MLB Awards

One of the biggest problems that I have with Major League Baseball’s regular season awards is that the voters tend to take the entire season into consideration when the last 3 or 4 weeks of the season are actually irrelevant to many award contenders. Very often, September games are formalities. Let’s take the American League MVP race, for instance. The top 5 contenders for the award seem to be Jose Bautista, Jacoby Ellsbury, Curtis Granderson, Dustin Pedroia, and Justin Verlander. Today, Granderson is viewed as less in contention for the MVP than he was at the end of August. Why? Because his numbers fell off. To that, I say “So what?”

The Yankees have been a virtual postseason lock since the All-Star break. The second half of the season has only strengthened their hold on a playoff spot. Essentially, their place in October was sewn up before Labor Day. Why should anything that happened after that point count for or against Curtis Granderson’s MVP case? It makes no sense to me.

During the early portions of the season, everyone has—or appears to have—the same goal of trying to make it into October. That changes by the end of August. Don’t get me wrong. I am not arguing that only players for contenders should be considered for the league MVP. What I am saying is that players on teams fighting for playoff berths have different September goals than those on teams already assured of playoff spots and those on teams just playing out the string. The Yankees woke up on September 1 with a 8.5-game lead on Tampa Bay for the American League Wild Card. Honestly, can you count anything against any Yankee player—A.J. Burnett excepted—for their play from then to now?

The same thing can be said about the National League Cy Young Award. Clayton Kershaw is a clear and deserving winner this year. He would get my vote. I know some voters, however, will pay attention to how Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee closed the season. Again, why? The Phillies swept the Braves in a three-game series from September 5-7. The sweep increased the Phillies’ lead in the National League East from 7.5 to 10.5 games. The race was over at that point. The last 3 weeks for the Phillies was about getting & staying healthy and keeping everyone sharp for the playoffs. It was not about going out there every fifth day and shutting down opposing offenses.

These awards should be judged based upon the contending players’ effective seasons. To me, it makes no sense to do it any other way.

Stream of Thoughts on the NFL

The other day, Cold Hard Football Facts made a post defending Eli’s claim that he was on the same level as Tom Brady. They weren’t arguing that Eli is at the same level as Brady, but rather that he led both the greatest upset and greatest championship drive in NFL history and, therefore, needs to take a back seat to no one. After reading that column, I felt the need to go back and rewatch the 4th quarter of Super Bowl XLIII because I thought both Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger had led pretty great drives themselves. Let me tell you: both of them are amazing to watch in real-time, especially Roethlisberger’s game-winner. Thinking about those drives got me thinking about other things, too. Here’s how my thought process went:

• During my rewatch, I got to see Larry Fitzgerald’s long touchdown catch-and-run that put the Cardinals ahead. I remember watching the game live and seeing James Harrison run with every ounce of energy he had to try and catch Fitzgerald until Troy Polamalu ran over to him and tapped his shoulder. “Give it up, man. They got us,” was the message in that tap. Every time I rewatch that play, that tap is what sticks with me. That play, if you really think about it, embodies everything that four players personified during their careers. The perfect placement of the pass by Warner that led Fitzgerald into the opening of the defense; Fitzgerald’s great hands and perfect route, and perfect stride; the relentless pursuit of James Harrison; and Polamalu putting himself in awful defensive position by jumping to the outside and leaving the middle open, then coming back and trying to make a play, and finally taking care of his teammate. Great, great play. It’s the most memorable play from that Super Bowl to me, and yes I remember Harrison and Santonio Holmes’ touchdowns.
  
  
• On the television broadcast, John Madden remarked how the game was in the Steelers defense’s hands and they failed to come through. When the Steelers came back to win, people commented how Roethlisberger was actually a part of that Super Bowl team. There is a myth out there that he rode the defense’s coattails to the 2005 championship. That’s false. Roethlisberger had a historically bad Super Bowl, but look at the rest of that playoff run. The Steelers offense passed in the first half to get leads and then ran the ball in the second half kill the clock. People are letting the horrible Super Bowl XL he played cloud their memories of the other 3 playoff games Pittsburgh played that year. Roethlisberger threw 2 touchdown passes in the first half of each of those other 3 games and totaled 7 TDs and 1 INT total. His quarterback rating in those games were 148.7, 95.3, and 124.9, respectively. One dreadful game does not equal riding the defense’s coattails during a playoff run.
  
