Sammy Sosa is just another naked emperor. We like to believe we know our famous athletes. We have no idea.

We're familiar with the caricature. We're comfortable with the Madison Avenue makeup. There goes Sammy, runnin' out to his position carrying the flag, the first game back following 9-11. There he was, hugging Mark McGwire after Big Mac hit No. 62. What a guy.

We forget that Sammy was accused of spousal abuse while he played for the Chicago White Sox. We forget that, only a few months ago, after Sammy had declared he'd be happy to be tested for steroids, he angrily refused a specimen bottle provided him by a Sports Illustrated columnist.

At the Super Bowl a few years ago, the NFL decided that Atlanta Falcons safety Eugene Robinson was a guy of such high character and solid conscience, he was worthy of a Man of the Year honor. Days later, the night before the game, Robinson was charged with soliciting a prostitute.

Role models? Get real

The amazing thing wasn't that Sosa had cork in a bat. The amazing thing was our reaction to it. How many times must athletes show us they're no better or worse than the rest of us before we believe them?

These are tremendously gifted individuals who happen to have jobs that provide them an inordinate amount of fame and money. That we'll pay to watch Sosa hit home runs and not pay to watch a professor teach physics doesn't make Sosa a better person. It just makes him fortunate.

And yet we're continually shocked, saddened, stunned, etc., when yet another jock behaves like a human being. Most athletes aren't role models. Most athletes need role models.

I doubt many of Sosa's home runs flew from a corked bat. Corked arms, maybe. But McGwire corked his arms with andro, and nobody thought any less of him. Had Sosa never broken a bat before Tuesday? How come none of those broken bats was found to contain cork? The guess is that Sosa, stuck in a slump in the midst of a lousy spring, was desperate. So he tried the cork, the same way an Olympian will juice to shave a tenth of a second off his time in the 100 meters.

Fans don't seem to mind that Sammy cheated. Fans in Chicago cheered Sosa loudly Wednesday. Fans will stand for just about anything, as long as they feel they're being entertained.

(Maybe it's the sports media, long accused of being negative and cynical, that really is the "positive" faction here. We tend to god up these people more than the average fan, and so are more distressed when they let us down.)

Baseball says it minds. It probably does, at least for appearance' sake. But baseball has always winked at this sort of cheating. There's Gaylord Perry, going to the bill of his cap again. Whatcha got up there, chief? Slippery elm? Yeah, ol' Gaylord, what a rascal.

He's in the Hall of Fame. So's Ty Cobb, who sharpened his spikes, and Mickey Mantle, who saw lots of sunrises.

Does it matter Sosa drilled a hole in his bat(s) and shoved something other than sawdust down there? Does it matter about Perry or Mantle or Cobb? Will it matter about Pete Rose, when and if he finally goes to the Hall of Fame?

Ultimately, no. We lower the behavior bar all the time for jocks. They never disappoint us. Even when they do.

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com