Comments on FIRE JOE MORGAN: The Cloak of Intangibility

Sure. Right. If the baseball writers thought that ...

2006-11-03T03:58:00.000-05:00

Sure. Right.

If the baseball writers thought that Vaughn's character was much "better" than Belle's, than they were not only allowed to, but actually instructed to weigh that in their consideration.

While it may be ridiculous to try to judge one's "character" for a baseball award, it would be more ridiculous to ignore the rules entirely.

I'm aboard the dak train on this -- though I buy m...

2006-11-03T02:16:00.000-05:00

I'm aboard the dak train on this -- though I buy my ticket regrettably. The thing I keep going back to is when HGH Boy was hitting like .190 in April a few years ago with like no HR, Jeter stuck up for him hard core in the press -- he said something like "We need Giambi to help us, and this booing stuff ain't helping." (That is assuredly a direct quote -- don't bother checking my facts.) But with ARod it's "he doesn't need me to stand up for him."

Whatever. Jeter is a sensitive guy who's still upset about that dumb like GQ article. I think he's lame for that. I don't know if that should impact the MVP. But then again, all BBWAA-voted-on awards are stupid anyway, as evidenced by Mo Vaughn beating Al Belle for MVP the year Belle had 100XBH, mainly beause no one liked Belle and they thought Mo was like a "character" guy, even though Mo was always stumbling drunk out of strip clubs.

Or how Jeter just won his motherhumping third Rawlings Pepsi Burger King Microsoft Vista Gold Glove Award, despite being terrible at gloving things.

You're all going to think I'm crazy, but I sort of...

2006-11-03T01:28:00.000-05:00

You're all going to think I'm crazy, but I sort of -- sort of-- agree with this guy's point.

The BBWAA have criteria for MVP voting. To keep things in the family, you can find that stuff here, in the middle of an old JoeChat.

The third listed criterion is:
3. General character, disposition, loyalty and effort.

I'm looking at general character and loyalty. Now, I wish these things weren't in the list of criteria for MVP voting, but they are.

Here's what I think: I don't think Jeter necessarily did a bad job of leading A-Rod. I disagree with Taylor on that point. But I do think that Jeter had plenty of opportunities to say that any talk of A-Rod struggling was absolute 100% butt-a-fucking hogwash. He never did. He didn't quite throw him under the bus, neither. I have to paraphrase here because it's late and I don't feel like looking up quotes from the year, but I remember his general take being "whatever happens, we're right there with him. Through his good times and bad."

I think he was a total dick. I think a good teammate stands up and says: "he's not struggling. He's awesome. Write a new story. This is bunk. I'm going to start a blog making fun of sports reporters because of the things you say."

And I don't know excactly what's meant by "character" and "loyalty," but I could see Jeter's actions in re: A-Rod's performance counting against him. Don't think it's a huge deal, but I just barely agree with this guy's point, so I wanted to write something to stick up for it.

Don't get me wrong -- it's a terrible article and his reasoning is generally awful. Let's just not toss the whole notion out; I think it has some merit.

Thanks to the many thousands of brave young men an...

2006-11-02T21:34:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the many thousands of brave young men and women who sent this in. Tune in soon for Gold Glove talk!