Melky Cabrera's PED suspension may have led to him being ruled ineligible to win the National League batting title, but it hasn't jeopardized his shot at winning something called the "Heart and Hustle Award."
No, really! As pointed out by our old friend @oldhossradbourn, the San Francisco Giants outfielder is one of the 30 players up for this year's award. It will be presented by the MLB Players Alumni Association on Nov. 13 and will go to "a player who demonstrates a passion for the game of baseball and best embodies the values, spirit and traditions of the game."
Or, if the impossible somehow happens, to a player who lied to a reporter about using PEDs, was suspended two weeks later from a team that would end up winning the World Series without him and was later revealed to be part of a plan to create a fake website to explain his positive test. Yeah, that'd be just a tad awkward.
So how did such a thing happen? Well, the representatives from each team were announced on July 12, well before Cabrera's suspension became public on Aug. 15. He even received the team award from Orlando Cepeda in an Aug. 1 ceremony at AT&T Park.
You can actually still cast a vote for Cabrera to win the Heart and Hustle Award, though fan input only counts for 5 percent toward the final decision. But even with a safeguard against Internet mischief, the Giants haven't publicized Cabrera's candidacy like the rest of the league's official Twitter feeds are doing with their own candidates.
Can you really blame them?
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