What’s the buzz from the world of sports? Here are some items that will have people talking:
1
One of the disappointing byproducts of baseball’s steroids era is an absurd temptation to rewrite history. Take, in point, Melky Cabrera’s abdication of his chance to win the NL batting title. Cabrera is serving a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy, and now he thinks he’s Edward VIII.
At his own request, and with approval from the players’ union, Cabrera has withdrawn from consideration for the title, although his .346 average still leads the league.
Apparently, some people don’t understand how math works.
If Cabrera ends up leading the league in hitting, then he leads the league in hitting.
There’s no way around that.
There are those who will support Cabrera’s move, and they’re the same people who think the records of Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire should be erased from the record books. But guess what?
Bonds and McGwire hit a lot of homers; Cabrera got a lot of hits.
Pretending those things never happened doesn’t make it so.
2
Here’s one of our favorite factoids from the 2012 baseball season: The District of Columbia is going to host postseason baseball for the first time since 1933.
That is 79 years for those of you scoring at home, bringing us back to a time when FDR was just beginning his presidency and gas cost 10 cents a gallon.
The 1933 Washington Senators (who in 1961 became the Minnesota Twins) lost the World Series in five games to the New York Giants (who in 1958 became the San Francisco Giants). Now, the Nationals have clinched a postseason berth, the first for the franchise since 1981 (when they were the Montreal Expos). And that reduces to four the number of major-league teams with a postseason drought longer than that of the Mariners.
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