Dear Anonymous: Holliday vs. Rollins

Dear Anonymous,

Just so you know where I’m coming from, I am by no means anti-Philadelphia. How can I possibly dislike a city responsible for Hall & Oates, cheering Michael Irvin’s temporary paralysis, and the magnificently bizarre syncopation at the end of The Roots’ “You Got Me”? I couldn’t hate Philly if I tried.

And I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need a tissue. Dodgers fans, maybe. Mets fans, most certainly. But in my nineteen years of being a Cubs fan, I have spent approximately six days thinking we could win the World Series. The first six. Like many Cubs fans, I operate under the assumption that we will never go to, let alone win, the World Series during my lifetime. Rooting for the Cubs is like rooting for Charlie Brown to kick that football. Even if Lucy held the ball and Charlie Brown split the uprights, I’m sure it would have been brought back on a holding penalty, or Mike Shanahan would have called a time out right before the kick. I understand that. Chicago Cubs just don’t go to the World Series, and for some reason, that is the life that chose us.

With that out of the way, allow me to explain the reasoning behind my Matt Holliday comment: I threw that out there out of a jokingly antagonistic curiosity, and nothing more. It’s like how I said “Phillies” was a stupid name, except I absolutely think that’s true (I get the alliteration and what not, but if you want to be a horse, why not just be a Colt or a Stallion? Why go out of your way to specify that you are a female horse? It’s like the Orioles changing their name to the Baltimore Bitches. Kinda.). Being new to the blog game, I wondered if anybody read it, and furthermore, if anybody reading it even cared about the Phillies and Rays, or baseball in general. With that in mind, however, it doesn’t mean Jimmy Rollins deserved the MVP award. I don’t know either way, maybe he did. Let’s take a look, in a few of my MVP categories.

Bat

Holliday led the league in batting (.340), RBIs (137), hits (216), doubles (50), total bases (386) and extra-base hits (92). His 36 home runs were fourth in the league.

Rollins batted .296, had 212 hits, 38 doubles, 20 triples, 30 home runs, and 94 RBIs. His total bases (380) and extra-base hits (88) are records for shortstops.

Granted: Holliday plays in Coors Field, with a reputation that prompts his numbers to be automatically discounted a bit (he only received one of his first-place votes from an NL East writer, compared to seven for Rollins). With that in mind, it certainly doesn’t help that there was a huge disparity between his home (.376 BA, 25HRs, 82 RBIs) and away (.301 BA, 11HR, 55 RBIs) statistics.

However: Having allowed 241 home runs during the season, the most hitter-friendly park in 2007 was Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, not Coors field (Coors was ranked 5^th according to ESPN). Also, Holliday’s away batting average and on base percentages were still better than Rollins’ numbers at home, away, or combined.

Feet

Jimmy Rollins stole 41 bases. Matt Holliday only stole 11. Rollins had 139 runs (a record for shortstops) compared to Holliday’s 120.

Granted: Rollins is a 160-pound leadoff hitter. He should steal a lot of bases and score a lot of runs. Holliday is 6’4”, 235lbs and probably doesn’t see a lot of pitchouts when he’s on first.

However: That’s still a ton of runs, and 41 steals is pretty impressive in the post-Rickey Henderson era. You have to give credit where credit is due.

Defense

In 2007, Rollins had the second-highest fielding percentage of NL shortstops, committing only eleven errors on his way to his first gold glove.

Holliday had the second-highest fielding percentage of MLB left-fielders, committing three errors on his league-high 306 chances.

Granted: Rollins plays shortstop, perhaps the most difficult position in the field, and plays it remarkably well. Conversely, Holliday plays left field, the dumping ground for crappy outfielders like Manny Ramirez and Barry Bonds.

However: Sometimes MVP voters just don’t care that much about defense. Greg Maddux won 20 games and a gold glove in 1992, and finished 11^th in voting. Ozzie Smith won 13 gold gloves and never pulled down the MVP, coming close only one time. On the other hand, Alex Rodriguez has three MVP awards, and Bonds, who couldn’t throw out 62-year old Sid Bream, has seven.

Intangibles

Once you graduate from middle school, nobody should give you an award for being “a vocal leader” or “the heart and soul of the team”. Grown-ass men making millions of dollars shouldn’t need someone to “rally the troops”, or “pep up the locker room”, or any of that other garbage that sportswriters love to say about their favorite players. Intangibles are stupid. I award no points to either competitor.

Hat

Jimmy Rollins wears a hat that says “P”. Matt Holliday’s hat says “CR”. In my opinion, this is clearly no contest. How is it that I don’t walk around in a Rockies hat all day? I really need to start doing this. A bit off-topic, I admit, but still.

So who wins? Well, obviously Rollins won, but did he deserve to? I don’t know. It’s like getting in an argument about which game-show host was better, Alex Trebek or Marc Summers. They’re clearly asked to do different things, yet their job titles are the same. The stupid (and equally fantastic) thing about MVP voting is it’s ridiculously subjective. People can spend their entire lives arguing over the award, and all sides can have perfectly valid points. Upon statistical review, I think the award should have gone to Matt Holliday. However, I will concede that he was not “robbed”, as I jokingly said before. Jimmy Rollins had a fantastic season, and makes for a non-terrible choice for 2007 National League MVP.

Anyway, if you happen to read this and would like to comment back, I’d certainly like to hear your opinion. Thank you for writing, and congratulations on your inevitable 2008 World Series championship.

