All-Star antics
June 29th, 2007I always enjoy tracking the balloting for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, because it shows how clueless so many of the voters are. Though final totals haven’t been announced yet, here are the most recent updates for the National League and the American League.
In looking at the vote totals thus far, some obvious questions arise, such as:
1. Why on earth is Nomar Garciaparra (.266 BA, .306 OBP, 1 HR, 38 RBI) third in the voting at first base in the NL, while Dmitri Young (.336 BA, .391 OBP, 7 HR, 36 RBI) and Ryan Howard (18 HR, 56 RBI) aren’t even in the top five?
2. Why is Edgar Renteria (.328 BA, 10 HR, 38 RBI) not in the top five NL shortstops?
3. Moises Alou (2 HR, 13 RBI and on the DL since May 13) is 13th among NL outfielders and Jim Edmonds (.238 BA, 7 HR, 24 RBI) is 14th, while Brad Hawpe (.294, 13 HR, 54 RBI) and Eric Byrnes (.315, 14 HR, 46 RBI) aren’t in the top 15 at all?
4. Bobby Abreu (.251, 4 HR, 35 RBI) is eighth among AL outfielders while Alexis Rios (.288, 17 HR, 45 RBI) isn’t even in the top 15?
What a joke the MLB All-Star balloting is.
The last update showed Bonds in 4th in the NL Outfield voting. If he’s even on the team, I’m not watching the game. Unfortunately the game is in San Francisco. It looks like I won’t be watching the All-Star game this year.
A more important question, my dear Tim, is: why aren’t alleged Cardinal fans like yourself trying to get my boys Ken Oberkfell, Jack Clark, and Lonnie Smith out of retirement to come back and DOMINATE that all-star game? Huh? Huh? Come on! I demand an answer!
How about the fact that Rondell White is listed on the AL ballot? He’s played 3 games this year. The sad thing is that MLB’s game is the one All-Star game that people actually care about, and it’s a total joke because the rosters have half a dozen Yankees and Mets on them every year.
I’m in San Francisco this week for work, and the Giants have a huge “Vote Barry” campaign going on. Bonds is going to be on the team one way or another, because every club gets to send at least one player (another stupid rule).
I’ve begun to hate the All-Star game over the past few years. I’m almost ready to start a new professional baseball league. In fact, I’m even welcoming donations from you kind folks to start that league. If you’re one of the first 5 to donate, you’ll be in my Hall of Fame. How’s that? You’ve got a warm and fuzzy feeling inside AND immortality in my league.
4 Reasons you are so frustrated with the All-Star voting:
1. Popularity - fans vote for who they like, not who is worthy.
2. Recognizable names - fans vote for names they have heard of; “never heard of the guy” translates into “so he must not be any good.”
3. Laziness - even in the age of the Internet (that capitalization is for you, Timmy), which makes it fairly quick and easy to find out who is really worthy of being an All-Star, fans are too lazy to do a little homework before casting their votes.
4. Democrats - with the influence of the left, our educational system has sunk so low that now the stupidity of the public is spilling over into baseball.
I especially agree with Brett’s reason number 4.
At least the fans got the Griffey vote right. Although they screwed up with Bonds.
What about Big Papi at 1B, a closer who recently lost his job and has an era over 4(Fuentes), Bonds gaining the 300,000 or whatever votes to take a starting spot, Freddy Sanchez an all-star (no Gorzelanny or Snell), 6 closers on the NL roster (be prepared for alot of situational pitching changes) - for as much as I could complain about the fan voting - it seems Tony made some dubious choices, and what happened to the Joe Torre - Everyone on my team is an all-star reserve attitude? You could argue that Izzy has been just as good as at least 4 of the closers on the team, and statistically speaking Chris Duncan (.277,15,40) has been just as good as Carlos Beltran (.274,14,49).