Happy new year! To start off my 2008 recapping (I know, I’m later than the MSM as they do this type of stuff in Dec but I don’t care), ESPN has a great Strange Year in Review article about all of the flat out wacky shite that happened in the 2008 season. My favorite is from the Suspended Animation Department:

Thanks to the miracle of the literal-minded suspended-game rule, this Orioles-White Sox game was played in two installments, four months apart, and produced all sorts of semi-impossible developments for us Strange But True devotees: Orioles rookie Luis Montanez got credit for the first hit of his career on April 28 — even though he didn’t make it to the big leagues until Aug. 5. And the box score says he got that hit in Chicago, even though he’s never played there. Orioles pitcher Alberto Castillo won his first big-league game on April 28, even though he didn’t arrive in the majors until July 8. Baltimore reliever Rocky Cherry collected his first save 3½ months before he became an Oriole. And when Junior Griffey walked for the White Sox, it technically enabled him to reach base for two teams in the same day. (He also singled for the Reds on April 28. And look at the mess that dumped in the hands of our ESPN.com day-by-day compilers, who had to convince our computers he got traded to the White Sox for the afternoon.) Sheez, is there a more fun rule in the whole rule book than that suspended-game fine print?

You can’t even invent that kind of stuff. Love it!