Results tagged ‘ baseball ’
Clearing things up …
For the past hour or so, I have been talking – more arguing – with someone about my blog titled “Utley, NOT Pujols, is baseball’s most popular player.” Basically, a St. Louis Cardinals fan and myself engage in an argument about whether Chase Utley’s numbers are inflated because of the park he plays in. His side was that his numbers were inflated because of Citizens Bank Park, mine was that the park doesn’t matter on why Utley has such great numbers.
Let’s just say, it got pretty heated.
But that’s what happens when you get into arguments as fans, you take one side and you stick with it, maybe to a point where what you say doesn’t make sense or you forget what the argument is all about. That’s what I think happened between the two. I think we were having a good little debate until both of us just decided to start attacking each other with words, looking back on it, it was pretty funny.
This individual pointed something out to me after the argument. He pointed out that my blog didn’t exactly say what I intended it to mean. I’m not entirely sure, but maybe since he was a Cards fan, he thought that I was saying that Chase Utley was the best player in the game and that was the point of the blog. I’m not entirely sure what he thought I meant because what we arguing didn’t even had much to do with the actual blog itself, but he did make me realize that what I was trying to say may have come across as something else.
That entry was my way of saying a few things about the MLB All-Star game:
First: It’s a popularity contest, and no one can say otherwise. You know for a fact that you vote for your favorite players, and that doesn’t always mean the best player or the player most worthy of making the team.
Second: The idea of the All-Star game is to showcase the league’s best players, and I was trying to show that giving the fans a voice in the matter eliminates that idea.
Fans, including myself, don’t give their vote to players they don’t like even though they may be more worthy of making the roster. I used an example of Barry Bonds, no matter how great he is doing, I would never give him a vote. Say a few years ago, by the All-Star game, he was batting .400 with 35 home runs and 90 RBIs, I would not vote for him because my dislike for him. He would get in without a doubt, but it wouldn’t be because of me.
I also used an example from this year: Jimmy Rollins is leading the ballots as shown in the results from the latest polls. As much as I love J-Roll, he isn’t worthy of the starting spot for the All-Star team. I tried to say that Hanley Ramirez or Miguel Tejada was more worthy of it because they are having way better seasons.
But Rollins is leading the way because he’s more popular at least in Philly, but I highly doubt that just Philly gave them all those votes, if so, that’s impressive in itself.
Third: This is where I think it may have been taken out of context. From the latest voting update that MLB has released, Chase Utley has the most votes out of all National League players, even more than Albert Pujols. From the title, you’d probably think that I was trying to say that Utley is better than Pujols.
I wasn’t.
Utley not only is the most popular player, he is
the best player at his position and arguably the best in the league,
although I’m not making that argument.
From that sentence, you could have assumed that I was trying to make an argument for him being the best player in the league. Although you could make one for him, I was not making that argument nor was it even relevant to the point that I was trying to make.
What I should have done is just voiced my opinion about the All-Star game. My beliefs are that since it’s a meaningful game and decides home field advantage in the World Series, fans should not be allowed to vote for their favorite players. If you are going to make the game – which is meant to be festivities for the fans, to give them a show – some meaning, you have to have the most worthy players in it.
Not the most popular.
I don’t like the current setup of the game, I don’t think that the winner of the game should get home field advantage. There are several things wrong with this setup:
First, the starters play two-three-four innings and that’s it. The starting pitcher throws one-two innings and everyone else tosses a frame or even just one batter. The intensity isn’t there, no player is going to play like they would for their team because no one wants to risk injury in an All-Star game.
Could you imagine if lets say Pujols tore his ACL in the All-Star game while running out a grounder? All the chaos that would follow would be unnecessary.
Second, managers could have a hidden agenda. You’re Charlie Manuel and you’re the manager for the N.L. team this year, its the 7th inning and your up by 1 run. Francisco Rodriguez is going to be your closer, but you start having him warm up in the 7th, he throws a lot of pitches in the bullpen. Then the A.L. team either ties it up in the 8th or goes ahead, you don’t use him. You could have possibly injured your rival’s closer.
