Note To Angry Trump Supporters: Cubs Pitcher Jon Lester Is Not Lester Holt

By Stephen Gossett in News on Oct 3, 2016 7:04PM

Jon "Don't Call Me Holt" Lester / Getty Images / Photo: Joe Robbins

Fact-checking was a huge theme before and during Monday’s presidential debates, so allow us to clear up an apparently big misconception that stemmed from last week’s record-breaking one-one-one: Cubs starting pitcher Jon Lester is not Lester Holt. It’s an easy enough mistake to make: both have Chicago connections (do yourself a favor and revisit Holt’s impressively mustachioed Windy City roots here); they both arguably suck at holding in check those who’d play fast and loose (Lester with base runners; Holt with debaters—although we thought Holt did well enough); and of course, they share a “Lester.”

Those commonalities were apparently enough for a large handful of careless Twitter users to lambaste North Side ace and verified not-Lester-Holt Jon Lester for his biased debate-moderation tactics. You can find more at Deadspin, who first noted the flub, via MLB Jersey Numbers contributor Randall J. Sanders, but here are some choice sample cuts. Jon handles it quite diplomatically throughout, showing none of the partiality of which he stood so egregiously accused.

Be it resolved: on the Washington Post scale, we gave "Lester Holt is Jon Lester" Four Pinocchios. Well handled, Jon.