CORK FLOATS, DRUGS DON'T SOSA'S GAFFE BAD, BUT STEROID USE MORE WORTHY OF BASEBALL'S IRE.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

If baseball cracks down hard on Sammy Sosa but continues to wink at its more insidious cheaters, the sport is dumber than the guy in that old joke.

Late one night, a man is searching the sidewalk under a street lamp.

A neighbor wanders by.

``Help you find something?'' the neighbor says.

``My keys,'' the man says, and he points across the street. ``I dropped them over there.''

``If you dropped them over there, why are we looking over here?'' the neighbor says.

``Because,'' the man says, ``the light's better over here.''

In the two days since cork was spotted in the exposed core of Sosa's broken bat, baseball authorities and pundits have jumped on the Chicago Cubs star.

They've subjected 76 of Sosa's bats to X-rays, rolled out an investigation that will lead to a long suspension and declared a career of home run heroics to be tainted.

The baseball establishment has done more this week to vilify Sosa for illegally lightening his bat than it has done in a decade to detect and deal with players illicitly seeking advantage by abusing steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

Why?

Because the light's better over here.

The evidence of Sosa's misdeed is lying there on the Wrigley Field grass, plain to see.

But the proof of the long-suspected, widespread use of muscle-building drugs is hidden in the corners of lockers and training rooms, obscured by the high priority the players' union places on privacy, protected by the sport's fear of rampant scandal.

So Sosa becomes the target of outrage, of headlines, of jokes.

(I went to bed early, so you'll have to fill me in. Did Letterman play ``Will It Float?'' with a Sosa bat last night?)

Meanwhile, baseball looks the other way, administering the wimpiest drugs policy in major-league sports even though ex-players such as Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco and Tony Gwynn suggest there's abuse of performance-enhancing drugs of one sort or another by half - or more - of their former rivals.

Don't misunderstand: I think Sosa is guilty. I think it's a big deal.

So what if Wednesday's X-rays turned up no cork in other Sosa bats, lending credence to his story he mistakenly went to the plate in Tuesday's game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays with a bat intended only to satisfy fans' lust for long home runs in practice and exhibition games?

An athlete who goes in for even as benign a deceit as corking up his batting-practice homers is demonstrating an instinct for fakery that should worry the guardians of his sport's integrity.

So, punish Sosa, giving him an unpaid suspension in the 10-game range, which is what bat corkers of earlier vintages got.

But then - this would show me something - take the same umbrage you applied to Sosa's cheating and aim it at the drugs issue.

Is corking a bat a bigger crime against sportsmanship than juicing a biceps? Is it as big a health threat? Is it as common?

No, no and no.

Yet while bat-corking is expressly prohibited by baseball rule 6.06 (d), steroid use is addressed but gently in the players-owners agreement that saved last season.

The new steroids policy calls for major-league players to be tested this year. Only if more than 5 percent test positive will there will be further tests next year, and only then would players failing the tests be subject to penalties. In essence, baseball says that if 60 of the 1,200 players on 40-man rosters are pumping themselves full of chemicals, that's OK.

That's not OK.

In substantial percentages, fans responding to online polls Wednesday indicated they're turned off by the suspicion Sosa, one of baseball's great hitters, has gained an edge by doctoring his bat.

An identical attitude pertains to the suspicion that home run record-setters Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire - and Sosa himself - have gained an edge by taking medical risks that most opponents will not.

Cork, chemicals, the effects on fair play are nearly the same.

Baseball should look at both in the same harsh light.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

(color) Sammy Sosa breaks a corked bat he later said he had used for home run displays for fans.

Charles Cherney/Associated Press