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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interviewi with Mel Antonen
Aired June 07, 2003 - 07:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Major league baseball handed down its punishment to Sammy Sosa -- say it ain't Sosa -- but will have to enforce it now. Friday, Sosa was given a copy of the U.S. House of Representatives Proclamation and an eight game suspension from major league baseball. The House document was in honor of his 500th home run and was passed unanimously, the day before the corked bat incident.
Meanwhile, Sosa appealed his suspension and will continue to play until he gets a hearing on his appeal. The hearing into Sosa's suspension could come next week at the earliest. Meanwhile, he continues to play and today faces Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens. This is going to be a real showdown. He's going for his milestone win number 300, I think his 300th strike out in a row.
For a little perspective on both events, we are joined now by Mel Antonen of "USA Today."
Thank you very much for joining us.
MEL ANTONEN, "USA TODAY": Good morning.
Good to be here.
GUPTA: Hey, how big a deal is this? You know, Sammy Sosa and the whole cork bat incident, he's such a popular player. How big a deal is this? How much of a blow is this?
ANTONEN: It's a big deal. It does a little bit of damage to baseball. It's one thing when a middle infielder hitting .240 corks his bat. But it's another thing when one of the game's biggest superstars does it. It taints the game a little bit. You don't want people coming to the ballpark saying OK, whose bats are corked and whose aren't? You want the action to stay on the field and what's going on there.
So it did a little bit of damage to baseball, particularly with Sosa's stature. But baseball will survive and so will Sosa.
GUPTA: People are saying he's bigger than Jordan in Chicago. Listen, they X-rayed the 76 bats from before and all of those came up clean. Just sort of as a lay person here, couldn't he have just made a mistake here, an honest mistake?
ANTONEN: Well, he could have made a mistake. And I guess that's what baseball investigated when it handed down the sentence or the punishment. But it's not likely. I mean there's -- only Sammy Sosa knows for sure if he's telling the truth or not. There's a lot of speculation. Some people say that, you know, a batter spends three or four minutes, five minutes in the on deck circle swinging his bat before he goes to the plate. Certainly he should have known by then.
But if you're giving Sammy Sosa the benefit of the doubt, you would say then that he did actually make a mistake and just happened to grab the wrong bat.
GUPTA: You know what's sort of interesting, as well, is I'm not sure I fully understand why corking a baseball bat is a big deal. Is seems to me that the bat would be lighter and I was reading a couple of things that said the balls don't actually go any further with a corked bat. So is it really an advantage to cork the bat?
ANTONEN: Well, a lot of people say it is and a lot of hitters say it is. What the cork bat does is it makes it lighter and it's bat speed that makes the ball go farther. So basically when you cork a bat, the batter gets the advantage of having to bulk, a heavy bat on the outside and light on the inside. So you can swing faster, swing quicker and supposedly the ball can go an extra 40 or 50 feet.
GUPTA: Oh, that's interesting. So you're sort of trading off momentum for bat speed and maybe hitting the ball a little further. Let's switch gears a little bit, if we could, and talk a little bit about Roger Clemens. Two times previously now, he's tried for his 300th win, a very historic game today.
Do you think he's going to get it?
ANTONEN: Well, I don't know. He's had trouble his last two starts, one in Yankee Stadium and one in Detroit. The Cubs are a tough team. I mean I suppose he could get it. I mean he has, he's pitched well at times in these last couple of games and then he's [pitched pretty bad. So I think Roger Clemens is due, though, and he's a battler, he's a great pitcher, this is a historic game, very exciting for baseball fans.
GUPTA: Yes, historic, I should point out, I don't think the Yankees have been to Wrigley Field since the 1930s, so this is a really big deal.
You know, one thing I read, as well, is that he might be the last player to be able to get 300 wins. Why do they say that, unlikely for another pitcher to do that?
ANTONEN: Well, there's only 20 pitchers in a little more than a hundred years to get 300 wins in his career. The reason is baseball is changing. Instead of four man rotations, pitchers are pitching in five man rotations. So instead of getting 40 starts a year, pitchers are getting 30 starts. They're pitching fewer games.
And, now there's an emphasis with bullpens that the bullpens are getting a bigger chunk of the wins each year. It's about 60 percent now go the bullpens. So starting pitchers' wins just aren't as important as they were, say, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, and pitchers are throwing less games. So it's more difficult. Greg Maddox of the Atlanta Braves has 278 wins. He's 37 years old. It's going to be a struggle for him to get it. But after that, it's going to be a long time before we see something like this in baseball.
GUPTA: That's very interesting.
Really quick, as well, you know, there's a lot of heroes made in baseball, no question. Mickey Mantle's first home run ball was auctioned off this last Thursday. You probably know about this, Mel, $117,899. Quite a bit. People obviously still paying top dollar for their baseball heroes.
Thank you very much for joining us.
From "USA Today," Mel Antonen.
