Top 5 MLB stories of 2012

Because its season spans 162 games, its playoffs feature a month of frenetic, day-after-day drama and its offseason traverses a topsy-turvy mishmash of signings and trades, baseball finds itself chock full of story lines at the end of every year, enough to fill a list 10 times the size of this.

So apologies are due to the outfield-fly rule. And to the playoff benching of the game's highest-paid player who during his free time proceeded to hit on a couple of women in the stands. Plus the coulda-been batting champion whose agent concocted a number of fake websites as part of an elaborate attempt at covering up his use of synthetic testosterone.

Before the ugliness of the Steroid Era arrives yet again with the January revelation of the Hall of Fame vote, it's time to celebrate and appreciate another year of a sport studded with intrigue, amusement and, in the grand tradition of baseball, spirited debate. – By Jeff Passan

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3. Three years, two titles – In no other sport would a team winning a pair of championships over such a short amount of time end up playing second fiddle to an award and a trade. That's either a sign of how baseball's watered-down postseason lags behind what should be its secondary and tertiary stories, or just how much of a fait accompli October brilliance has become for the San Francisco Giants. Down 2-0 in a best-of-5 series against ... more
3. Three years, two titles – In no other sport would a team winning a pair of championships over such a short amount of time end up playing second fiddle to an award and a trade. That's either a sign of how baseball's watered-down postseason lags behind what should be its secondary and tertiary stories, or just how much of a fait accompli October brilliance has become for the San Francisco Giants. Down 2-0 in a best-of-5 series against Cincinnati? Ha. Let's see a real challenge, like a 3-1 deficit to St. Louis in the NLCS. Psssh. Child's play. The Detroit Tigers mustered not even one victory in the World Series, bowing to the Giants' pitching machine, the bat of hero-to-fat-guys-everywhere Pablo Sandoval and the brilliance that is catcher Buster Posey. In an era where sabermetrics are the rage, the Giants won with a philosophy that tilts toward old-school scouting. Like in 2010, they may not have been baseball's best team. They were simply the best when it mattered. less