The World Series figures to end on the far side of Halloween this year, but this just in: There will be no Bucvember.
Which will make Bucvember only nominally shorter than Buctober.
Don’t you dare act surprised.
The last surprise of this otherwise enchanted baseball season arrived six hours ahead of Wednesday night’s first pitch — Sean Rodriguez, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle announced, would play first base in the National League wild-card game instead of Pedro Alvarez.
So on an issue that wasn’t even fully formed externally, Hurdle went neither this way or that way; he went data way.