ANTONEN: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 7, 2003 - 07:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Major league baseball handed down its punishment to Sammy Sosa -- say it ain't Sosa -- but will have to enforce it now. Friday, Sosa was given a copy of the U.S. House of Representatives Proclamation and an eight game suspension from major league baseball. The House document was in honor of his 500th home run and was passed unanimously, the day before the corked bat incident.
Meanwhile, Sosa appealed his suspension and will continue to play until he gets a hearing on his appeal. The hearing into Sosa's suspension could come next week at the earliest. Meanwhile, he continues to play and today faces Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens. This is going to be a real showdown. He's going for his milestone win number 300, I think his 300th strike out in a row.
For a little perspective on both events, we are joined now by Mel Antonen of "USA Today."
Thank you very much for joining us.
MEL ANTONEN, "USA TODAY": Good morning.
Good to be here.
GUPTA: Hey, how big a deal is this? You know, Sammy Sosa and the whole cork bat incident, he's such a popular player. How big a deal is this? How much of a blow is this?
ANTONEN: It's a big deal. It does a little bit of damage to baseball. It's one thing when a middle infielder hitting .240 corks his bat. But it's another thing when one of the game's biggest superstars does it. It taints the game a little bit. You don't want people coming to the ballpark saying OK, whose bats are corked and whose aren't? You want the action to stay on the field and what's going on there.
So it did a little bit of damage to baseball, particularly with Sosa's stature. But baseball will survive and so will Sosa.
GUPTA: People are saying he's bigger than Jordan in Chicago. Listen, they X-rayed the 76 bats from before and all of those came up clean. Just sort of as a lay person here, couldn't he have just made a mistake here, an honest mistake?
ANTONEN: Well, he could have made a mistake. And I guess that's what baseball investigated when it handed down the sentence or the punishment. But it's not likely. I mean there's -- only Sammy Sosa knows for sure if he's telling the truth or not. There's a lot of speculation. Some people say that, you know, a batter spends three or four minutes, five minutes in the on deck circle swinging his bat before he goes to the plate. Certainly he should have known by then.
But if you're giving Sammy Sosa the benefit of the doubt, you would say then that he did actually make a mistake and just happened to grab the wrong bat.
GUPTA: You know what's sort of interesting, as well, is I'm not sure I fully understand why corking a baseball bat is a big deal. Is seems to me that the bat would be lighter and I was reading a couple of things that said the balls don't actually go any further with a corked bat. So is it really an advantage to cork the bat?
ANTONEN: Well, a lot of people say it is and a lot of hitters say it is. What the cork bat does is it makes it lighter and it's bat speed that makes the ball go farther. So basically when you cork a bat, the batter gets the advantage of having to bulk, a heavy bat on the outside and light on the inside. So you can swing faster, swing quicker and supposedly the ball can go an extra 40 or 50 feet.
GUPTA: Oh, that's interesting. So you're sort of trading off momentum for bat speed and maybe hitting the ball a little further. Let's switch gears a little bit, if we could, and talk a little bit about Roger Clemens. Two times previously now, he's tried for his 300th win, a very historic game today.
Do you think he's going to get it?
ANTONEN: Well, I don't know. He's had trouble his last two starts, one in Yankee Stadium and one in Detroit. The Cubs are a tough team. I mean I suppose he could get it. I mean he has, he's pitched well at times in these last couple of games and then he's [pitched pretty bad. So I think Roger Clemens is due, though, and he's a battler, he's a great pitcher, this is a historic game, very exciting for baseball fans.
GUPTA: Yes, historic, I should point out, I don't think the Yankees have been to Wrigley Field since the 1930s, so this is a really big deal.
You know, one thing I read, as well, is that he might be the last player to be able to get 300 wins. Why do they say that, unlikely for another pitcher to do that?
ANTONEN: Well, there's only 20 pitchers in a little more than a hundred years to get 300 wins in his career. The reason is baseball is changing. Instead of four man rotations, pitchers are pitching in five man rotations. So instead of getting 40 starts a year, pitchers are getting 30 starts. They're pitching fewer games.
And, now there's an emphasis with bullpens that the bullpens are getting a bigger chunk of the wins each year. It's about 60 percent now go the bullpens. So starting pitchers' wins just aren't as important as they were, say, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, and pitchers are throwing less games. So it's more difficult. Greg Maddox of the Atlanta Braves has 278 wins. He's 37 years old. It's going to be a struggle for him to get it. But after that, it's going to be a long time before we see something like this in baseball.
GUPTA: That's very interesting.
Really quick, as well, you know, there's a lot of heroes made in baseball, no question. Mickey Mantle's first home run ball was auctioned off this last Thursday. You probably know about this, Mel, $117,899. Quite a bit. People obviously still paying top dollar for their baseball heroes.
Thank you very much for joining us.
From "USA Today," Mel Antonen.
ANTONEN: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
