Last Updated: March 19th, 2024 by Michael Schatz
Baseball’s been around for well over 100 years. And for the entirety of that time players have been cheating. Can we blame them? Baseball’s hard. It’s the only sport where you can fail 7 out of 10 times and still end up in the Hall of Fame. Most cheating is harmless. Sign stealing. A little extra pine tar on the ball for better control.
Other times it’s more egregious – we’re looking at you Houston Astros.
But when we talk about cheating in baseball one thing always comes to mind – corking a bat. As Tom Glavine and Greg Maddox once famously taught us, ‘Chicks dig the long ball’. Players will do whatever it takes to hit home runs – and that includes stuffing their bats with cork. It may seem foolproof, but all it takes is getting sawed off by a cutter for your master plan to be exposed.
But sometimes it’s not as simple as that. We give you the case of Chris Sabo’s corked bat. Let’s set the scene…
It was July 29, 1996. The trade deadline was fast approaching and at 50-51, the Reds were only four games back of the division lead.
A huge opportunity was in front of them as they welcomed the division leading Houston Astros to Cinergy Field for an important series. What the crowd of 22,163 didn’t know is that they were about to witness the beginnings of a baseball mystery.
It was the bottom of the second in a scoreless game when Chris Sabo stepped to the plate. The 1988 NL Rookie of the Year had returned to Cincinnati after stops in Baltimore, Chicago and St. Louis. He was enjoying a so-so season, hitting .262 with 3 homeruns and 16 RBIs.
Houston starter Mike Hampton fired a full count pitch. Sabo fouled it off and broke his bat. Big deal. Happens all the time. He motioned to the dugout and the bat boy ran him out a new bat. Sabo settled in and Hampton delivered.
Another foul ball and another broken bat.
Or was it? Reds announcers George Grande and Chrish Welsh certainly thought so. “Two broken bats in two swings”, said Grande. But here’s the thing. Sabo didn’t retrieve a new bat. He settled in again. Hampton delivered the eighth pitch of the at bat…
And Sabo’s bat exploded on contact. Debris scattered everywhere. The ball, meanwhile, fell harmlessly into shortstop Orlando Miller’s glove for the first out. Sabo trotted back to the dugout.
But home plate umpire Tom Hallian noticed something was amiss. In retrieving the broken bat he found a large section of it had been hollowed out and filled with cork.
As he discussed the matter with Reds manager Ray Knight, umpire Ed Montague was collecting pieces of cork off the infield turf. There was no doubt that Sabo had used a corked bat. The evidence was all over the field. Sabo was ejected and the Reds would go on to lose the game 2-1.
Now this is where our mystery begins.
When asked about the incident, Sabo denied ever using a corked bat in his life. He pointed to his paltry offensive numbers as evidence saying, “That’s hardly a good endorsement for the cork industry.”
Grande and Welsh seemed to agree. They questioned why Sabo, if he knew he was using a corked bat, would risk keeping it in the game if it was broken.
Now remember, Sabo broke his original bat two pitches prior. The bat boy ran him out the replacement bat – which happened to be corked. So was this an innocent mistake? Was Sabo cheating? Was this sabotage by the bat boy?
And if this wasn’t Sabo’s bat then whose bat was it?
Well, being the good teammate he was, Sabo declined to name names. In the end, Sabo was suspended for 7 games and the Reds were fined $25,000.
The Reds would go on to finish 81-81 that season. As for Sabo, 1996 proved to be his final season. The three time All Star and 1990 World Series Champion would finish with a career average of .268 and 116 homeruns.
As for the true owner of the corked bat? To this day it remains a mystery.