Melky Cabrera is off the Giants. He will not be on the playoff roster. He will probably not be back with San Francisco next year. And his wonderful break through season will forever be tainted by his P.E.D. suspension and that whole weird website thing.
That's not what I am lamenting.
I like strange things in baseball. And the minute Melky Cabrera did what Bud Selig did not have the guts to do and remove himself from the batting race, the game was made better by that moment of accountability.
But history was denied a strange coincidence.
Here are the current batting standings, which include Cabrera:
It's a double take.
But the American League and the National League have M. Cabrera as the batting leader. Miguel in the American League and Melky in the National League.
Seriously, I demand to know the odds of that.
That does not happen where the batting leader of both leagues have the same last name and the same first initial. And for two guys who are not brothers!
There was no William Boggs winning batting titles in the 1980s for the National League.
Nobody named Tiberius Williams won no titles in the National League.
I do not recall anyone named Randolph Carew or Thaddeus Gwynn or Horatio Wagner or Simon Musial winning a batting crown.
This would have been a first.
And would it be worth having a caught PED user win the batting title to have this kind of coincidence in the history books?
I'm not so certain that I know the answer to that.
Sure punishing those who do wrong and teaching our kids a lesson is great.
But so are oddities like this.
