Soriano or A-Rod? Bonds or Sosa?
For weeks, the debate has been brewing: Should a great player on a bad team win his league's MVP award?
Some say that the award should go to the league's best player. After all, it's not Alex Rodriguez's fault that the Rangers bullpen is less reliable than a Bill Burig promise. And while Sammy Sosa's numbers are impressive on their own, they become even more meaningful when one considers the fact that he is surrounded in the lineup by, well, eight Cubs.
But then again, there are those who insist that the word "valuable" implies that the player is helping his team win. Sosa may have 43 homers, but helping your team to a 55-75 record at this point in the season just shouldn't cut it.
This season, however, there is a solution to this dilemma. If these guys aren't on the field Aug. 30--the current strike date--then there just shouldn't be an MVP.
Period.
The award is meant to go to the game's Most Valuable Player. And if you're a multi-millionaire who thinks that the strength of the union is priority No. 1, then you don't deserve to be called "valuable."
The 1994 players' strike led to the World Series being cancelled for the first time in 90 years. The season didn't end with a mound celebration, bottles of champagne and t-shirts proclaiming one team World Champions. Instead, fans saw Donald Fehr and company lamenting the fact that the two sides were unable to reach an agreement.
Despite these circumstances, however, the postseason awards went ahead as planned. Frank Thomas and Jeff Bagwell were each named as their respective league's Most Valuable Player.
Beginning Aug. 12, 1994, Thomas and Bagwell were free to sit on their couches all day long, eating potato chips and playing video games. Yet in November, baseball writers honored these two players by using their names along with the words "valuable" and "baseball" in the same sentence.
Somehow, the concept that there is nothing valuable or honorable in choosing to end the season in August was overlooked.
In fact, baseball itself has acknowledged that if the games don't end, the awards aren't distributed. This year's All-Star Debacle was abruptly ended after 11 innings in a 7-7 tie. The game's MVP award, which had recently been named after Ted Williams, was given to... nobody.
There was no winner; there was no MVP.
It was less than a year ago that the nation turned to baseball as a means of recovering from the trauma of Sept. 11. Games were postponed for nearly a week, after which Americans watched as the Seattle Mariners celebrated their A.L. West title by gathering around an American flag.
Mets and Yankees wore NYPD and FDNY hats, while "God Bless America" echoed through ballparks across America. The players themselves reminded us that it's people like the policemen and firefighters who lost their lives who are America's true heroes.
Last year, players, owners and fans all agreed that coping with national tragedies overshadowed the need for the players to be on the field. This year, if they go on strike, the players are asserting that their own greed and stubborness deserve similar status. Yet, for some reason, the expectation exists that each league will name someone its Most Valuable Player.
And with priorities like the players currently have, none of them are even remotely deserving of that title.
Evan Davis is a Trinity senior and senior associate sports editor. His column appears every Wednesday.
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