*I say ever because this is the internet and anything that happened more than a decade ago doesn’t exist.

Mark Ingram is a fine, fine running back.  He’s elusive yet doesn’t shy away from contact.  He’s powerful yet speedy enough to break the big one.  He’s tough between the tackles, great on the outside and can catch the ball out of the backfield.  He’s the second coming of Emmitt Smith.

What he isn’t is the greatest college football player of 2009.

It should be said that, while the media was ablaze with thoughts of Ndamukong Suh taking home the award, and Toby Gerhart’s resume was being polished, Ingram was GOING to win this award.  And it’s not because he was the best player, but because he played for a powerhouse with a sparkling record at a glamour position.  That’s it.  Well, that and the people who vote for these things put in absolutely ZERO effort in trying to make it legitimate…but that’s a story for another day. Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Mauer won the MVP yesterday in a near unanimous decision which is good because if he hadn’t won, then the rest of the world would have felt my fury.  Or something.

It’s almost bothersome that the voters have come around and are making good decisions lately.  It’s gotten to the point where there’s very little to criticize anything besides secondary votes which would be totally lame…except I’m going to do it anyway.

• Who the fuck gave Miguel Cabrera a first place vote?  That’s an insult to logic, reason, intuition, goal setting, life planning, basket weaving and MVP award voting.  Is Miggie good?  Sure is.  Does he deserve a first place anything?  No.  No he doesn’t.  Especially when the correct answer to the question, “Who was the most valuable player to his team in 2009?” is Joe Mauer.
• Placido Polanco received a ninth place vote.  It was the only vote he received.  I’m sure he was just as stunned as the rest of us.  Placido Polanco may not have even been the 9th best 2B in the AL, let alone the ninth most valuable player.  Well played, random voter I’m too busy to investigate.
• Four 1B were in the top 6 in voting…and the best one came in last.  Kevin Youkilis was the best of the lot but came in behind Tex, Miggie, and Kendry Morales.  This once again proves that if you’re so excellent at something that you raise everyone’s expectations they take you for granted.  Or they move the right field fence in 20 feet to help you get a part of the HR lead.
• Evan Longoria received fewer votes than Robinson Cano.  Think about that for a minute.  Then let your Yankee hatred grow.
• Combined points by Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer: 7 (on 3 votes).  This is 7 points and 3 votes more than Shin Soo Choo received despite the fact that they are the same player with the exception being that Choo is better.  Other than that, they all play outfield in the worst division in baseball.

Say you’re a young phenom pitcher coming off of your first Cy Young season.  Despite your lofty status as the king of your domain, you still like to party, I mean, shit, who doesn’t?

Now say you get busted for having a harmless plant that does nothing other than enhance your mellow.  People get angry.  Mobs form.  Children cry.  Blood rains from the heavens.  So on.  So forth.

Oh wait…you mean that you can smoke said harmless plant that enhances your mellow and STILL win the award that celebrates the absolute masters of their respective craft? You mean that this ILLICIT DRUG, one that pretty much every notable musician, actor, artist, every president since JFK, Carl Sagan, Benjamin Franklin and an estimated 80 million Americans have used DIDN’T ruin his life and send him into a spiral of doom, of which, there’s almost no escape? You mean that his performance was nearly IDENTICAL to his past year’s performance, where he was, coincidentally, also considered the master of of his respective craft?

Oh, I see what you’re saying…you’re saying that this harmless plant that does nothing other than enhance your mellow would dent the earnings of a whole fuckton of policemen, attorneys, prosecutors, judges, prison guards, privatized prison owners and contractors, drug enforcement agencies, paper and cloth manufacturerers, Big Tobacco and all the major alcohol companies and that, and THAT alone, is the only reason it’s still illegal.  Despite the fact that it’s harmless, has known medical uses, doesn’t have health problems, isn’t addictive and has extremely limited side effects.

Got ya.

Oh, in case you were wondering…Tim Lincecum won the NL’s Cy Young over St. Louis Cardinals teammates Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter.  Psshh…maybe they should spend less time practicing and working out and more time playing video games and listening to Phish.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As with any posts regarding this topic, please use the best judgement and keep the obvious author’s name a secret.  Sure, he typed this at work, but he loves his work and doesn’t want to lose it over something as stupid as a five paragraph post extolling the virtues of a harmless plant that does nothing other than enhance your mellow.

Whoopty-fucking-do.  The voters have made their decisions so far this year in a way that fails to fill me with rage or anger.  I’m bored to tears by it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for Mike Scioscia and Jim Tracey for their achievements in the field of excellence but I have, in the past, so enjoyed the baseball award season because it was so often filled with bad decisions.  Remember that time Justin Morneau won an MVP award?  Crazy right?

I guess I could express some shock at the douche who voted for Joe Torre with his first place vote, but why bother.  That one idiot makes Torre look even sillier so I’m grateful for it.  Or I could laugh at those 2 people who thought that Bud Black was the third best coach in the league…which is also funny.

I guess the bulk of my amusement lies with the 4 people who voted for Joe Girardi as Manager of the Year and the 8 others who gave him 2nd or 3rd place votes.  Now that’s funny.  I wonder if, after seeing him botch every decision in the first two rounds of the playoffs, they wished they could have their votes back.  I guess Girardi is proof that no matter how stupid the manager is, the superior talent on the field will win most of the time.

As such, I don’t care.  Well, if Girardi had won I would have cared.  But he didn’t.  But if he had, holy shit this post would have been on fire.  You’ll see.