Sincerely,

Chris Rosenthall

Let's go Rays!

So I’m watching the Phillies – Dodgers game the other night over a big-ass bowl of pasta. Manny hit .533 in the series (pretty good, but certainly no Mark Grace and his .647 in the 1989 NLCS), but other than that, the Dodgers pretty much stunk up the place. Anyway, this isn’t about the Dodgers. No friends, I got no quarrel with the L.A. Dodgers. My real problem lies with my new least favorite collection of humans, the Philadelphia Phillies.

I realize most people don’t really care either way about the Phillies. I never did, and I was a huge baseball fan growing up. But here’s the thing: As soon as they got to around the 7^th inning of that Dodgers game, the announcers on Fox started going crazy about how, with a win, the Phillies would return to the World Series for the first time since 1993. How they’d ended years of futility and frustration. How the fans have had their hearts broken so much since 1993. Oh man! 1993, huh? Boy, that’s tough. All those years of struggling. Well here’s the thing, Philadelphia Phillies: I’m a Cubs fan, and you can all go screw yourselves.

If you don’t follow baseball, a brief summary: The Cubs never win. Ever. They haven’t won a World Series since 1908. They haven’t even been to one since 1945. And for some reason, I’m supposed to be happy for those poor Phillies and their devastating World Series drought.

Anyway, after the announcers took turns pissing me off, they had the nerve to interview shortstop Jimmy Rollins and ask him about his struggle to finally make it to the big game. He got to the majors in 2000, won the 2007 MVP (Matt Holliday got robbed, by the way) and look at him now, in the World Series. Hell of a struggle. Let’s look at some Cubs legends: Ron Santo played for 14 years. Ryne Sandberg played for 16 years(and if you dare mention that he played his first 13 games with the Phillies, I’ll kick your teeth in, swear to God). Ernie Banks (11-time All-Star, 2-time MVP) played for 18 years and never even got to the playoffs! So I’m sorry if I don’t have much pity for poor Jimmy and his struggle.

And how does this team even dare complain about futility? The Phillies have won four NL pennants since they won the World Series in 1980! They’re complaining about that? Four pennants in 28 years? That’s not bad at all. It’s not super-common, but it’s not rare. It’s cicada common. Cubs fans like myself would kill for cicada common. I’m not joking. Tell me who I’d have to kill. I won’t think twice.

And let’s get back to this for a second: they won the World Series in 1980! Many of us were alive then. I’m pretty sure you weren’t around when the Cubs last won one. You know how many people alive today were alive back in 1908? Like six. And they probably didn’t care about the Cubs winning the World Series. They were probably busy worrying about things like Indian attacks and dysentery.

Like baseball itself, I’m sure this is very boring to most of you, so I’ll wrap it up: Philadelphia Phillies (by the way, that’s a really dumb name), I hope you lose to the Tampa Bay Rays, and I hope you lose badly. I hope you get swept by a combined score of 148-3.

Hmm… it turns out the Phillies just won the first game of the Series. Well that’s even better; getting swept wouldn’t be heartbreaking enough. I hope it goes seven games. And with two outs and a three run lead in the bottom of the 14^th, a recently signed Joe Carter strolls up to the plate and sends a hanging curveball into the upper decks for a grand slam. And I hope you spend the next 60 years waiting to go back to the World Series. Then (when I’m 88 and the Cubs have won 23 more championships) you may come crying to me. But not a moment sooner, and certainly not this year.

Once again, go screw yourselves.

Sincerely,

Chris Rosenthall, Surly Cubs Fan.

My Brand-New Blog

So I finally sat down and created this blog I’ve been talking about. I would’ve done this weeks ago, but I just couldn’t think of a good name, which has been very difficult due to my crippling fear of permanent accountability. It’s the very reason I don’t have a tattoo. Or a senior quote in my high school yearbook. Eventually I forced myself to get past that fear, and I dedicated all of my brainpower to thinking of a great blog name.

Funny thing about naming a blog – everything is already taken. Here are some websites that have already been created on blogspot.com:

Okletssee
blogname
letstry
Chris
Rosie
22
Toocommon
howabout
Heavydandtheboys
Charliebrown
Charlieblue
Charliegreen
Iambald
Iamhairy
Iamharry
Partyandbullshit
Partynobullshit

and lastly,

Icantthinkofablogname

As you can see, quite a few have already been taken. I thought about it for weeks, throwing all sorts of suggestions on a piece of paper I kept at work. I got a few suggestions from you guys, all which were appreciated and considered. The best suggestion came from my brother, who wrote:

“You should name your blog Chinese Democracy Detox. Blog seems like a great idea, that people will really look forward to. But instead of doing it and making people happy, you will just talk about it forever and never do it.

This is because as every day passes you will try to work on it, but it will never be good enough because every day will also bring more pressure for it to be perfect.

Then you will show up on the VMAs a shell of your former self, with all new friends, blond cornrows for some reason, and a guy with a fried chicken bucket on his head.

I've seen it a million times.”

With that in mind, it finally hit me: why not call it chrisrosenthall @ blogspot? Not only is it easy to remember, but it’s a preemptive strike against domain name squatters who register celebrity’s names and charge them a ton of cash for their naming rights. Apparently those guys haven’t gotten to me yet, so I better act fast. And so I did. Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present my blog. Old stuff, new stuff, poems I perform, random crap that will make you dumber having devoted a second of your life to reading, etc. Hope you enjoy.