One simple rule inspired a full-on heist because that's baseball
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- čas přidán 11. 06. 2024
- MLB doesn't let you fill your bat with non-wood substances. So in 1994, when some players did do that and worried about getting caught ... things got pretty weird. This is the story of the extremely strange Heist Of Albert Belle's Corked Bat.
Directed and edited by Joe Ali
Hosted by Ryan Simmons and Seth Rosenthal
Illustrated and animated by Tyson Whiting
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New rule: Every rule in the book must be Mythbusters verified
Darn it now mythbusters has to verify that
Mythbusters did test quite a few baseball related myths, including those around pitching and running vs sliding towards a base. Maybe if they were around today, they could see how big of an effect various sticking agents has on baseballs 😅
@@llydrsn smartereverday could probably do it. He's got a high speed camera and he's already made a baseball cannon.
MLB - Mythbuster League Baseball
New rule no more fake expository conversation vids
And even funnier conclusion to that story would have been if Paul Sorrento's bat was actually corked as well.
Kind of like when Lawrence Taylor swapped out his urine sample for a teammates in order to pass a drug test and it still tested positive for cocaine.
i swear to god, after hearing this story i bought a paul sorento game used bat, just incase ...
I was really hoping that was where this was going.
I was waiting for that to be the actual twist ending.
@@TheAtkey ok but how did this all come to light, was Taylor pulled aside and went all "But I swapped the samples!" or something?
So technically, a batter could use an aluminum bat made by a company called One Piece of Solid Wood....good to know
You're already halfway to becoming a professional baseball player lol
@@williamlanagan3528 The other half is steroids, isn't it
@@googiegress7459 I mean I was going for "a basic understanding of the game and years of training to supplement their natural loop hole finding abilities" but steroids work too
Lol, thanks for the good laugh
Maybe someone could tune an aluminum bat to sound like wood
Breaking: Chris Davis snaps bat, discovers a two gallons of vanilla pudding inside.
Imagine if it still kept it lighter but also fixed the structural integrity pf the bat intact itd be amazing
Davis' bat is filled with Adderall pills.
@@unkledoda420 not funny
I miss him already bros :(
The integrity of baseball never existed
If you ain't cheatin you ain't tryin
F1 and baseball have similar spirits, but completely opposite speeds.
@@douglasshouganai2516 F1 cheatin?
@@CC-tl3zs They tried using an F1.05 and hoped no one would notice. 😂
Incoming angry baseball fans even though this is 1000% true
Can’t wait for 2039 when a weird rules comes out about the pine tar situation and we all remember pitchers taking their pants off in front of umps and Max Scherzer getting his balding hair checked
I dont watch MLB and im so confused. Did this really happen?
@@HuhnBio specifically for the pants thing, look up Sergio Romo's inspection
@Kfir Shoham If you believe Trevor Bauer, it's not just one pitcher.
@Kfir Shoham it's one pitcher because they all stopped using foreign substances as soon as the ban was enforced
Ouch
JG: "The name's Grimsley. Jason Grimsley."
MLB: "We know. You suck at this."
💀
You know they mention here that the league asked him not to talk about it until his career was over.
Here’s how his career ended...in 2006 Federal officials actually raided Grimsley's home and found evidence that he was distributing performance-enhancing drugs.
The league suspended him 50 games, was immediately cut by the D’Backs following this incident and never pitched again.
Incredible
@@JWex-jy7sk So, Okay. In other words, Grimsley loved to help his teammates cheat. And yet generally did a bad job of it. Picture needs to be right next to Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, and Pete Rose in the Cheater's and Gambler's Hall of Fame.
He forgot to mention that the reason Grimsley didn’t just replace the bat with another of Belle’s bats is because every single one of Belle’s bats was corked 😂
They did mention that earlier in the video, though
Remember when Sammy Sosa's bat broke right in the middle of a game and everyone saw that it was corked?
That happened to quite a few guys over the years. I know there's videos on CZcams of it happening to Chris Sabo.
was Sammy the one that stood at the plate trying to collect the evidence instead of running to first base? I remember hearing about someone doing that...
@@theunwelcome It was Sammy. There is a SB video mentioning it.
@@unkledoda420 Hell, it happened to Babe Ruth.
