Running Log 2012

Monday, August 9, 2010

urban legends

It's funny how some stories get told wrong from the beginning and then remain ingrained as history no matter what the facts.

Take the case of George Brett 1980 and 1981 for instance. In widely circulated media accounts, it was reported that Brett was suffering from hemorrhoids and actually had surgery prior to the 81 season. Even though this was proven wrong by reliable sources, the historical account was never corrected. What actually took place was that Brett had come to really despise a certain umpire by the name of Tim McClelland. After several questionable calls through the 1980 season and post season, Brett took to routinely referring to McClelland as "the hemorrhoid". After the 1981 season took off, the media finally stopped talking about Brett's "hemorrhoid" and even Brett seemed to forget his dislike for McClelland.

But McClelland never forgot. In 1983, McClelland saw his chance and extracted his revenge by denying Brett a game winning home run against the Yankees for using an illegal bat. While McClelland's ruling was finally overturned on appeal, history in most people's minds records Brett as a bat altering cheater and a hemorrhoid sufferer.

Which leads to the moral of the story. The umpire is always right. Accept his ruling and stop complaining. Otherwise you might end up with the whole world thinking you're a hemorrhoid sufferer when really you just wanted people to know that a particular somebody is a real pain in the ass.


Running: I think tomorrow will be a rest day. I need to catch up on my sleep and just sort of ease into the day.

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