I like Mike

After watching the debate last night, I've come to a decision:

I'm voting Mike Trout for American League MVP.

Well, okay, I'm not really voting.  I don't have a vote.  Still, this seems to me to be an issue that an educated baseball fan should take a side on, much like Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame, steroids and the Hall of Fame, and the Designated Hitter.  Now I've got my side.

Before I give you specific reasons why I support Trout, I'll offer up my first piece written for Ballpark Digest, The Official American League MVP debate.  I think it states both sides pretty succinctly.

(My opinions, in order:  Put him in, but write about the gambling on his plaque.  Bonds - yes, Clemens - yes, Sosa and Palmeiro - no.  Get rid of it.)

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Following the actual presidential debate, political pundits struck me as disturbingly similar to ESPN's cast of sports analysts, experts, and insiders.  There were a whole lot of words being spoken, but there wasn't a whole lot being said.  Worse, the pundits are immediately gratingly arrogant in the clueless Skip Bayless/Stephen A. mold.  Every word they speak is the gospel truth... so why aren't you taking notes?  (Or, better yet, kissing their feet?)

It does not help that their language is rooted in hyperbole.  Every moment could be crucial.  With a poor performance, Mitt Romney could have lost the Presidency last night.  Instead he remade himself.  (In much the same vein, I think I heard that the next Dallas Cowboys loss may very well prove the end of the franchise's playoff hopes this season -- and perhaps the end of the franchise entirely.)

My vote is locked in -- I know exactly who my chosen candidate is and I greatly doubt anything from this point out will dissuade me.

Still, I watch... because you never know, right?

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Weird theory:  Allegedly, Abraham Lincoln spoke in a relatively high-pitched voice, far removed from any of the dramatically baritone recitations of the Gettysburg Address you'll hear today.  No wonder Stephen Douglas beat him in 1858.  (I bet the Skip Baylesses of the day went around crowing from local mountaintops while the political sabermetrics people were outraged.  Seriously, who was better at WAR than Abraham Lincoln?)

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