Winner of the Week

It was a pretty ho hum week for this columns sake. There were no major upsets in college football or the NFL and no major shakeups in the MLB playoff picture. Matt Cassel deserves mention for winning his first game as a starter since, well, high school, but his performance wasn’t heroic by any means and the Pats’ defense gets a lot of the credit for the win. Ryan Howard has been straight up raking for the Phils to the point of dragging them into first place in the NL East, past the again-collapsing Mets. I was completely prepared to crown Carlos Zambrano this past week’s Winner for his epic one walk shy of a perfect game performance, but despite semi-ridiculing the praise of the following record breaker, Francisco Rodriguez’s accomplishment of breaking the 18 year old saves record for a season is still a Second Jumpability Winner of the Week moment.

Astros Fans Enter the George Costanza Zone

In one of my all-time favorite episodes of Seinfeld, a suicide jumper lands on George’s car when he is parked at a hospital.  The car is completely ruined, leaving Mr. Costanza with quite the predicament.  One of the one hand, it’s really not fair that his car is totaled and that he should have to pay for it, but on the other hand, a much worse event occurred (the death of a human being) so if he says anything, he is bound to be seen as a horrible human being, debunk of all emotion and feeling.  In the end, George speaks up to the hospital manager and gets the boot.  Right when I heard about what Bud Selig was doing with the Astros-Cubs series, I knew that the Astros fans could relate to George.

Is My Favorite Canadian in Line for Another MVP?

It looked as if Carlos Quentin was on his way to one of the most unlikely MVP seasons in recent memory. The relative unknown was acquired by the White Sox (damnit) and exploded in his 3rd season, already with 36 HR and 100 RBI. But a wrist injury and the resulting surgery have ruled him largely out for the regular season. With the White Sox currently in a dog fight with the Minnesota Twins for the AL Central title, a race that could likely be decided by the penultimate face-to-face series for the two clubs in Minnesota, it seems that Quentin might no longer be the favorite. After all, if the White Sox pull out a division title, the most crucial stretch would’ve come without Quentin. And if the 2008 Twins, expected to finish 4th in the division this year, somehow pull it off, they have their own slugger that suddenly dwarfs Quentin in MVP consideration. But this race will not be the only deciding factor in the AL MVP race. There is a little scrapper and a rugged slugger up in Boston, a record breaking relieve on the West Coast, and a couple other wild cards that could play into the race. But when it’s all said and done, you better believe that I am desperately hoping Justin Morneau adds a 2nd AL MVP to his mantle.

He Can Have the Record, Please Don’t Give Him the Award

Let’s get all the pleasantries out of the way first. Francisco Rodriguez is a tremendous, imposing, intimidating closer that burst onto the scene in the 2002 World Series (sorry Giants fans). He was given full closing duties in 2004, and as they say (fitting now) the rest is history. Ahhh yes, history. It’s a great thing. Without a hankering to remember the past, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Josh Gibson, Jackie Robinson, Shoeless Joe, Joe, Ted, and Ty would simply be names and not much else. But we love history. We love records. And despite the impossibility in ever achieving a consensus, we love comparing different historical eras. Well, last night history was tied, and will inevitably be broken, by the aforementioned Francisco Rodriguez. But I deathly hope that his record is celebrated as a record, and nothing more. Please, please, please, do not let this record confuse the voters into giving this man the AL Cy Young Award.

Winner of the Week

There were not too many candidates for this week’s Winner of the Week. Alabama certainly showed they are for real with a big win over the favored Clemson Tigers. East Carolina proved that they were more than just Chris Johnson and pulled off an upset over 17th ranked Virginia Tech. But unfortunately I put less weight into preseason college football rankings than Calista Flockhart puts into her latest outfit, so neither upsets were impressive enough to earn Winner of the Week honors. There was not much news in the NFL, nothing really changed during the last week in the NBA, the Olymics have come and gone, it is still early in the U.S. Open, and Vijay Singh just won his 2nd straight tournament, but it was finished on Monday (not last week) and done sans Tiger. CC Sabathia was a close 2nd after his bazillionth complete game (does this guys literally have a rubber arm?) in which he threw a no hitter, but was robbed by a fool for an official scorekeeper and possibly lost his Winner of the Week award with that weak grounder. So, this week we’re going with a scrappy little team that yours truly wrote off in this very blog just a few days ago.

