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Helton Challenges Storied .379 mark
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DENVER, CO - Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies and Nomar Garciaparra of the Boston Red Sox enter the final week of the MLB season flirting with one of baseball's most coveted milestones, batting .379 in a season. The treasured .379 mark has not been bettered in the Major Leagues since Tony Gwynn hit .394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season.
Both Helton and Garciaparra has been tearing apart league pitching all season, even getting their averages near the fairly random number of .400. However, Helton constantly likes to remind folks that though he was well over .367 in August that there was still a lot of the season left to play. In order to hit .367 a batter has to go a whole season with a only a few instances of slumping.
"It would be awesome to finish at .379, but psychologically it is tough," explained Helton. "I just take it one at bat at a a time and hopefully when all is said and done I can join the ranks of .379 hitters. Thankfully the milestone isn't some crazy number like - and I am just taking this off the top of my head - .400. That would be just crazy."
Garciaparra is taking a similar attitude as his National League counterpart. " Someone asked me if I was trying to hit .379 and I just kinda laughed. I mean if you try to hit .379 it just won't happen because you put so much pressure on yourself."
"You just have to take each bat as it comes, try to help the team win and in the end you may or may not be a .379 hitter. But at least you can say you gave it your best shot."
Garciaparra continued, "Otherwise, you make it seem so difficult that .379 will seem unattainable, like -well this is just some random, big number I am coming up with here - like .400. Impossible."
And though their teams are more or less out of post-season contention many eyes will be focused on Boston and Denver as they pursue the ever-elusive entry into the .379 club
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©2000 Copyright David Oliver, All Rights Reserved
DISCLAIMER: These stories are not true. No really. It's all just a joke, you know for fun.
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