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.