"While I have great respect for the Baseball Writers' Association of America and all of its contributions to our national game throughout the years, I firmly believe that a great injustice has been done to Hideki Matsui.

Two misguided writers -- Bill Ballou from the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette and Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune -- in voting for American League Rookie of the Year, clearly made up their own rules to determine who was and was not eligible for the award and disqualified an eligible candidate who could have won.

 

One of the writers in question, Mr. Ballou, actually said, 'While he [Matsui] is technically a rookie by the rules of Major League Baseball, he is not a rookie in the spirit of the award.'

 

Spirit of the award? The award was renamed by the Baseball Writers' Association to honor Jackie Robinson, its first recipient. Jackie Robinson came to the Major Leagues after playing in the Negro Leagues, a league whose high level of play is unquestioned.

 

This year's voting farce, where the appropriate qualifications for the award were blatantly ignored, clearly demonstrates unfairness to first-year players from Japan. And that must be stopped."

This is like shooting fish in a barrel. Look at the stats, Georgie, not the hype.

Go back and cry under a rock, no one cares george and Matsui had a great year stat wise Rippy

 

H. Matsui, AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB BA OBP SLG OPS

NYY 623 82 179 42 1 16 106 2 2 63 .287 .353 .435 .788

c/o espn.com

for those who care about the more esoteric stats (which is nobody, I'm sure):

 

VORP:

 

Berroa: 34.0

Matsui: 22.5

Gerut: 17.9

 

RAP:

 

Berroa: 27.0

Matsui: 23.6

Gerut: 20.1

 

Matsui's playing time gives him the edge over Gerut, but Berroa comes out on top.

for those who care about the more esoteric stats (which is nobody, I'm sure):

 

VORP:

 

Berroa: 34.0

Matsui: 22.5

Gerut: 17.9

 

RAP:

 

Berroa: 27.0

Matsui: 23.6

Gerut: 20.1

 

Matsui's playing time gives him the edge over Gerut, but Berroa comes out on top.

Apparently, George doesn't care. All that matters is that a Yankee didn't win.

guess he'll have to buy one of those Cuban pitchers!

guess he'll have to buy one of those Cuban pitchers!

What a whiner (George, cry me a river).

He makes a couple of valid points though. Matsui not even being on people's ballots is stupid (granted Berroa wasn't on 2 either) and his point about Jackie Robinson and players from the Negro League being eligible is interesting. The voters are supposed to vote on who the best rookie is, not make some stand about who should be eligible for the award.

 

He's still a whiner though, mainly because he doesn't make those 2 points if Matsui still won.

Setting aside that Matsui was a professional who had raked in millions in free agency in another league, or that Berroa was better or that the BBWA rarely give an award to a deserving player for the right reasons.

The boss makes a good argument though. It seems the bias against the Yankees among the Red Sox and/or 'small market' -friendly sports media made the issue of Matsui's prior accomplishments much larger than it ever has been for Ichiro, Nomo or Sasaki.