I think that if anything has happened in the last 24 hours that we can take solace in, it’s the way the media has kept this whole Sammy Sosa cork incident in perspective. CNN spent the day explaining why it was a big deal. ESPN aired a two-hour special in which they talked about how upset “they” were and then they paid a collector to cut the bat Sammy hit his 498th homer with in half. Sports radio reacted in the normal, calm, thoughtful manner, which included Terry Boers and Dan Bernstein calling anybody who disagreed with them “morons” (which, for the most part they were, but still…). Mike North and Doug Buffone didn’t know who Sandy Alderson was, and in the mother of all creepy exhibitions, Rick Reilly appeared via satellite from Colorado on that ESPN special and if you think Sosa and Bonds have achieved cranial growth, you should check out Reilly.

His head looks like it’s on crooked, and he’s developed a weird sort of Boris Yeltsin “my neck can’t hold up my head” nod. It’s strange. Oh, and Rob Dibble got to weigh in, too.

It just points out that there’s no issue that the media can’t beat into the ground. This story they did it in record time.

As for us, we’ll just continue running photos of famous Corkys.

Some of you intrepid readers don’t understand why I’m not more fired up about this story. So allow me to explain.

1) Corking the bat doesn’t help. I’m no Yale physicist, but even I can tell you that taking a wood bat drilling a hole in it and filling it with something won’t really change the way the ball bounces off the bat. So, to me, it doesn’t matter if Sammy hit zero, one, 25 or all 505 homers with cork in his bat. I just don’t care. It didn’t make any difference. I guarantee you this, if that rule hadn’t been dreamed up eons ago, it wouldn’t exist now. There’s just no reason for it.

2) I’m tired of it already. The media hacked it to bits in record time. People wonder why our society is so quick to forgive. Here’s why. Last night Sammy was guilty as sin. He apologized. Yesterday, he had to apologize again…and again…and again. He’ll have to tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday and next week and next month. The media won’t know when to let up. As fans, we’ll be so tired of the whole exercise that we’ll feel sorry for Sammy.

The funny thing is, that way the media descends on a story and rips it to shreds actually shortens the news cycle. They saturate every event with such intense coverage that after a few days there’s nothing left. They do it in everything. News, weather and sports.

You want an example? How about the shuttle crash? For three days it was all they could talk about. They couldn’t even show their normal programming because they had to beat this thing to death. The first day it was news. You know what the next most important time was? Right now! The actual investigation. But unless you want to turn to page 14 in your newspaper, you won’t read anything about that.

Basically, the media has made it easy to deal with situations like this if you’re Sammy Sosa. You screw up. You apologize. You weather three days of intense media coverage and the attention wanes. Then, in a week or two, some other sports figure will screw up and the media is off to chase them around.

John Kass pretty much feels the same way. Which makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Phil Rogers wants Sammy’s head X-rayed. I don’t think you want to see what’s in there.

Mike Downey goes museum hunting.

Gee what a shock, Cubs fans cheered Sammy.

More news that corking doesn’t work.

The rest of the Cubs are still sick of it.

Meanwhile, the “other” Zambrano shut down the Cubs. By the way, they’re not alone in first place anymore. Not that anybody noticed.

A former Cubs trainer says that lots of people “cork.” Surprise! Gee, you don’t think a lot of players took home a few bats last night, do you? Hmm?

The Sox lost again. Nobody noticed. Again.

When Hawk Harrelson makes the most sense on a subject (and he does, here) the subject needs to be closed.

Groucho says that teams are after the Bulls’ point guards.

Don Pierson says that Brian Urlacher deserves to be rich.

Amazingly, Mariotti puts down the doughnut to pretend he’s a long time Sosa defender who feels betrayed.

Greg Couch talks about famous baseball cheating, including my dad’s favorite story about the catcher who decoyed a runner by throwing a peeled potato into the outfield.

Tyson Chandler is going to get his esophagus fixed.

Mike Brown is going to be next on the Bears’ gravy train.

The Wizard of Roz tries to calm his “I told you so” urge.

Good news for the Irish. Julius Jones is coming back.

Carlyle Holiday got drafted by the Reds. He’s only played ten games of high school baseball. Huh?

Mark Grace was never Sammy’s best friend, and his joke was cheap. But it was still funny.

Sports Guy picks the Nets.

Jayson Stark wants more DH’ing in interleague games.

Spanish-yes.com’s Kostya Kennedy is a long-time corker.

John Donovan on Dmitri Young’s BROTHER.

Ted Casablanca’s gossip fest includes news on Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. Yikes.

Barry Manilow broke his biggest asset.

The fat little Dixie Chick needs some lessons on how to make controversy go away.

The Boston Herald with some semi-interesting stuff from Hillary Clinton’s book.

America’s finest news source with news of an interesting locale for Gee Dub’s announcement of a veteran’s benefits cut.