What a Bunch of Shit

Okay. My work is taking me to third shift tonight, so I slept this afternoon to help readjust my clock.

And while I'm asleep....Alex Rodriguez of the Rangers gets voted Most Valuable Player in the American League.

Not that it happened necessarily while I was asleep....they vote on these things at the end of the regular season...but they waited to announce the decision while I was asleep, to give me some "simmer down" time. They know I'm not going to come out to retaliate at night, owing to my extreme fear of the "Booger Man," who likewise, only comes out at night.

Can I just say this? Somebody needs to sit down with the baseball writers so that they can hammer down exactly what "Most Valuable Player" means.

To me, Most Valuable Player means that the award goes to the player who did the most for his team, and had the most positive impact toward his teams ultimate finish during the season.

Bill McCabe says it best: Could the Rangers not have finished in LAST PLACE, 20 games under .500 without Alex Rodriguez? I mean, seriously. If the Rangers lost Rodriguez for the season, wouldn't they have finished in last place anyway? To me, Rodriguez was the difference between a 70 win season, and a 60 win season. And that's not all that much, to me.

To me, it makes Rodriguez even less of a value to his team, because of his outrageous $252 million contract. I mean, yeah, ARod is more than pulling his weight, but the Rangers have so much tied up in Alex, that they aren't able to pick up three, four, even five or six players that they could use in the many places the Rangers had holes this year. And ultimately, I think those five or six players could have been, combined, better than ARod.

My kneejerk reaction, without looking at stats or anything, at the end of the season was Nomar. I felt like his leadership was tantamount to Boston's pennant push this year.

With a month and half to think about it, I kind of think his teammate David Ortiz might have been a better choice. He just kind of emerged from the mists, and did everything he needed to do for that team down the stretch.

That said, I'm wondering how much the teammates Nomar, Ortiz and Manny Ramirez split the vote....I think they're all mired somewhere in the middle of the pack when it came to voting. A lot of voters will only vote for one guy from each team in making their Top 10.

I couldn't have argued too much, though, if the Yankees Jorge Posada had gotten the award. I've got a lotta respect for anybody who wears the tools of ignorance. But to add to that handling that pitching staff under the greatest scrutiny, and to put up offensive numbers like that, and without fading too much down the stretch like a lot of catchers. Couldn't argue.

I didn't like Delgado as much as the voters did. He got second place. I would have put him fourth or fifth on my ballot.

Here's my ballot (with the advantage of having a month and a half to stew, and also having seen how the voting comes out):

1. David Ortiz.
2. Jorge Posada
3. Nomar Garciaparra
4. Shannon Stewart
5. Alex Rodriguez
6. Carlos Delgado
7. Bret Boone
8. Carlos Beltran
9. Eric Chavez
10. Carlos Lee

See? Delgado got sixth, on my voting sheet. And no Manny Ramirez. I kind of felt like his off-the-field actions kind of took away from his on-the-field number production. Evened out his value to the team as it were.

Ah well. This kind of tells me that Pujols will with the thing for the N.L. tomorrow. Despite the fact that if Bonds had been hurt all season, the Giants probably would have struggled to finish .500.

God, I even sound like a Bonds Booster. What's wrong with me?