Wednesday, July 11, 2007

An MVP Snubbed, And All Signs Point to Selig

Bud Selig, obviously still miffed over his lack of lordship over the Washington Nationals, has again taken to poisoning deserving Washington players instead of rewarding them for their vital contributions to this most-important (REALLY IT COUNTS) game where people from the Pirates are forced to play. Instead of rightfully anointing Nationals first baseman-cum-inspiration Dmitri Young a most valuable player award, for sparking the bottom-of-the-ninth, two-out rally with his karma('tism?)-tinged infield single, Selig thought to dole out the award to a big money overseas commodity.

Selig, whose commisionership boasts such luminous episodes as a tied All-Star game and sparsely attended regular season games in Puerto Rico, decided for once to check his heavy-handed dictatorial ways at the door and declined to step in and award Dmitri his obviously deserved MVP honors. If flashy inside-the-park home runs are such a strong criterion in determining an MVP, then surely Austin Kearns is high on the list of potential season MVPs for pulling off such a feat on May 12. If Selig is at all fair and consistent, he will make sure Austin is seriously considered.


While we are fostering most of the blame on the rarely accounting-for-himself commish, more finger wags ought to be pointed in the direction of National League coach Tony LaRussa. LaRussa's Cito-Gaston-like decision to keep his own star player on the bench in a key bases-loaded situation in the bottom of the ninth was eclipsed in idiocy only by his decision to sit Dmitri for 8 2/3 innings. We at DCO have analyzed Dmitri's limited playing time and have projected, based on his lone at bat, what his stats would have been had LaRussa done the right thing and played him the whole game:



AB = 4
R = 4
H = 4
RBI = 4
AVG. = 1.000

2B = 1
3B = 1
HR = 1

And the most important statistic, often not charted:
Most inspirational story in sports - 1

Maybe oft-confusing flip-flopping 'tism supporter/hater Mark Zuckerman ought to check these projections out next time he wants to throw out insane suggestions regarding the Nats' clubhouse lifeforce.

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