will we ever win?

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story

We all played "whisper down the lane" in grade school, and learned the lesson that stories can be altered drastically in a short period of time. Even if they aren't passed from person to person, our stories can become scrambled by way of revisionist history, intentional or not.

Now, if you base all your life decisions on a literal reading of the Bible, or are about to start a war based on a disputed line on a map, changing stories and fuzzy memories can be problematic. Not so with sports stories, which often benefit from the fuzziness.

Case in point: I saw this post and found the story of a Carlton Fisk-hating Thurman Munson deliberately dropping third strikes so as to pass his rival for the league lead in a pointless statistic very amusing. The problem? It's probably not true, as pointed out by Rob Neyer in this excerpt from his book on baseball legends.

Munson was unavailable for comment.