Best MLB Players (Polly Esther’s Madness)
In the spirit of March Madness, XM Radio MLB Home Plate channel 175’s “Baseball This Morning” radio show created a bracket of the 64 best major league baseball position players over the past four decades. Rather than selecting regions for each pod they instead broke it down by decade (70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and this decade). On one level, I found the players included to be interesting enough to warrant this post but also the seeding to be even more interesting of an argument. Below you will find the opening brackets for this Polly Esther’s* of baseball greats:
Each morning the hosts of “Baseball This Morning” invite callers to argue match-ups and they decide who advances to the next round. Once all the voting and match-ups are complete I will upload the final bracket results. Go ahead and compare them to your miserable NCAA bracket - if you have more than 2 of the final four teams right now you are officially a fucking genius and winner of my pool.
UPDATE 4/3/09: The Baseball This Morning crew have completed the bracket of 64 position players (not without controversy and use of “announcer veto power” - which they ran out of before they could prevent the upset of Cal Jr. over Bonds but whatever). Here is the final bracket for your viewing enjoyment (image).
*Background Information About Obscure Reference: About 3 years ago Polly Esther’s nightclub closed in Washington DC, officially drying up the largest cougar sex lair in the city. Those unfamiliar with the establishment should know it was a 4-story dance club featuring a differently themed decade on each floor… with the decor, music, and often clientele all fitting the era to perfection.
So are they only counting the player’s stats in that decade or for their entire careers? The latter would be more complete as most good careers crossover into at least two decades…and why are they only including position players and not pitchers? I know it’s easier to compare hitting stats, but I’m sure people aren’t voting on stats alone. You’d think a bunch of “baseball guys” could argue the intrinsic value of any player, not just the roided out, drooling retards swinging a big piece of wood.
Leave it up to XM radio to create a good idea and shit all over it…there’s a reason why they’re going bankrupt.
In order to try to represent players who may span more than one decade they took a body of the player’s work over the decade they felt was “most” representative of their career. The players were selected based upon their a) batting abilities and achievements at the plate and base running b) fielding skills/defense c) other intangibles like leadership and contribution in the clubhouse. Its not really a great measuring tool for a great ball player, but like all things baseball, it is fun to argue about.