Advantage Sosa? It’s a Distant Possibility

According to Robert K. Adair’s calculations, the Sammy Sosa bat corking incident is a lot of pop and fizz about nothing.

The former professor of physics at Yale told columnist Dave Kindred of the Sporting News that while cork might provide a psychological advantage, it does nothing to increase the distance of a batted ball.

Adair, author of “The Physics of Baseball,” said the laws of physics determine that a 450-foot drive with a regulation bat would travel about 447 feet if hit with a corked bat.

“If it’s hit solidly,” he said, “a ball is on the bat about one-2,000th of a second. Anything inside the bat would have no chance to react that quickly.... Corking a bat takes mass out of the barrel, and that can’t do anything but weaken the bat.”

So while critics wonder how many of Sosa’s 505 home runs are legitimate, a better question might be: How many more would he have save the cork?

Trivia time: Who is the only golfer to finish under par in three consecutive U.S. Opens?

Changed man: Torii Hunter figures he can’t stop the baseball cowards in Oakland from pelting him with coins during games, so he might as well profit from their stupidity.

“During last year’s [American League divisional series], I ran off the field one time with 55 cents,” the Minnesota Twin center fielder told ESPN the Magazine. “They hate it when you pick up the money, so I always do. I declare the $1.50 a season on my income tax.”

Music man: New York Yankee outfielder Bernie Williams has a new contract -- as a composer and guitarist.

MPL Communications, a music company owned by former Beatle Paul McCartney, signed Williams this week.

Williams’ first recording, “The Journey Within,” will be released in July. Said McCartney: “It’s a home run.” How original.

Screen play: Julia Roberts stars in “Ocean’s 11,” but that’s not why Vitali Klitschko has been watching the movie so often leading to his heavyweight title bout with Lennox Lewis.

What interests Klitschko is a short fight scene between Lewis, who made a cameo appearance in the flick, and Klitschko’s brother, Vladimir.

“They repeated the same scene of the fight 20 times,” Klitschko told Reuters. “ ... all the movements and stuff, I was watching from the side.

“It was a movie, but always the same stuff.”

But alas, movies aren’t real, Vitali. And neither are your chances against Lewis.

Far right, wide left: Along with several A-list athletes, comedian Dennis Miller, ultra-conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and former vice president Dan Quayle are expected to participate in a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe this summer, as is former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.

So the gallery won’t be safe on either side of the fairway.

Trivia answer: Curtis Strange.

And finally: Comedian David Letterman also thinks Sosa’s corked bat has been blown out of proportion: “A corked bat is a hollowed-out bat filled with cork, Styrofoam and ground-up rubber balls. It’s the same stuff they put in the hot dogs in Chicago.”