Melky Cabrera asked to be disqualified from winning the NL Batting Crown:
In an unprecedented agreement between Major League Baseball and union officials, suspended Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera will be ruled ineligible to win the 2012 NL batting title, sources told CSNBayArea.com.
Cabrera asked to be removed from consideration on Wednesday, when his representatives sent a letter to union officials. The Players’ Association worked out a one-time amendment to Rule 10.22(a) with MLB officials on Thursday, one day after Commissioner Bud Selig said publicly that he was not likely to take action on the matter.
Cabrera, who is hitting .346, will finish one plate appearance short of qualifying for the batting title. Rule 10.22(a) permits a player to be recognized as the official winner if extra hitless at-bats are added to his average and it remains higher than any qualifying player. (Cabrera’s average would fall from .3464 to .3456 – still .346 when rounded up.)
Wow. Melky seems to be truly sorry for his cheating. I suspect he wants to win back his teammates, and sees this as a way to accomplish that. Of course, everyone who writes code to account for the plate appearance exception now has to go in and add a exception about Melky in 2012!
Good for Melky.
I’m still surprised there isn’t an automatic disqualification of your records for the year if you cheat.
I understand being disqualified from the Triple Crown, because that’s an actual prize that MLB gives to a person. But as far as I can tell, there is no such thing as “disqualification of your records”. Either you had the most home runs in a season/longest hitting streak/highest batting average of 2012… or you didn’t. Those are just facts. What does it mean to “qualify” them?