Abolish "The Cycle"

I can’t believe they implicated Mom in the idiotic media charade that is “The Cycle”.

This Sunday, Mother’s Day, Fred Lewis, rookie centerfielder of the San Francisco Giants, playing in only his 16th big league game as a daytime sub for Randy Winn, hit an imaginary and unimportant smorgasbord of hits known as “The Cycle.” Immediately, the journalists who have suffered through the Giants’ 15-2 dismantling of the Rockies are reporting: It’s a Mother’s Day Miracle. “I called to tell her I didn’t get her anything,” Lewis was quoted as saying, “until now.”

In defense of Fred Lewis’ Mom and the good of baseball, it should be pointed out that the unusual combination of single-double-triple-home run is nothing but an artificial statistical oddity, and the fact that Lewis attained it does not make his Mom love him any more, and should not be a substitute for buying her flowers or at least a nice card. Game winning hits and clutch performances should be celebrated above all. If you want to celebrate a statistical oddity, wouldn’t four homers be a hitter’s perfect game? Or two grand slams? If you were going for the individual statistical gusto in a blowout game, and you had a homer, triple and double, why on earth would you want a single instead of another home run?

Yet that was exactly the unexpected situation which the rookie Lewis found himself in. “There were fans behind the on deck circle who were yelling that I needed a single” Lewis reported. He obliged with a quick little singles swing and a ball lined into right against the beleaguered Colorado bullpen, as “history” was made. There should be much less significance to this “full house” of all the hits, the media really needs to let up. Or if they must persist with “The Cycle”, at least have the decency to leave Mom out of your circus.