It's supposed to be awarding the "role players who sacrifice for their team in often unrecognized effort." It's a pretty sad perpetuance of the "white players are scrappy, latino players are fiery, asian players are smart and black players are athletic" stereotype that nearly every announcer and sports writer has been guilty of at some point. As you'd expect, it was everywhere during the World Baseball Classic. Cuba was "emotional" and "energetic," Japan was "smart" and "methodical."
"Boy, are we some fiery Latinos! ¡Ay, caramba!"
"Shh... I'm trying to calculate the exact speed and trajectory needed for my physics defying gyro ball."Anyway, back to the award. The leader so far is, of course, David Ecsketin, the underrated scrappy white guy du-jour. What's interesting is this: Eckstein might be the least deserving of all of these players. Not that he sucks or anything, quite the opposite. It's supposed to be for "role players" and "unrecognized effort," right? Well, first, I don't think a shortstop and lead-off hitter can be categorized as a "role" player. Secondly and more importantly, Eckstein's been an All-Star the past two years. He even won the now-defunct Babe Ruth Award for best player in the World Series. In what possible way has he gone even remotely unrecognized?
Equally undeserving is Garret Atkins. Look at his line: .329/29/120/117. That's a role player? That's a best player!
In sum: not only is this "award" borderline racist, it can't even abide by it's own standards.
5 comments:
The Look Again player of the year... Methinks there are too many awards...
Oh, and by the way, I have a World Series ticket for game 4 (the one rained out tonight and rescheduled for Friday). I know you're jealous. I sat out in the cold for 2 hours and paid 10 bucks for parking. What a night!
jealous as a... uh... we need more stereotypically jealous things.
hope you have a great time :-)
Jealous as an ex-girlfriend. ooo...
*women start beating me over the head*
I just actually looked at the award nominees. They ought to have a rule where if you started more than 80 games at one position you are ineligible OR if you were hurt and immediately started once back. Like DaRosa makes sense b/c he was all over the place, but Ecks doesn't.
Last year I'd put my money on Abraham O. Nunez.
i'd define a role player as a good set-up man, or a good 7th, 8th or 9th place hitter, or a decent 5th starter, or someone who played a lot of positions, or a frequent pinch hitter, fielder or runner.
and i'd define "unrecognized" as never being an all-star.
some of those nominated qualify as such, but way too many are everyday players who hit 1st or 4th in their line-ups and have seen plenty of recognition.
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