Roids and corking . Pos ball player
I’m so glad Weird Rules is back. Probably my fav SB Nation series
Mine too.
Its up there but I think beef history is better.
We just not comparing these to chart party or pretty good’s sports episodes because those are on a different level
Top three:
1: Weird rules
2: Beef history
3: Collapse
Think rewind might be my favorite
The rule book doesn't say dogs can't play baseball.
Snoopy
The MLB rules *do* say that a dog cannot be an umpire, though!
Airbud
THEY CAN.
@@monke7156 Air Bud 4, specifically. "Seventh Inning Fetch."
There’s a new weird rule in baseball where the umpires stop the game to grope the pitcher when the mood strikes them.
Gotta rub all the hair follicles.
How else are they gonna know that he isn't just two corked bats in a pitcher costume
@@TiddyTwyster It’s actually Pine Tar doing an impression of 2 corked bats disguised as a pitcher.
You named them the Mariners?
But now they have a “grope clock” 😅
"Our generation's greatest scientists, and by that, I mean the Mythbusters." LMAO 🤣
As an Indians fan...and a 90's kid who LOVED those Indians teams, this is still one of my all-time favorite baseball stories. I mean they set up a full-blown Ocean's 11-style heist just to get Albert's corked bat back. And I always felt bad for Albert Belle even if he was a d-bag to the fans, media...pretty much everyone. He was a top-5 hitter of his era. He is STILL TO THIS DAY the ONLY player in the entire 120+ year history of MLB to hit 50 home runs and 50 doubles in the same season. Then in 1998 after he left Cleveland and signed with the White Sox, he hit 49 home runs and 48 doubles that season...nearly REPEATING his 50-50 feat. He was also totally robbed of the 1995 MVP award simply because the media "didn't like him". Just imagine how that would make you feel if you were in his position?
Yes. I remember that Grandslam to save the season. NE Ohio almost fell into Lake Erie from the vibration of cheering and stomping fans. Good times.
The one issue I had with the MythBusters argument is that they addressed a corked bat and regular bat swung at the same speed, not taking into account that a corked bat has a lower center of gravity and can thus be swung faster.
Wow, that's ridiculous - they clearly don't understand the premise, or chose to ignore it for the sake of just making an entertaining show. Presumably they were trying to isolate and test the theory of the "trampoline effect" (that the hollowed bat would compress and rebound to launch the ball) - I don't watch a ton of Mythbusters, but I've found they often seem to latch onto a single factor in a more complex question.
This all said, actual physicists at various universities have also done research on corked bats (I'm not sure their exact methods), and it seems the general consensus is that it doesn't help with distance. This means that Mythbusters failed to test the actual factor that might actually provide an advantage, with the increased speed and maneuverability of the bat a player might easily see more/better contact and possibly a better OBP (if not Slugging) if they know how to use it.
@@chrislukes9037 f=ma, there is no difference between what you described and myth busters test
force equals mass X acceleration.
lower mass = less force.
the difference in speed is insignificant.
while you would need a significant loss in mass to see a significant increase in speed.
the better idea is to increase the mass of the bat. you get better results easier
@@alicepbg2042 Wrong I'm afraid. None of this is about distance. You get no extra points for hitting the ball 500 feet when the wall is at 350 or something. The rules allow up to 42 inch length with no weight limit. If heavier was better, they would all use 42 inch bats made from the densest wood available. They do not. They use 32-35 inch bats of varying weights. Why? Because no matter how powerful in theory the bat is, you still have to actually HIT THE BALL. Bat speed is absolutely critical for this. An ounce of weight makes a huge difference to a hitter's ability to make contact. But the bat also needs to be long enough to cover the strike zone and actually reach the pitch. So corking a bat lets you swing a 35 inch bat but with the weight and moment of inertia of a 32.
Albert Bell and roided up Sammy Sosa didn't need more distance. They were strong as hell. What they needed was to make solid contact more often. So what if it knocked 10 feet off of their distance? They were still knocking them out of the park.
