PROVIDENCE, R.I. ? There’s no crying in baseball. Or so we’ve been told.

There’s no integrity, either. We don’t have to be told that. It’s as obvious as the cork in Sammy Sosa’s bat.

The same Sammy Sosa who refused to be tested for steroids, while denying vehemently he’d ever used them.

The same Sammy Sosa who has hit more than 500 homers — how many of them, one now has to wonder, with an illegal bat? — and shared the national spotlight with Mark McGwire in 1998, when they battled to break Roger Maris’ single-season, home-run record of 61.

That’s the same Mark McGwire who was pumped and jacked on androstenedione, an anabolic steroid banned in Olympic competition, as well as by the NFL and the NBA, although perfectly legal at the time in major league baseball, where going to any lengths to gain an edge is part of the (cheap) fabric of the game.

Consider this quote from Bret Boone, the son of a former major-leaguer and an All-Star second baseman for the Seattle Mariners: “Pitchers cheat all the time. They scuff balls, use pine tar. I’ve never used a corked bat, not even in batting practice. If I was guaranteed I wouldn’t get caught, I probably would.”

Cheating, it would appear, is a major part of our National Pastime. Come to think of it, cheating may have become our National Pastime.

Now smilin’ Sammy Sosa has been caught using a corked bat.

The dog ate my homework. The check’s in the mail. I only use a corked bat in batting practice.

Yeah, right.

Sosa is hardly the first hitter to be caught trying to circumvent the rules. Wilton Guerrero, Chris Sabo, the talented but singularly unlikeable Albert Belle, Billy Hatcher and Jose Guillen all have been caught using corked bats. And who knows how many other offenders have gone undetected?

Pitchers try to doctor the ball. Hitters doctor their bats. It’s enough to make you sick.

Particularly when you contrast the ethics of baseball — come to think of it, can that word be applied to baseball? — with the ethics of golf.

There is crying in golf, Lenny Mattiace at the Masters and Annika Sorenstam at the Colonial being two recent examples. But there is no cheating.

Which would you rather have?

Have you ever heard of a professional golfer being caught using an illegal ball and then claiming he only uses it on the practice range to impress the fans who want to see long drives?

While baseball embraces cheating, golf abhors it. In a sport where players routinely call penalties on themselves, the merest hint of dishonesty can ruin a player’s reputation. Although baseball players think nothing of cheating, the idea of cheating in golf is all but unthinkable.

But many people likely are shocked to learn that the affable Sosa, a fan favorite, would stoop to such lowly levels.

Perhaps the sinking levels of his batting average and homer totals since coming off the disabled list had something to do with it.

It was, Sosa insists, an honest mistake. Unwittingly, he says, he grabbed a bat he uses in batting practice. Although his reason for using a corked bat, even in BP, seems both dubious and spurious.

“It’s something to keep my fans happy, who come to see batting practice,” he said.

Well, his fans can’t be happy now, for crying out loud. Oh, that’s right — there’s no crying in baseball. But there is cheating.