With October rapidly approaching, the debate is raging once again about baseball's most valuable player award. We're stuck with varying categories to measure what exactly is an MVP.
Literally translated, the award is given to the most valuable player for that specific league, but it's hardly an easy feat to determine.
This debate is not about numbers, because anyone can use numbers to justify his or her argument. This is about the intangibles that an MVP award should insinuate. An MVP should carry their team when the circumstances are dire and lift their lesser teammates up with otherworldly abilities not easily calculated in the face of unbelievable pressure.
It's about that defining moment when we as sports fans, not writers or sports talk hosts, look upon an athlete and know that athlete embodies the purest qualities of the award.
Leadership, toughness, and competitive spirit define an MVP and we often forget that. We are blinded by home runs, goals, touchdowns and even wins. Is an athlete more valuable to his team because his team wins more or is it simply the result of a better supporting cast?
The most overvalued and overused argument when determining an MVP is that "player X's" team has more wins than "player Y's" team.
Derek Jeter's Yankees may surpass 90+ wins once again, but Philadelphia would be rudderless without the sudden post-trade-deadline surge of first baseman Ryan Howard.
But again, this is not about specific players, or specific races, this is about a general ideal that is held among the highest honors in the sporting world; an ideal that to me has been tarnished by America's obsession with statistics, statistics and damn statistics.
The biggest problem we have is that we associate the most valuable player with the best player. Wrong. Steve Nash is not the best player in the NBA, but the last two years he has been voted the most valuable to his team. He ran an offense that has made the careers of Boris Diaw and Joe Johnson and propelled the Phoenix Suns into national headlines. Without the ball handling and court vision of Nash, the Suns would be stuck pining for the glory days of Kevin Johnson and Charles Barkley, while admiring the cold ceramic floor of the Western Conference basement.
When Alex Rodriguez captured the award last season for American League MVP over David Ortiz, the overwhelming consensus was that Ortiz lost the award simply because he is a designated hitter. However, I pose the question: Is bad defense better than no defense?
Make no mistake; A-Rod is no longer the elite defensive player he was at shortstop and at third commonly makes routine defensive mistakes. Why is it that Ortiz is not just as valuable to his team because he, and his team, realize his defensive shortcomings and maximize his impact by simply allowing him to concentrate on hitting?
Watch the Seattle Mariners teams from the 90s and you'll see that it was not Ken Griffey Jr. or A-Rod that made the offense go, but rather their distinguished designated hitter, Edgar Martinez - who will no doubt soon challenge the idea that a designated hitter cannot be a Hall of Famer.
A player is remarkably more valuable when he realizes that he is simply not gifted in certain areas. Every player is not a five-tool athlete, capable of doing it all. All players have shortcomings, whether it's defensively or offensively, and in order to be as valuable to your team as you possibly can be, those shortcomings must be realized.
I am not defending those who support Ortiz, or indoctrinating those who support Jeter. I personally would not have voted for Steve Nash, and I think Tom Brady and Jaromir Jagr were more valuable than Shaun Alexander and Joe Thornton, respectively.
Maybe everyone will hate me for this, and maybe you're sitting in class right now wanting to scream at the top of your lungs about how much of a tool I am. But maybe, just maybe, you're sitting in the 10th row of Knox 20, in a class of 450 undergraduates, thinking that it's not just about the numbers.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
