Congratulations to Justin Verlander on being the first Tiger pitcher since Mawhk Fidrych in 1976 to win the American League Rookie of the Year award. Writing that last sentence was a little unnerving given how Fidrych's career turned out after his rookie year, with all the arm trouble and being finished in the majors by the time he was 25. Hopefully if there is a tragic figure from this years rookie class its Francisco Liriano. Not that I dislike Liriano, I really enjoy watching him pitch and wish him the best in his recovery, I just don;t like the idea of the Tigers having to compete against a divisional foe that would have perennial Cy Young contenders as their top two starters, but I digress. The A.L. Rookie of the Years is typically a harbinger for future big league success as exemplified by the long, prestigious careers of previous winners Angel Berrora, Ben Grieve, Bob Hamelin, Pat Listach, errr........and others. O.K. O.K. I'll stop being so negative about Verlander winning. It's a great honor and I'm just thrilled that the Tigers are being considered for major post season awards for the first time in years, (although I think Jose Macias finished 974th in
the 2000 RoY voting) and by all accounts Jim Leyland will win A.L. Manager of the Year barring some kind of Chicago style voting results, with Ozzie Guillen receiving 1st place votes from dead baseball writers like Ring Lardner,(by the way that's a photo of Lardner on the right battling gas) Tim Murnane, and Fred Lieb, (and if you don't think it I took 15 minutes looking up those names on Wikipedia, you don't know me.) Finally I'm surprised that Joel Zumaya and Curtis Granderson didn't get at least 1 vote. I would say that Zumaya was just as important and dominant over the course of the season as Papelbon was in Boston, and Papelbon isn't half the actor that Zumaya is for whatever that's worth, and Granderson was stellar this season leading off and playing some spectacular centerfield. I'm not saying that Zumaya and Granderson deserved to finish second and third I'm just saying it would have been nice if they got as many votes as Ian Kinsler. I don't even know who the hell that is. I thought their second baseman was still Doug Strange.
2 comments:
I agree that Zumaya should have had a few votes thrown his way. Unfortunately, Granderson wasn't eligible, as he had too many MLB AB's in 2005.
I have to give you props, I never thought I'd see a "Ring Lardner farts" tag, ever.
I wansn't sure if Granderson was eligible for the award or not. For some reason I thought Ryan Zimmerman , who came in second in the N.L. had as many at bats as Granderson, but I was wrong. I shouldve spent the 2 seconds to research that. Thanks.
Andy
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