All Hail Vlad!
Thankfully, Vlad Guerrero won the American League MVP award, meaning the baseball writers got the MVPs in both leagues right, which is more than I can say for their selection of Roger Clemens as the National League's best pitcher. Even though Guerrero -- who led the AL with a 93.2 VORP -- deserved the award, I think the reasoning behind his selection is faulty at best.
All I've been hearing on the radio and on TV is that he won because he had a tremendous last week of the season, catapulting the Angels over the A's to capture their division. And while that's true (Guerrero batted over .500 in the final week), the analysts are acting like the rest of the season never even happened. Guerrero did a lot to put his team in a position to make the move for the division over the first five months. That larger sample size is what the voters should be looking at, not just who came through "in the clutch" when games with playoff implications are magnified.
After all, seasons are comprised of streaks, both good and bad. Had Guerrero put together a poorer last week of the season and Anaheim hadn't beaten Oakland for the division, the MVP trophy probably would've gone to a less-deserving Gary Sheffield, and that would've been wrong. Guerrero would still have been the best player in the AL, which automatically would've made him the most valuable player to his team. But the writers are never going to see things that way. They've always voted for the best story, and they always will.
>>Three years ago, my favorite teacher in high school took a pretty good rip at Brad Pitt's The Mexican, saying the dog that was in the movie was the best "actor" in the entire film. I always admired that teacher, because he was every bit the wiseass I was then and continue to be today. Anyway, I saw Sarah Michelle Gellar's The Grudge last night, which was every bit as awful as I thought it'd be. In fact, it wasn't even Gellar's movie, because for every scene that involved her, it seemed like there were two scenes featuring the real star of the movie, which is this thing (on the right):
Yes, a blob. An annoying, black blob that somehow morphs into a person-looking thing stole the show from the (sometimes) beautiful actress on the left. The blob didn't even have any lines, except for the belching sound it made before it killed somebody by, uh … scaring the person to death, I suppose. If you haven't seen The Grudge yet, save your money. You'd be better off lighting it on fire at a baseball stadium, and you wouldn't be alone. Jim Bowden's already started that party.
All I've been hearing on the radio and on TV is that he won because he had a tremendous last week of the season, catapulting the Angels over the A's to capture their division. And while that's true (Guerrero batted over .500 in the final week), the analysts are acting like the rest of the season never even happened. Guerrero did a lot to put his team in a position to make the move for the division over the first five months. That larger sample size is what the voters should be looking at, not just who came through "in the clutch" when games with playoff implications are magnified.
After all, seasons are comprised of streaks, both good and bad. Had Guerrero put together a poorer last week of the season and Anaheim hadn't beaten Oakland for the division, the MVP trophy probably would've gone to a less-deserving Gary Sheffield, and that would've been wrong. Guerrero would still have been the best player in the AL, which automatically would've made him the most valuable player to his team. But the writers are never going to see things that way. They've always voted for the best story, and they always will.
>>Three years ago, my favorite teacher in high school took a pretty good rip at Brad Pitt's The Mexican, saying the dog that was in the movie was the best "actor" in the entire film. I always admired that teacher, because he was every bit the wiseass I was then and continue to be today. Anyway, I saw Sarah Michelle Gellar's The Grudge last night, which was every bit as awful as I thought it'd be. In fact, it wasn't even Gellar's movie, because for every scene that involved her, it seemed like there were two scenes featuring the real star of the movie, which is this thing (on the right):
Yes, a blob. An annoying, black blob that somehow morphs into a person-looking thing stole the show from the (sometimes) beautiful actress on the left. The blob didn't even have any lines, except for the belching sound it made before it killed somebody by, uh … scaring the person to death, I suppose. If you haven't seen The Grudge yet, save your money. You'd be better off lighting it on fire at a baseball stadium, and you wouldn't be alone. Jim Bowden's already started that party.