No manager would intend to do that, although I’ve seen it happen at least once before in just last year’s game. Clint Hurdle made Brad Lidge throw 100-plus pitches in an All-Star game. That could have really hurt Lidge, what if he was injured then?
Third, it’s supposed to be fun to watch. Many people enjoy watching it, but an All-Star game to me is to see all my favorite players play. Every player should have to get at least one at-bat or throw at least 1/3 of an inning. No player should get the honor and not make an appearance.
If the game was tied after nine and there were no more pitchers, game’s over. Tie ball game. If not, you go on until there are no more pitchers available to throw. What’s the big deal if the game ends in a 9-9 tie?
I think the fans should have a vote and should decide who they want to see when it rolls around because it’s all centered around entertainment. But you can’t make the game meaningful if the fans vote in their favorite players and not the best players.
Something I need to do better is my presentation. What I was doing was just saying that since Utley has the most votes, he’s the most “popular” player. Really, what does that matter? I went off on some rants, and some other things that weren’t needed.
It was just a bunch of nonsense about how the game is a popularity contest.
Utley, NOT Pujols, is baseball’s most popular player
The idea of an All-Star game is to showcase baseball’s best players. We need to get back emphasizing the word best.
In the Webster’s New World handy dandy pocket dictionary, the word best is defined as: most excellent.
That isn’t the case for most of the All-Star voting. Why? Because fans have a say in it.
Hey, I’m all for the fans voting for the All-Star game, why shouldn’t the fans have a say in the festivities? We, the fans, are the reason there is an All-Star game. We should have a say who we see in it.
But with the fans, you don’t get the best players in the game every year. Grant it, for the most part, the best players do indeed get voted in but not all the time.
For instance: Jimmy Rollins is leading all shortstops in the National League in voting for the 2009 MLB All-Star game, over the talents of Hanley Ramirez, Cristian Guzman and Miguel Tejada.
Going by numbers, either Guzman, Ramirez or Tejada should be the leading candidate for the starting shortstop position for the N.L. All-Star team.
Here are the numbers between the four players:
Rollins:
.217 average
5 home runs
25 RBIs
.254 on-base percentage
Guzman:
.322 average
3 home run
15 RBI
.341 on-base percentage
Ramirez:
.330 average
8 home runs
34 RBIs
.395 on-base percentage
Tejada:
.344 average
6 home runs
36 RBIs
.366 on-base percentage.
The best player out of those four is Ramirez or Tejada, that’s debatable. Ramirez deserves to the starting shortstop for the team because he has the best numbers all-around and he has the best on-base percentage. Two of the four are lead-off hitters and Ramirez was a lead-off guy, and the best attribute of a lead-off hitter is the ability to get on-base.
Today’s lead-off hitter isn’t the prototypical guy, you know, the guy that takes pitches, walks, gets base hits and doubles, steal bases, today’s lead-off hitter has power. Look at Rollins, in 2007 he won the N.L. MVP. When was the last time a prototypical lead-off hitter had 30 homers?
That’s the kind of lead-off hitter I like, one who sets the table. The prototypical guy, the Ricky Henderson’s of the world. Sure, the power is a plus, but I’d rather have the potential for two-three runs than just a lead-off homer. Let’s not get sidetracked.
My point of all that was that the All-Star game, how it is currently set up, doesn’t put the best player into the game. Instead, it’s just a popularity contest.
Popularity contest is what you get when you give the fans their voice, as it should be. BUT the way the All-Star game is set up, the fans shouldn’t have a say in who makes the team. If the MLB wants to make the game meaningful like they do, you know, the winner of the game gets home-field advantage in the World Series, then you shut the fans up in this situation.
The fans are not going to vote in the best players, not a chance. For example, if Barry Bonds still was playing and he was batting .600 with 100 homers and 300 RBIs in the first two months, I would not give him a single vote. I ha…dislike him very much. But that’s just the product of me not liking the individual and not giving him my vote even though his numbers deserve it.
See? Popularity contest.
