Jimmy Rollins probably didn't deserve the MVP. David Wright and Matt Holliday, among others, had better stats, in both traditional and sabermetric measures. Rollins had the better story, and the better story always wins for the newspaper sportswriters who vote on the award. I can understand that - the better story is what writers are searching for - and I gave up caring so much about the votes of these writers somewhere around the time Shannon Stewart started receiving 1st place MVP votes for a half season of barely better than average play for the Twins after a mid-season trade coincided with a dramatic improvement in the Twins pitching staff, due mostly to Johan Santana becoming a rotation regular - and not due to anything Stewart provided, obviously - so I'm not really that invested in MVP or Cy Young or whatever voting anymore. The Phillies have had the NL MVP two years in a row, which is great. I'm a Phillies fan, I love Rollins, and I truly believe he was the best Phillies player this year, in a year in which we made the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. So congratulations, Jimmy. But he didn't deserve the award. And Ryan Howard was not as good as Albert Pujols last season either. Doesn't really matter, but he wasn't.
Bill Conlin is a big fat tub of lard writer for the Philadelphia Daily News,
who you've probably seen spewing garbled sentences on ESPN's Sports
Reporters - he's the big fat tub of lard who's usually holding a coffee
cup because he's too fat to lean forward and set it down. And he wrote
an article both praising Rollins' season and (in his mind)
well-deserved MVP award while simultaneously bashing Bill James and
other fact-based baseball analysts for saying that Rollins probably
didn't deserve the award. A bunch of bloggers basically called him an
idiot, including Fire Joe Morgan, which makes great fun of his article in the link there.
Another blog, Crash Burn Alley - run by a Phillies fan - ended up
exchanging a bunch of emails with Conlin that he published on his blog,
in which Conlin trashes all bloggers as idiots and eventually wishes
them all death at the hands of Hitler, if only he were still alive.
Seriously. This big fat tub of lard wants Hitler back from the dead
just to kill all of us bloggers - presumably even those of us who
hadn't commented on the Jimmy Rollins MVP debate. Here's his statement if
you don't believe me...
The only positive thing I can think of about Hitler's time on earth–I'm sure he would have eliminated all bloggers. In Colonial times, bloggers were called "Pamphleteers." They hung on street corners handing them out to passersby. Now, they hang out on electronic street corners, hoping somebody mouses on to their pretentious sites. Different medium, same MO. Shakespeare accidentally summed up the genre best with these words from a MacBeth soliloquy: ". . .a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. . ."
Nothing like a Hitler reference to end all debate. And the three mixed metaphors from three different historical eras? Just a bonus for the fine upstanding "journalism" of Mr. Bill Conlin. I don't read the Philadelphia Daily News, so I don't know if he is this brilliantly eloquent in all his columns, but I've seen more than enough of Conlin on Philly sports shows and ESPN. And I'm pretty sure he's not lashing out at bloggers because one of them killed his children or something. I think it's more to do with us - and all of the Internet - usurping "traditional" journalism with - I don't know, "better" journalism, one in which "facts" like David Wright's .416 OBP (vs. Rollins .344) or .546 SLG (vs. Rollins' .531) might make it into an article about MVP qualifications. Or perhaps might make mention of fellow shortstop Hanley Ramirez's .386 OBP and .562 SLG (at shortstop!), while stealing 10 more bases than J-Roll, and having a higher VORP (89.5 to 66.1) - which takes playing time into account. Rollins did win the Gold Glove. We all know the relative worth of that award.
So way to lash out, Mr. Conlin. It looks good on you. Here's hoping that the Daily News doesn't fire you for your Hitler remarks and instead you and your industry continue to die a slow painful death at the hands of us evil bloggers. Because hey, who has time to look up facts when you've got a deadline to finish an article. I mean, you and the crack editing staff at Philadelphia's 2nd largest daily newspaper wouldn't possibly print an article with any factual errors, would you?
I was concerned that Rockies hitting dynamo Matt Holliday, the close runner-up, might steal the election with the hanging chad of his heroic batwork in the Rockies dramatic comeback playoff victory over the Diamondbacks.
Hmm... I could have sworn that the Rockies beat the Padres in that one-game playoff, and the Diamondbacks later in the actual playoffs. But maybe I'm wrong. After all, I'm just an idiot blogger out to ruin the world, "write" Mr. Conlin?
Don’t you need to contact the 30 electors–including the two Mets beat writers–who failed to give write a single first place vote instead of a commentator who does not vote for the awards.
"Write"? Did he actually just call David Wright that? Even in an email correspondence to a blogger, that's pretty careless. Unless, he went to the same spelling school as Switsky.
Did you just compare Switsky to Conlin? That's low.
Posted by: wo | November 28, 2007 at 07:33 PM
with friends like Bill, I do not need any enemies.
Posted by: Switsky | November 29, 2007 at 12:28 PM