Twenty years ago tonight, Sammy Sosa came up to bat in the first inning against the Devil Rays at Wrigley Field, broke his bat on an RBI ground out to second base and then, all hell broke loose. Home plate umpire Tim McClelland ended up with the handle of the bat, which showed an unmistakable dark spot that was deemed to be cork. He conferred with his crew and Cubs manager Dusty Baker and, after a long delay, Sosa was ejected and the run was wiped off the board, though the Cubs would go on to win 3-2.
After the game, Sosa confirmed the bat was corked and tried to explain he used it for batting practice and for home run exhibitions to entertain his fans and that it had inadvertently been mixed in with his game bats. “I just picked the wrong bat,” Sosa said at the time. “I apologize to my team, to my fans… I apologize to the commissioner of baseball.”
Sosa was suspended for seven games and, it could be argued, this was the beginning of the end of his tenure with the Cubs, culminating in the blow up on the final day of the 2004 regular season that has kept him out of the Cubs good graces to this day.
Last 
After a disappointing (to put it mildly) April, the White Sox looked to shake things up in May, making eleven roster moves prior to yesterday’s game. To put this into perspective, reassigning eleven players at one time during spring training would be highly irregular. Making eleven roster moves on one day during the regular season is unheard of. Twenty percent of the active roster changed! In one day!
The Oakland A’s, formerly of Philadelphia and Kansas City, announced yesterday that they may be on the move again soon. After a 20-year saga to find a new, publicly financed stadium in the Bay Area, the team has signed a binding agreement to purchase 49 acres in Las Vegas with the hopes of having a new stadium ready to start the 2027 season. In a statement, commissioner Rob Manfred said: “We support the A’s turning their focus on Las Vegas and look forward to them bringing finality to this process by the end of the year.”
The area surrounding the home plate from old Comiskey Park in parking lot B has been surrounded by artificial turf and blocked off from the rest of the parking lot. In addition, strips of trees and vegetation has been planted across the divider between the lot and Gate 5. While the reduced room in the lot makes it harder for me to park there, this is an overall net positive.
Inside the park, Miller Lite continues its takeover of right field. After replacing Goose Island and rechristening the area behind the right field as Lite Landing 
The upper deck gets two new clubs, the High Life Sky Lounge down the left field line and the Blue Moon Balcony along the right field line. Both give upper deck patrons a place to stand and watch the game while imbibing in their beverage of choice.
Just a week into the 2023 season, the White Sox have pulled the plug on the Jose Ruiz experiment, designating the right-hander for assignment prior to today’s game. Ruiz, who pitched well for Venezuela this spring in the World Baseball Classic, has had a bad start to the year, giving up nine earned runs in less than four innings pitched, leading to an ERA of 22.09.
Leury Garcia, the longest tenured member of the White Sox, was released today after being beaten out for the opening day roster. Garcia, who has spent portions of ten seasons on the south side, had a disappointing, injury filled 2022 and seemed to still be limited, both offensively and defensively, by the lingering impacts of those injuries this spring.
