To All My Loyal and Un-Loyal E-mailers
People often ask children what they want to be when they grow up. There are the ones who say police officers, those who say firemen, and of course the ones who want to be athletes. From baseball players to basketball players, to yes, even hockey players. I loved sports, but I never dreamed of being an athlete.The reason? The Voice was never much of an athlete. I was short, skinny, and did I mention not athletic? I always wanted to be a sports writer. Writing for the Daily News is still a dream of mine. Don’t get me wrong, if I died tomorrow I would die a happy man; because, after all, I write for BIGESPORTSTALK!
In any case, it annoys me when sports writers do not take their jobs seriously. I am confused by some of the guys who have been voted into the baseball hall of fame (Kirby Puckett for example) and they are voted in by sports writers. I am not going to debate the Hall of Fame here; instead I will debate two of the dumbest things sports writers have ever done (Other than last year numerous writers saying Jeter is the worst SS in baseball and should be released). One of these mistakes has an explanation which must be fixed, and one is just plain stupid. Let’s start with the stupid one, which usually means baseball.
In 1999 Rafael Palmerio won the gold glove at first base. Now don’t get me wrong, in his prime, Palmerio had a great glove; however, in 1999 he was mostly a DH. He only played 28 games at first base!! After he – a man who didn’t field for most of the season – won the gold glove, how could I take this award seriously? Now, I don’t think MLB should have taken away his gold glove. What is done is done. However, I would have taken away the voting rights of every sports writer that voted for him. They clearly just voted for last year’s winner, who of course, was the aforementioned Palmerio. These lazy sports writers should no longer be allowed to vote for gold glove, hall of fame, or ANYTHING! The reason? They did not take their jobs seriously. THE VOICE WOULD TAKE HIS JOB SERIOUSLY! Of course, the MLB did not do this; and to this day, I do not pay attention to who wins the gold glove.
Now, as you may have guessed, there is something more recent that made me think to write this article; because, the Palmero incident happened fourteen years ago.. The second dumbest thing that these sports writers did goes as follows: The NBA voted Tyson Chandler “Defensive Player of the Year”. I disagreed with this, but it wasn’t anything that would make me want to pull out my hair out. However, here is where it gets interesting. Chandlerdid not make “First Team All Defensive Team”. This drove me insane. Upon some investigating however, it did lead me to a respectable answer (After all this is not baseball!). The answer is that the voting is done by different parties. A media panel voted for Defensive Player of the Year, while the all-Defensive Team vote was conducted by the league’s thirty head coaches, who voted for a first and second team by position, and were not allowed to pick their own players. Now this excuses the writers to a degree, but again, it makes one of these awards useless. I say give full power to the writers, or the coaches – not both. Otherwise, you are making this award as meaningless as the Gold Glove.
I am David The Voice Stein and I have Spoken.
Any questions or comments please write to me at DavidVoiceStein@aol.om