An Open Letter To The Commissioner’s Office
Dear Mr. Rectenwald,
We are writing you today to correct a great injustice.
For many years our beloved and now belated grandfather, Sol Hernandez suffered in his usual good nature as friends and foes alike made fun of him, calling him “Mr. Hits,” and “Five-Per” everywhere he went. But he was a true gentleman and a fine human being. While he was alive he always said to leave things be, and that to bring attention to such affronts caused more problems than it solved. “Better to stay quiet than speak up and make it look like it hurts,” he often said.
With his recent passing, however, we, his grandchildren, feel compelled to set the record straight. We hope you’ll be able to help us.
I know you are aware of our grandfather’s career—a span that contained 12 seasons and a half-dozen teams. Granpa Sol won 106 games in his big-league career, including 17 with Montreal in that glorious—and now infamous—1983 season. You know where we are going with this, now, right? He posted a 3.81 ERA, weaving his crafty repertoire well enough that he struck out only 5 guys an inning, but gave up only seven homers in 215 innings and 37 starts. It was an amazing season, and a pinnacle point in his life as a ball player.
And yet life is both ironic and cruel. It is that season of 1983 for which he’s best known, but for a different reason completely.
The record books are wrong, of course. Everybody knows this.
Sol Hernandez is listed as allowing 1,193 hits in 1983--over five per each inning he tossed. Read that number again, Mr. Commissioner: 1,193 hits. This puts him at the top of the leader board for this inglorious stat by a margin that’s three times the total of the number two men (a tie between Andy Messersmith and Ryan Dunne at a paltry 314). Clearly this is a typo, for if it is not a typo it would have to be the work of someone like the Genius or some other long-passed GM with a grudge, and that would be unbearable of mind for us to consider. Why, after all, would any member of the institution of the highest baseball league in the world want to purposefully embarrass our humble and beloved grandpa Sol? Clearly this should be “193” rather than 1,193.
Yes. Clearly.
Everyone knows it, but only you can do something about it Mr. Commissioner. Only you can fix this egregious injustice that’s been done to this honorable and kind-hearted man. So for this reason we implore you to wave your mighty magic pen, and command that this smear—this outrageous smudge on the life record of a fine man—be erased and set right so that he can rest in blessed peace knowing that his reputation is now clear.
Yours in anticipation,
Channi, Oliva, Javy, and Ketel Hernandez
Sol Hernandez, RIP
- RonCo
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- recte44
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Re: Sol Hernandez, RIP
Nice catch. I'm sure there's more of these too, so I'm going to create a Ping:Commish thread for stat corrections.
Matt Rectenwald
BBA Commissioner, GM, Las Vegas Hustlers
Milwaukee Choppers (AAA) | Reno Aces (AA) | Pahrump Ranchers (A) | Kingston Legends (SA) | Roswell Aliens (R)
BBA Commissioner, GM, Las Vegas Hustlers
Milwaukee Choppers (AAA) | Reno Aces (AA) | Pahrump Ranchers (A) | Kingston Legends (SA) | Roswell Aliens (R)
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