Congratulations to Zack Greinke for winning the AL Cy Young award, I guess.  I mean, he deserved it everything and there wasn’t really another single competitor for the award that writers could set up as a dichotomy to Greinke.  You know how people like to divide: Greinke is the “thinking man’s pitcher” and his competitor is an old school guy who’s numbers don’t show up in the boxscore–he just wins.

Alas, there was no drama this year because the choice was pretty obvious:

• Greinke’s 2.16 ERA was the best in baseball.  This is impressive considering the defense behind him was one of the worst in the AL.
• He was third in K/9 with 9.50 and was second in K’s overall with 242.
• He gave up the least HR/9 at .43.  I’m guessing everyone thinks this is a good thing, regardless of political affiliation.
• I think the fact that he was able to win 16 games while playing for the second worst offense in the AL actually works to his credit but there are some dummies out there who would look only at wins.

The only other serious contender was Seattle’s Felix Hernandez and he only received 2 first place votes to Greinke’s 25.  I guess I could try to drum up some outrage that Greinke wasn’t an unanimous choice when he certainly should have been but I just don’t have it in me.

Maybe I could talk about how he’s a flash in the pan?  And how tradition dictates that we give the award to someone who was good in year’s past but not as dominant this y–zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Today the Baseball Writers chose it’s American League and National League Rookies of the Year. Of course they can’t do that right. Chris Coghlan beat out J.A. Happ for the NL award. How in the rat fuck did that happen? Really? Chris Coglan played 128 better than average games. J.A. Happ was the Phillies best starter until Cliff Lee brought his AIDS to town. How in the fuck was this even close? How in the fuck did Coghlan even win? I hate Philly! I can’t even believe I am angered by this. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s this guy in my office who really knows how to look busy.  Whenever he walks around to have a smoke or grab some coffee he always carries a clipboard with him and never looks any of his superiors directly in the eye when he’s walking through the hall.  He’s mastered the art of looking like he’s solving complex problems in his head simply by maintaining this expression on his face which looks like he’s trying hold in a fart.  If he knows I’m staying late he’ll leave a pair of old glasses on his keyboard and leave his lamp on and bail early.  By leaving his desk like that it looks like he just stepped out and will be right back, that way if anyone pops their head in looking for him, they’ll think he’s also burning the midnight oil.  I, of course, turn out the light for him when I leave.

He’s also good at doing enough work for the right people to make it look like he’s getting a lot done.  His favorite projects are the ones that are long with ambiguous results that aren’t easily quantified.  And he’s great at corporate speak to the point where he can hold one of those long conversations that mean nothing but last hours.  When it comes time to make layoffs, his name never gets mentioned, that’s how valuable people think he is despite his complete and total lack of ability.

I bring all this up because Derek Jeter just won another Gold Glove award yesterday. Read the rest of this entry »

For the last month we baseball fans have been subjected to the most ridiculous MVP debate in all the land.  The fact that Mark Teixeira is even being mentioned in MVP conversations but is considered the front runner is absurd.  Every knows the best player in the AL this year is Joe Mauer and after that it’s a huge dropoff.  But what makes this point most absurd is that Tex isn’t even the best player on his own team.

All of this love for Teixeira is ridiculous when it’s clear that ARod is the better player.  Yes, Tex has a higher OPS but that’s due in large part to his inflated SLG percentage which itself is inflated due to his ability to hit from the left side of the plate at home.  His SLG is .040 higher from the left side of the plate and .160 points higher at home.  If ARod were a lefty at Yankee Stadium he’d probably have a spike in his numbers too.  ARod’s OBP is .029 points higher than Tex’s and he also plays a tougher defensive position.

Plus, we can track the rise and fall of the Yankees with how well ARod has done this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Thank God I get to cover the AL for this thing because if I had to wade through that bog of worthlessness that is the National League, I’d slit my wrists after giving Pooholes and Manny 300 words each of verbal fellatio.  The AL season so far has been a pile of something…it hasn’t been terrible (unless you’re an Indians fan) but it hasn’t had that same zing it normally does for some reason or another.

While things are getting clearer but still getting sorted out as we take our mid-summer break, I figure what better time to hand out some awards for the AL?

The Hef Award (for best catcher…get it?  Teehee.):  Victor Martinez wins this in a landslide for a variety of reasons.  One, he’s fucking awesome.  Two, despite being completely statistically inferior to Joe Mauer, Victor doesn’t catch in the sack.  Yes, I’m not giving this award to Joe Mauer because he’s gay…if that’s offensive, feel free the sue me.  Wait…something’s not right with my rationale here…not giving a guy the gay award because he’s gay and giving it to the bastion of all things hetero?  Things that make you go hmm… Read the rest of this entry »

Alright, the first half of the season is over and we’ve learned a hell of a lot about the National League.  For starters, this division is eleventy times worse than last year with only one decent team and a whole pile of crap left over.  Is there a single team among the pile besides the Dodgers that has any hope of competing with anyone in the AL?  And how good are the Dodgers if they only have to play NL teams everyday?  They went 9-9 against the AL West in Interleague, not exactly dominant.  Regardless, here are the awards we will give to the weakest league I’ve ever seen.

The Hef Award (Best Pitcher in the League): I’m calling this the award for the best pitcher instead of the first half Cy Young because calling it “pitcher” allows me to give it to the best complete player who happens to pitch every five days.  As such, the award goes to Dan Haren who might be a half step behind Tim Lincecum as far as throwing a ball goes but he adds so much value with his bat that there’s no chance in hell he isn’t the best pitcher in the NL. Read the rest of this entry »