  
• The moment when Polamalu tapped Harrison’s shoulder reminds me of a similar moment that took place a year earlier. After Randy Moss caught the touchdown that put the Patriots up 14-10 in the Super Bowl against the Giants, Tedy Bruschi and Junior Seau hugged on the sidelines. Those two moments were the exact opposite of each other. Whereas the Steelers’ moment was consoling, this was triumphant. Ironic how the Steelers came back to win and the Patriots’ defense let the game slip through their fingers.
  
  
• Speaking of slipping through fingers, have any good players ever had worst Super Bowl 4th quarters than Asante Samuel and Rodney Harrison did against the Giants? Harrison, of course, couldn’t get the ball off of David Tyree’s helmet. The Giants’ first touchdown drive began with Kevin Boss beating Harrison for a 45-yard gain. Samuel, you remember, failed to intercept a pass that went through his hands on the play before the helmet catch. Earlier in the quarter, a few plays after Boss’ big gain, David Tyree caught a touchdown pass when Samuel was too slow to react to him in the end zone.
  
  
• He wasn’t a good player, but Anthony Dorsett had a pretty bad play in a Super Bowl 4th quarter when he misplayed a ball in the air. That turned into Kurt Warner’s 73-yard game-winning touchdown pass to Isaac Bruce. Of course, the Raiders signed Dorsett to a free agent contract that offseason. He repaid them by misplaying a pass over the middle to Shannon Sharpe that the tight end turned into the longest touchdown pass in NFL playoff history.
  
  
• Isaac Bruce’s touchdown overshadows two of the greatest drives in history. Everyone remembers the nearly 90-yard drive that ended with Kevin Dyson at the Rams’ 1-yard line. Earlier in that half, though, the Titans were on the verge of getting blown out. The Rams had just scored to make the score 16-0, and my father and I were wondering if we were about to witness the first shutout in Super Bowl history. The Titans then marched on to the first of what would be consecutive 7+ minute scoring drives that would help them tie the game. The first one was a beauty, though, encompassing everything the Steve McNair-era Titans were all about. Only three men—other than the center—touched the ball during that drive: McNair, Eddie George, and Frank Wycheck. It was a 12-play, 66 yard touchdown drive that made the score 16-6, and the only play that went longer than 9 yards was a McNair run that went for 23. You don’t see teams trailing by double digits in the second half commit to running the football, but the Titans did, and they came all the way back to tie the game. It was a great drive, and we’ll probably never see another one like it in a Super Bowl situation again.
  
  
• I don’t think people realize how great Mike Jones’ tackle of Kevin Dyson on the game’s final play really was. Watch it again. Jones wasn’t supposed to be able to make that play. He must have seen Dyson from the extreme limit of his peripheral vision. It is, without hyperbole, the most important tackle in Super Bowl history.
  
  
• And all this makes me think about how lucky football fans in their mid-20s and younger are. When I was growing up, the Super Bowl was always an awful game. From the time I was 6 years old through my freshman year in college, the Super Bowl scores were as follows: 38-9, 36-16, 46-10, 39-20, 42-10, 20-16, 55-10, 20-19, 37-24 (24-0 midway through the 3rd), 52-17, 30-13, and 49-26. From Super Bowl XXX on, they’ve been pretty good, and people who grew up watching these games are very fortunate. Look at the scores from the last 16 Super Bowls: 27-17 (Steelers trailed by 3 and had ball at midfield with a few minutes left), 35-21, 31-24, 34-19, 23-16, 34-7, 20-17, 48-24, 32-29, 24-21, 21-10, 29-17 (Chicago trailed and had the ball nearing midfield in the 4th), 17-14, 27-23, 31-17, and 31-25. That’s a pretty good run of Super Bowls.