The Mythbusters had to choose which myth they were testing, and they were testing whether a corked bat can hit the ball further than a normal bat. They were looking specifically at distance, not the other potential advantages, and this is a valid myth to test because it hinges on the widespread myth that the 'trampoline effect' allows a corked bat to hit the ball further. I don't think it's fair to say they didn't look at relevant factors - this is a myth, they were clear about what specifically was in scope for their experiment, and they didn't make inferences outside of that scope. However, as for the actual experiment, they did get it wrong.
I would suggest that the more useful equation is p = mv (i.e. momentum = mass * velocity), where momentum is conserved in a closed system, although F = ma is also relevant and correct. Because the momentum of the bat is transferred to the ball, a bat that is heavier or faster results in more momentum in the ball, which, having a fixed mass, moves at a greater velocity and goes further. A batter can move a corked bat faster - partly because of its lighter weight (since F = ma so the batter needs less force to accelerate the same mass by the same amount), and partly because its centre of mass is closer to the hands (effort is converted to force more efficiently).
Because the Mythbusters didn't consider the contribution of speed to a corked bat's momentum (and therefore to the ball's distance), they have no way of knowing if the different distances of the two bats are because of the material/structural properties of the bats or because the corked bat had less mass without the extra speed to compensate. The only conclusion they should have drawn based on their experiment is 'plausible' because it does not provide conclusive evidence one way or the other. Other experiments have indeed generally shown that a corked bat does not improve the distance a ball travels, which the Mythbusters were probably already aware of, leading them to accept it when they got the expected result without being as rigorous as they should have been. As outlined by others, corked bats could provide advantages that were outside the scope of the Mythbusters' experiment.
To be fair, the episode was not entirely clear that they did not use two different bat speeds. They said the bat speed was based on the speed at which Adam could swing the bat (and you would think they would have realised that would differ) and while they said they were ensuring that the bat was moving at the 'same speed each time', they fired multiple balls at each bat so they could have meant 'each time with the same bat it was moving at the same speed, to remove the human factor' but then they altered the speed for the different bat. This kind of behind-the-scenes scientific rigour did happen quite often on Mythbusters so this is not impossible, and it would mean their experiment was basically valid (although Adam's efforts are not likely the best representation of bat speed for a professional) - but I think their phrasing suggests they just messed up.
Can't wait for the next version of this, where the first domino is pitchers wearing sunscreen and the last one is a secret investigation of every ball thrown in a game
lol!
I love this!!! Also, the reason Grimsley took a Paul Sorrento bat is because ALL of Albert Belle's bats were corked, and everyone on the team knew it :)
The new Comiskey was opened in 1991. Story was in 1994. A 3 year old building should not be outdated. Except looking at the ballparks that came after, the new Comiskey was outdated. Plus, being built in Chicago, corners were probably cut and filled with asbestos.
We don’t use asbestos in Chicago and haven’t since it was banned by law!
smh
What makes this even funnier is the fact that Cleveland didn’t want to lose Albert Belle for the postseason, but then nobody made the postseason because of the strike that year.
Thank you. I scrolled way down to see if anyone else caught that!
5:52 Comiskey Park was not dated. The new park was three years old. Old Comiskey was torn down in 1990.
Came to say this, it was called Comiskey until US Cellular bought the naming rights to the field.
They must not have an eye for detail lol.
@@EU_Red_Fox Could be a small scripting/research error, or simply a joke
I’d thought they’d start with the Buzz Lightyear meme “Yes this wood is made of wood.”
The problem with the Mythbusters experiment, which has been highly criticized throughout the years, is that it doesn't account for the human factor, bat speed, reaction time, etc. It was a simple machine vs machine experiment, but if you give a player a faster bat and more reaction time in exchange for some lost strength of the wood....that's where it become an advantage. It's why Ash bats are so popular, since they are lighter, hence faster bat speed
Has _that_ ever been tested in practice, though? Like, some kind of study where you give similarly-skilled randomly-chosen batters double-blinded bats of the same make, some corked and some not, and measure average hit distance over the course of a few dozen swings?
Not doubting you, because It makes sense. My question's entirely sincere and out of legit curiosity, since a lot of stuff that makes sense isn't actually true. Like, it seems like an easy study to do in practice? So I'm curious if it's ever been done.
@@Idran players have said the bat speed helps them in BP, when they mess with it.
The University of Illinois made a study that, while they said the corked bat has no effect, the advantage of the extra time to react is the main benefit.
