPN MLB Insider site lines regarding the Sammy Sosa corking incident. (Not that I ever bother to read other parts of the newspaper, but I've got to wonder if there is any world or local news in the Chicago Sun-Times today. They have no less than 15 items on the Sosa incident. Their rival, the Tribune, has but 12.) That's a lot of words and, as the day goes on, there will be many more to come. Rather than cite individual pieces, I will give you the categories into which these many articles and columns can be separated:

His reputation is shot: These writers are calling into question the entire Sosa canon. Every ball that ever sprung from his bat is now suspected of having been launched artificially. Sosa's carefully-cultivated image is now blown to smithereens.

This is nothing new: These articles include the rogue's gallery of ballplayers who have bent the rules in the game's long history. From holding a runner by the belt in the 19th Century to telegraphing stolen signals from buildings outside the ballpark, bending the rules has always been a part of the game. Sosa is just the latest in a long tradition.

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