You want it to be meaningful? Then take our voice away. We should have a voice, and I’m all for that, but if we want a voice, how about we use it to eliminate the fact that the winner of the All-Star game determines home-field advantage.
Back to the topic at hand, which I have failed to mention yet…
Chase Utley is baseball’s most popular player. That’s right, not Albert Pujols – who just about everyone says is the best player in the game. Utley leads all players with 2,273,355 votes. That is 115,319 more than Pujols.
Let me settle this first, because I know you all are thinking “this guy is an idiot, he says the best players, not the most popular player,” calm down. Utley not only is the most popular player, he is the best player at his position and arguably the best in the league, although I’m not making that argument.
I love Chase Utley, he is a stud. He is far & beyond the best second basemen in the entire league and one day, may go down as the best second bagger to ever put on a pair of cleats. That’s right, you heard me.
But ESPN makes you believe that Pujols is far & beyond the best hitter in the game. He might as well be it, that’s more of a personal opinion. I could say that Eric Bruntlett is the best player in the game, I have that right, but I’m not going there because Bruntlett hardly deserves a spot on a Triple-A team.
If Pujols is the best hitter and everyone’s favorite player, then why isn’t he leading the way thus far in voting? He wasn’t either, Utley again was last year.
So whose more popular? Pujols or Utley?
Utley is the most popular player in baseball, not just in Philly, around the baseball world. Who knows why really.
I have a couple of opinions on why he is:
Opinion #1: Fans love the way he plays the game because he plays it how it is supposed to play. If you’re a parent and you want your child to look up to one player, Chase Utley would be that player. He does everything right. How many players in today’s era do you know actually run out every single play? … anyone? Utley does that. Utley has power, hits for average, has great speed, and his most underrated attribute: his defense.
Utley will and should win multiple gold glove awards. Coming into the league, the biggest knock on him was his defense. He was hardly regarded as an average guy, and yet now, he’s one of the best defenders at the second base position in the game.
Sure he’ll make some errors here and there, but his great defensive plays outweigh the rare bonehead ones he commits. He has made some terrific plays, remember his pump fake to first and gun out at home during the World Series? Have you ever seen such greatness before?
Oh, and he is one tough cookie. How many players do you know will go through almost a full regular season and entire playoffs with a hip injury that require surgery, and that he probably shouldn’t have played through. Oh and play through it with the stats he did, 2008 was a down season for Utley, but how many players can you say a season in which you hit .292 with 33 homers and 104 RBIs a down-year? Maybe one or two more players, of who I can’t name.
Opinion #2: Have you seen his face? We all know why the girls like him…
Something here really bugs me about St. Louis. The 2009 MLB All-Star game is in your town, and you have the consensus best player in the game, and you don’t vote him to the top of the voting polls? That kind of pathetic, don’t you think?
That either explains my theory of Utley being the most popular player in baseball and quite arguably the best player in the game if you want to go there or the more logical theory: St. Louis just doesn’t care.
Let Me Say Hello!
What’s anything without really knowing what it is in the first place?
My name is Tom Dougherty, and I love baseball. I’m team of worship is the Philadelphia Phillies, but I don’t limit myself to just my hometown team. I watch as much baseball as I can, whether it be a Yankees-Red Sox game or even if those lousy Mets are playing, its baseball to me.
I follow baseball, but I am an even bigger hockey fan if you will, although I couldn’t really tell you which sport I like better because I find myself loving both equally. If I had to pick a favorite sport – whose making me? – I’d probably chose baseball because that’s what I grew up with, you know, had little league, the whole nine yards.
I love all Philly sports, and am a fan of three of the four “Major” sports: Baseball, Football and Hockey. I’m not much of a fan for basketball, could really care less about it to tell you the truth, but I still follow. I guess that’s what ESPN does for you. I shouldn’t say that I could care less about all of basketball; college basketball is actually enjoyable. The National Basketball Association is a joke to me.
This blog will be something that I hope to enjoy doing, because I have a voice and I would love to let it be heard! One day, I hope to either be a sports writer or something that involves some type of sports.
So there it is, feel free to contact me anytime you want.
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