It’s 2:15 AM and I’m a bit weary but I wanted to get in a few gripes about the absurdity of All-Star game voting.
As most of you know, Canon Fodder calls Detroit home and this year the Tigers are sending at least five representatives to the big exhibition in San Francisco. Even with five representatives, local talk jocks pleaded for yet another Tiger to be included on the team. Though Curtis Granderson is having himself one heck of a season he’s hardly earned a spot over the likes of Ichiro (a leadoff hitter sporting a .421 on-base percentage) or even reserve outfielder Grady Sizemore (and his .397 OBP). Granted, Grandy is leading the league in triples and is slugging the snot out of the ball, but one can’t overlook the biggest drawback to Grandy’s game – no, not the alarming three-to-one strikeout to walk ratio – but his complete inability to hit lefties to the tune of a .129 average this year. Fellow lefties Ichiro and Sizemore leadoff the batting order regardless of facing a righty or a southpaw. Granderson, on the other hand, leads off versus righties and then drops down to the nine-spot if he even plays at all when facing a lefty. So let’s just stop all the nonsense about Curtis Granderson being overlooked for this year’s All-Star game. He’ll eventually learn to hit lefties, become less of a platoon player, and earn his way on to a future All-Star team.
But Grandy isn’t what’s got me hot this evening. There was another selection truly rubbing me the wrong way. Ivan “Pudge†Rodriguez – another Tiger – isn’t even one of the top four American League catchers and yet the lemming public voted him as the AL starter. Don’t get me wrong; Pudge is a surefire Hall of Fame induction and rightfully so. However, there’s no way a .293 OBP (that’s right, O-B-P, not batting average) and a woeful ten-to-one strikeout to walk ratio should ever be starting behind the dish. Unfortunately, Major League Baseball in its infinite wisdom puts All-Star ballots into the hands of every beer-chugging biped that manages to squeeze through the turnstile.
When that happens you end up with guys like Pudge playing an intricate part in deciding which league will have home field advantage in the event of a seventh game in the World Series. Though I believe in the power of the people to determine their representatives in Congress and even the President, there’s no way they should have any input on something as important as the location of a deciding game in the World Series. Talk about the inmates running the asylum…
And I don’t even want to get into the 190,000 votes catapulting Barry Bonds into left field. To me it smacks of Rorygate.
I’m out of town on Tuesday. Wednesday is the Fourth. That leaves Thursday at best for the next post.
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