Basically, they concluded that there's not much difference in distance, but the difference is in the extra time to react and swing, resulting in more accurate hits
I think the experiment was constructed to deliberately exclude the human factor, since the myth is that the cork does the work. MLB has a lower limit on bat weight, which would be pretty easy to check mid-game.
@@supermario2100 which is why its a flawed test because the thing mythbusters failed to grasp its not about distance but about the ammount of times over the fence it doesnt mater you lose 10 feet when your still hitting over the fence and doing it more often because of the corked bat.
Couldn't agree more. I hated Mythbusters because they repeatedly didn't take the time to understand what they were testing. With wood bats, a larger bat will weight more. Larger bats however offer more surface area for solid contact. This is why MLB limits the circumference of the bat. Corking a larger bat provides the same surface contact with faster bat speed. It may have less pop being corked, but a strong athlete with that larger surface area can make up for any losses in exit velocity. Also, having a faster bat speed, does allow the batter to wait longer to determine if a pitch is a ball or strike as well as ascertain the movement to initiate better contact.
Poor guys. All their effort would be for naught because of the ‘94 strike.
Nah the only poor guys in 1994 were the Expos
Should started with the smallest and largest at the same time, then explain the series of events on how they're connected
Well, well, well. Crime in Sports alumnus Albert Belle making an appearance on Weird Rules. My weekend is starting off well, it seems.
"How is it you've come to arrive here?"
One of the great parts of baseball is the insane lengths players and teams go to cheat. Love it.
Growing up my pops had a pretty lucrative business of modifying mens softball bats. Grave yard of softball and baseball bats in his garage 🤣
As I understand it, corking weakens the integrity of the bat but gives it more compressive capability when contacting the ball. Ball comes off the bat a little faster... But every contact swing (e.g. fouls) threatens to shatter the bat before a hit is achieved.
i’m so happy to see weird rules coming back
Cork comes from a cork oak tree.
"Wood"
Yeah
Not one solid piece though.
You COULD potentially roll up with a bat made completely of cork, which would be hilarious.
@@kyokkyuu Yeah that's also what I thought
@@kyokkyuu cork is just the bark of the tree you couldn’t make a solid bat out of it
I’m surprised that this wasn’t the Mariners.
If it was the Mariners, the heist plan would somehow have involved Jay Buhner distracting the umpires by feigning food poisoning.
Paul Sorrento did play for the Ms for a bit...
It couldnt have been the M's because when they did the heist plot the ceiling stayed in tact
I worked the video board for Cleveland when this happened. When Chicago next played us at home Belle crushed a home run. We caught a shot of Belle in the dugout pointing to his muscles like “no cork needed”. I cut that together with his highlight and Tom Hanks from League of Their Own saying “There’s no crying baseball”. We ran that at the next break and the crowd went wild. I miss those days.
Would have been hilarious if his manager tried to bring Grimsley in in relief while he was climbing through the ceiling.
Mike Hargrove knew what was going on
1:36. The rule specifically states it can not be filled. In addition it also states "cause an unusual reaction to the baseball". Your interpertation that the bat could be made to perform worse would violate the "cause unusual reaction" clause.
You guys keep forgetting the first rule though, that it must be one solid piece of wood. So it could not be filled with pudding, or cork, regardless of whether it helps you or hurts you in performance. You can't alter the bat. It can not be hollowed out in any way, nor can you hollow it and replace that space with anything, even if it were the exact wood that you took out of it in the first place. One solid piece of wood.
one solid piece of wood tells nothing about it being carved out. It's still one solid piece of wood if you drill a hole through it.
@Jon B I'm not native English speaker but I'm pretty sure those aren't antonyms. I always understood that solid in this use is something that is of single continuous piece of some material - not constructed from multiple parts. Otherwise you could argue that bat was hollowed at its thinner end and thus every bat breaks this rule.
@Jon B The difference in your examples is that those object can not be hollow without substance that is contained within. That is, that substance moves with the object. if you blew out that balloon you would get solid piece of rubber. In metal example it wouldn't be solid piece though because you implied it was created from separate pieces. Each piece is solid but they are used to create composite object.
I think the intent of the rule was that the “cross section” be solid. But poor wording leads to easy misinterpretation.
