Champagne Socialist

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Yankees win 9-3....and why "Big Papi" can't win the MVP.

Great game last night for the Yankees. It's the mark of a champion when a team can come back after a bad loss and win convincingly the next day. A-Rod has finally started to get on a roll, which is bad news for other teams.

Last year's race for AL MVP between A-Rod and David "Big Papi" Ortiz (am I the only one who thinks Big Papi is a rather homoerotic name?) was not even close in my opinion. True, I am biased because the Yanks are my favorite team. But seriously, Ortiz DOES NOT PLAY DEFENSE! He can be a fat slug all he wants, because he needs no stamina whatsoever. Rodriguez, on the other hand, plays arguably the hardest position in baseball: third base. Hard-hit balls rocket down the third base line, and you have to have incredibly fast reflexes to play the position well. He's won the gold glove multiple times as well. And third base isn't even his original position. He was a great shortstop before coming over to New York, where he volunteered to switch to third as the Yankees already had a great shortstop, Derek Jeter.

Some Ortiz-sympathizers may argue that pitchers don't play the whole game either. True, but it takes a hell of a lot more stamina to pitch 75-100 mph pitches through several innings than it does to bat. I'm not saying batting is easy. I still believe hitting a baseball in the major leagues is the hardest thing to do in all of sports. But it's a question of eye-hand coordination, not physical.

Ortiz is a great hitter, but until he gets up from the bench and joins his team in the field, he should never even be considered for MVP.

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