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Oh, thank goodness. Secretariat now officially has the fastest times run in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes.
On Tuesday, the Maryland Racing Commission voted 7-0 to change the official race time for Secretariat in the 1973 Preakness from 1:54 2/5 to 1:53.
“Justice was served,” Pimlico president Tom Chuckas said. “The Secretariat team made a compelling case that he ran the race in 1:53 flat and added the Preakness record to his resume. This is terrific news for Mrs. (Penny) Chenery, who has been diligent in her fight for nearly 40 years, and the entire sport of horse racing.”
So if revisionist officiating is justice, we’ve got a lot of wrongs to right throughout sports history.
• Major League Baseball could credit Armando Galarraga with a perfect game in 2010.
• MLB also could name the St. Louis Cardinals the 1985 World Series champions.
• And you’d have to be a commie not to want to give the Olympic gold medal to the 1972 U.S. men’s basketball team.
• While we’re at it, let’s give Roy Jones Jr., the gold medal in boxing at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. (For those who don’t remember, Jones lost a 3-2 decision to South Korea’s Park Si-Hun, despite outpunching Park 86-32 and the fact that two of the three officials in the fight later were banned for life and admitted that they made the wrong decision.)
And the list could go on and on.
Or maybe bad calls are just a part of sports.
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Now, let’s talk about a good call. Even a great call. And for that, we’ll tip our cap to Donnie Baseball.
Don Mattingly considers the five-year federal investigation into pitcher Roger Clemens a complete waste of resources and money.
The 49-year-old Clemens was acquitted Monday on all six counts that he lied to Congress when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs.
“What a waste. I was thinking about it after all this time, what a waste of resources,” Mattingly, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, said Tuesday. “Then you hear about teachers and stuff who don’t have paper and pencils for kids, and it seems like what a waste. What a waste of money. Really, I don’t think anybody cares. At this point nobody cares, it’s like, ‘So long.’ “