@Jon B Solid BAR of gold should be bar and not hollowed plate. Solid piece is solid piece. If you have needle it's solid piece of metal. If you bend it it's still solid piece of metal. How is this bent piece of metal different than carved piece of metal(it still being made of continuous material) in calling it solid piece of metal?
Also, there being multiple ways to understand the rule makes it prone to abuse.
"Our generation's greatest scientists..."
The Myth Busters?
"And by that I mean the Myth Busters."
_Drake point_
The illustrations absolutely own.
Is it weird to see Ryan and Seth in a same segment again almost a year and now we really got the real deal Weird Rules quality again with them?
Hell yeah!
FYI the Mythbusters (not exactly the apex of proving things right/wrong) found that corking a bat doesn't make the ball fly off it any more. However corked bats being lighter by nature could potentially give you more control in your swing and how far a ball goes is more than just the ball hitting the wood.
Why can’t baseball go 5 minutes without someone trying to get around the rules
This happens in most team sports
@@geordiejones5618 name another team sport. Where this level of thing happens so regularly.
@@geordiejones5618 baseball players are horrible at getting away with it though
I think that kind of makes sports better… it shows that winning goes beyond just playing hard but also playing smart
@@mattgreek1066 football, spygate, deflategate, teams piping in crowd noise, Spidertac shall I keep going
I don't know why, but this was one of my all-time favorite Secret Base videos.
Damn I'm glad I found this channel..
Thank you for breaking down some of my very favorite times, moments and eras in sports history!
Love this
I love the weird rules. Best series you guys make.
Besides the fact corked bats can break easily, basic physics say that you're trading power for contact. A corked bat is lighter, so when it makes contact, less force is being imparted on the ball.
And Grimsley was juicing.
Two great facts. Baseball, like pro wrestling, was better when guys were roided out of their minds.
I mean, if a heavier bat is better, you could just use a heavier wood and be within the rules still (I'm sure there is a suitable wood heavier than maple and ash, the common woods) or if a lighter bat is better, you could just use a lightweight wood, because I'm sure they have more than enough money to be fine with a bat breaking at every at bat, especially when it's made of a cheap lightweight wood
And if you're corking a bat, and the whole purpose is to make the bat lighter, why fill the hole you made with cork, I doubt the cork is adding much strength to it, and if you just drill a hole in the end of the bat it's still within the rules
Baseball rules make no sense
You're not quite correct on the "it's lighter, so it's less force" argument. Kinetic energy is (0.5)x(mass)x(velocity SQUARED). Reducing the mass of the bat is easily cancelled out by the increased bat speed. On mythbusters, the reason they gave for saying that corked bats don't work wasn't that they were lighter. The problem was that opening the bat hurt the structural integrity of the bat itself, so it held contact with the ball for longer, which means lower impulse, which in turn results in smaller force for the same bat speed and mass (in order words, for two bats with the same mass that you can swing at the same speed, the one that holds contact for longer will impart less force).
@@B3Band another thing to consider, when guys cork bats, they weren’t going too deep into the bat. Sure it will hurt the structure, but if I remember correctly, mythbusters essentially went a lot further than most of the guys have with their ‘good’ corked bats.
an idea for corking a bat: maybe they replaced some of the insides with steel, and then covered the opening with cork
Weird Rules is my absolute favorite video series on this channel
Glad to see Ryan in a video again!
Seth + Ryan = instant gold
Happy to see Ryan Simmons hosting Weird Rules again
I always watch every video about this story. I love it.
Might be one of my favourite Secret Base videos
It was 1994 so the hilarious fact was that this whole thing ended up being pointless because there were no playoffs because of the players strike
One of my favorite series you guys do. Keep this up guys. Awesome work!!
Good to see the important scientific contributions of the Mythbusters being recognised
Almost as good as the stick measure incident from the 1993 Stanley Cup finals. When Montreal was accused of sneaking into LA's locker room to look at sticks before the game.
i missed these so much
What you didn’t mention is that corked bats are a safety hazard. Since they have less structural integrity, they’re more likely to fracture and splinter, sending shards of wood towards players, fans, coaches, etc. Some well known instances of umpires finding out about corked bats come from bats literally exploding everywhere which is a dead giveaway.