Baseball Predictions for the Final Month (American League)

Coincidentally, He Hate Me is not the only Second Jumpability writer that can peek into that crystal ball and foresee the future. I happen to have similar abilities and today you are all lucky to have me share my visions of the American League playoff race. I’m sure you’re interested to know if the Rays can keep up their tirade against baseball’s evil duo, if the White Sox and Twins will continue playing patty cake with each other and first place, or if the Angels will get bored and forget to show up to their final games of the regular season. So here they are, the final standings to decide the eventual World Series Champion (oh, the Cubs think they can win this year? Isn’t that cute…).

Why Giants Fans Love Barry

As San Francisco Giants fans, we often have to defend the criticism that we supported a “cheater.”  Apparently those telling us this neglect the fact that steroids were not illegal in the game of baseball at the time that Bonds was allegedly taking them (look, I know Bonds took steroids but I’m just pointing out that there still has been no decided proof that he did), or that Giants fans are not the first to cheer on “villains.”  Cardinals fans cheered on McGwire, Laker fans cheer on Kobe (remember when he cheated on his wife?  Oh, but let’s hate a guy who took drugs and was hurting himself and only himself much more than a guy that committed adultery and hurt his entire family), Yankee fans cheer on Giambi, and Red Sox fans cheer on Varitek (which might be the worst offense of all considering that guy is getting paid a little over $150,000 per hit this year for his .220 batting average.  Considering most of us don’t make that much per year, it really makes you wonder…wow, if I had kept playing baseball to this point, I wonder if I could have gotten ONE FRIGGIN’ HIT this season).  The point is that every team cheers on someone who is hated by most of the league.  But with Bonds, it is more than just standard cheering we do for him.  We love the guy, and here’s why.

Expect a Move Soon, Or I’ll Blow My Lid

If you owned a Ferrari, would you instead drive a Ford Pinto? If you had a choice of being given The Matrix, or that third installment of the trilogy that I won’t even name here, would you turn down the original? If someone said “In ‘n Out or McDonalds?” would you really choose McDonalds? Of course not. Then why on earth are Bill Smith and/or Ron Gardenhire continuing to give the ball every 5th day to Livan Hernandez, when Francisco Liriano is festering away in AAA?

The Best Get Better

You’ve probably heard by now that Mark Teixeira was traded… again. This time, to the current BIB (Best in Baseball) Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California, USA, North America, Planet Earth. The Braves will receive Casey Kotchman and a supposedly average pitching prospect in return. Awesome job, Braves. If I had to pick a World Series favorite right now, the Angels would be easily my first choice ahead of the Sox (the Red ones). And don’t expect this to change anytime soon. Tex was traded out of Texas last year after turning down an 8 year, $140,000,000 extension. The Braves were basically renting him for the stretch run and maybe hoping they could get him for cheaper. Instead, they lost an arbitration case, paid him $12.5 mil this year (still a decent bargain) and ended up trading him away. The Angels, however, have the money, and more importantly are probably willing to lock him up long term. Maybe 6 years, $100 mil? Get ready… the Rally Monkey may be returning in force this October.

So, are the Angels the clear favorite right now?

Sports Writers: Dumber than your Average Bear?

Gaylord Perry was signing baseballs this past Sunday for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. The line was enormous as everyone wanted a piece of Mr. Perry. And then it got me thinking, “wait, didn’t Gaylord Perry openly admit to cheating? To doctoring baseballs? To damaging the integrity of the game.” Yet everyone loves him, including the sports writers making up the Baseball Writers Association of America (and ironic name considering they are writers ie apparent masters of the English language yet chose the acronym BBWAA to represent their organization-ummm, where did that second “B” come from?) who voted Gaylord into the Hall of Fame in 1991.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Here is a quick and easy question. Which player would you rather have?

Player A: .295 BA, 16 HR, 96 RBI, 109 R, .767 OPS in 821 ABs.
Player B: .334 BA, 32 HR, 141 RBI, 124 R, .906 OPS in 800 ABs.

Player B, right? Good. Now for a slightly tougher question. Who do you think these two players are?