I have been scrolling through comments hoping SOMEBODY understood why the rule is needed, even if it didn’t help hitting.
Thank god Ryan's back, this is his series
That drawing you did of Albert Belle. Did Albert ever smile? lol I always remember him having a "Im going to kill you" scowl on his face at all times lol
I totally picture a bunch of umpires standing around grimsley, "jason jason jason, we are NOT mad, just disappointed."
Yaaaaay! Ryan's back!
Weird Rules was probably the series that introduced me to Secret Base, under the old name. I'd love to see a video on the first instances of the Phoenix Suns pointing out that dunk rule that got them that recent win.
5:52 Except Comiskey Park II was barely 3 years old at the time?
My dad is a diehard Indians fan and lived in Cleveland during the 90s “boom” of great baseball teams and he said Albert Bell was a terrible person but a great player but he cheated and so, he told me this story. I still find it amazing how they got away with it all in the end.
It's like church. The mfb doesn't want folk to know how crooked they are ... so suppress loads of immoral behavior...
Ryan Simmons is my favorite dude on this channel.
Fun video! Thanks for uploading!
Do videos more often. I really like your videos and want more of them to watch.
Jason Grimsley honored their requests for silence and MLB washed their hands clean of this.
Uggh I hate that I got that joke.
Great episode guys!
loved the domino analogy good vid
This was the beginning of Cleveland's rise in the mid-90s, where they had some absolutely dominant teams, particularly 1995 (100-44), 1996 (99-62), and 1999 (only team in the last 70 years to score 1000 runs). So this was a pretty big scandal in 1994, since not only was Cleveland a team on the rise, but Albert Belle was a legit MLB superstar.
Omar Vizquel wrote about this in his 2002 biography.
Your guys best series btw.
I was expecting the rule to tip some desperate baseball player over the edge and convince him he should rob a bank.
We need Ryan in more videos!
Ryan, Will, and Seth is the Holy Trinity of Secret Base - even though I prefer SB Nation name
The two hosts are at such different volume levels sheesh
I believe that part of bat regulation is to address the way bats fracture and resulting potential for injury of players, umps, and fans. In 2008, there was a significant rise in the number of bat breaks (more maple bats, less ash) and by 2009 Dave Kretschmann, a research engineer for the U.S. Forest service authored a report with manufacturing recommendations to improve safety.
I love these
That finished domino drawing would look great on merch
MORE BASEBALL COLLAPSE VIDEOS PLEASE
A quote often attributed to Richard Petty seems appropriate here. "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'."
Great video
MORE FOOTBALL COLLAPSE VIDEOS PLEASE
Well done
That lighter part sent me into a full on PTSD moment from my mother doing the same thing 🤣
I'd imagine a fraction of a second when you only have a fraction of a second to begin with is significant
this video was so good hahaha can’t believe it actually happened
Glad to see more of these.
How about doing one on the sticky stuff. An average spin rate increase of 200 RPM ( higher than the league difference when the ban was enforced) means that in the .4 seconds it takes the ball to travel from hand to mitt the ball spins less than 2 more times versus no sticky stuff. Didn’t even need mythbusters for that…and while spin rate is affected control and grip is the bigger issue.
I'm adding "Because that's baseball" to my lexicon. What a phrase
This is the best thing to ever happen to baseball
All this drama and controversy has always been apart of baseball. Part of the reason why I love it.
You guys should do a Rewinder on the crazy finish of the 7 overtime game between LSU and Texas A&M
Untitled Vince Carter next! I'm happy with new Collision video also, but we NEED a new Untitled episode!
Could u guys do a rewind of the jose bautista batflip homerun?
Ryan is back! 😳
I don't think I'd be allowed to post it, but on Reddit a couple years ago, a guy posted a screenplay he'd written about this incident, called "The Last Good Cheat." I'm still waiting for that movie to be made.
That Relief pithcher .... rofl ... +100 points for idea and effort, - 200 points for execution :D
Is there a broadcast of the game somewhere on CZcams? Haven’t seen one come out yet.
They mention the shenanigan's of using a balsa bat, but I wonder if you go the other way, Australian Buloke, Schinopsis brasiliensis, etc. woods with nearly double the hardness of Ash