The 2001 Strikethree.com Baseball Awards

You voted (oh, how you voted), you waited, and we tallied (and tallied and tallied and tallied). Now we've shaken off the carpal tunnel, rented some snappy tuxes (you knew this was black-tie, right?) and we're here to present the first annual Strikethree.com Baseball Awards. We were hoping for a hooky catchphrase, but all we could come up with was, "Whaddya mean, 'My VH1 Music Awards'? I didn't vote for frickin' Creed!"

You Said It See some of the best and wackiest reader responses right here...

musical numbers), let's start opening envelopes. The rubber gloves and painter's mask, please...

American League MVP

While this choice may have been hotly debated, you were certain that the best of the 2001 AL crop was the A's Jason Giambi. At least, we think you're certain -- we did have to assume that everyone who responded with simply "Giambi" didn't mean Jeremy.

Alex Rodriguez made a reasonable showing, but wasn't even close to Giambi's total. The Mariner tandem of Bret Boone and Ichiro Suzuki also received a number of votes, and some wise guy picked Cal Ripken.

National League MVP

His name is Bonds. Barry Bonds. It didn't even look like anyone else would get a single vote, until a handful of ballots for Albert Pujols, Luis Gonzalez, and Sammy Sosa (hi, Mr. Boswell) trickled in. You done good.

American League Pitcher of the Year

One of the problems with beginning the voting as the playoffs are starting is that playoff performance can color the balloting. That was the case with this award, which looked like a runaway victory for the Freddy Garcia. However, as the postseason progressed, the tide began to turn in the favor of Roger Clemens, who looked like he'd surpass the Mariners' ace. With the two in a dead heat and one more vote to count, someone out there (probably a Nader supporter) decided to toss his nod to Mark Buehrle.

Result: a tie. And don't even think of taking it to the Supreme Court.

Mike Mussina (probably the true Nader metaphor in this contest) finished close to the winners, as did the Athletics' Mark Mulder.

National League Pitcher of the Year

Not nearly the toss-up that was the AL, as Randy Johnson won in a landslide, and with good reason -- a record season for K/9, his year was bookended by the infamous Spring Training bird-nailing incident and his playoff triumphs, ensuring press attention to match his achievements. His closest rival was teammate Curt Schilling. The only other pitcher to earn multiple votes was Greg "I Wuz Robbed By The Umps" Maddux.

American League Rookie of the Year

Another landslide here, as the only people who didn't vote for Ichiro Suzuki were the few who didn't believe he qualified as a rookie, and plumped for Tribe starter C.C. Sabathia. However, under Strikethree.com voting rules...wait, there are no rules! You could have voted for Ripken if you wanted!

Oh, and Jay Gibbons got a vote, indicating that there's a madman out there.

National League Rookie of the Year

Oy, this one was close. So many candidates, a see-saw battle for the prize, and...oh, who am I trying to kid. You know him, you love him, many of you can't spell his name, Albert Pujols pretty much stomped all over second-place Roy Oswalt in the balloting. No one else even got more than one vote.

American League Manager of the Year

Trust us, a little later the voting gets a lot closer. Right now, however, there's more stomping than at a wine festival. You know him, you tolerate him, you forget the second "i"... M's skipper Lou Piniella got a lot of credit from you for his team's 116 wins. Oakland's Art Howe was a distant but proudly represented second, and a substantial sympathy vote placed ex-Red Sock and new Astronaut Jimy Williams third.

Also, Tom Kelly earned a few props for the Twins' impressive season, and reportedly he plans to use his fourth-place cash prize "to get rid of all those damn rookies." Don't spend the five bucks all in one place, T.K.

National League Manager of the Year

Here's where the voting begins to get closer -- despite a late, playoff-time surge for Bob Brenly (you'd think more people would have voted for someone else after watching him at work on national TV), the Phillies' surprising year was rewarded as Larry Bowa used an early lead to coast into victory. Unlike his team, that is.

The voting was quite fragmented in this category, with ex-Astro Larry Dierker finishing a close third, and Tony La Russa, Jim Tracy and Bobby Cox all within spitting distance (now, isn't that a mental picture?).

American League Team of the Year

As one voter put it, "Seattle Mariners. Duh." A smattering of the electorate picked Oakland, to little effect. There was also a vote for the Orioles. We're beginning to smell a trend.

National League Team of the Year

No "duh" here. In another instance of impressions colored by postseason success (or lack thereof), an early Astros lead evaporated at about the same time they were unceremoniously bounced by the Braves. simultaneously, a groundswell of support lifted the Arizona Diamondbacks to victory as they opened the World Series.

The Cards and Phillies tied for third (St. Louis just can't stop getting in ties this year), while a token few votes put the Giants, Braves and Cubs on the board.

Most Surprising Player

Another close race, made much more so by virtue of not being segregated by league. Albert Pujols becomes the only multiple-award-winning player by amazing you out of your shoes. He edged Seattle's Bret Boone and Ichiro Suzuki for the title, using the vote-splitting effect of the more balanced Mariner team.

Barry Bonds wasn't too far behind Ichiro, but proved nevertheless that 73 home runs can't even surprise most of the people some of the time. More surprising is who didn't surprise you: Frank Catalanatto and Luis Gonzalez each had a bare handful of votes.

Most Surprising Team

Any team who wins 116 has to surprise someone, and sure enough, the Seattle Mariners handily took this category, despite almost-as-surprising years fom the Twins and Phillies (a distant second and third, respectively). A couple of people voted for the Mets, one adding "a bad surprise."

Most Disappointing Player

Land sakes alive, a lot of you were disappointed in a lot of different players. No less than 43 different fellows made the list in this category, many of them people you had no right to have expected much from in the first place (I mean, Delino DeShields??).

Amongst this fragmented ballot, one man stood head, shoulders and steroid-laden biceps above the pack: Mark McGwire, who became possibly the first man ever to have a batting average below the Mendoza line but an above-.800 OPS. Imagine what he could have done if he'd actually hit the ball more!

Close to McGwire but pulling up short as he did this season was Carl Everett, which leads us to wonder: did you mean disappointed, or "I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed"? Also earning multiple votes were Jason Kendall, Ken Griffey, Richard Hidalgo, Edgar Renteria, Darin Erstad, Johnny Damon, Derek Bell, Andruw Jones, David Wells, Tim Salmon, Brady Anderson, Javy Lopez, David Justice, Manny Ramirez, Nomar Garciaparra (c'mon! The guy was hurt!), and...I can't read my writing...

Most Disappointing Team

While you weren't sure just what player disappointed you most, you easily agreed on a team, that team being the Boston Red Sox. Decimated by injuries, saddled with a general manager who appears to be slipping into the cold jaws of insanity, and shocked by Jimy Williams' firing, there really was no better choice than the BoSox.

A distant second were the Texas Rangers, although clearly there was some reason to expect their collapse. The Rockies and Mets showed that NL fans can be disappointed too, and a late surge of votes for the White Sox ended up just like the team's late surge.

Most Crushing Injury

The streets of the Strikethree.com Baseball Awards continue to be paved with broken glass for Red Sox fans, as Pedro Martinez's shoulder was decisively declared the killing blow that resulted in another Yankee postseason run. No comfort comes from the second-place finisher, Nomar Garciaparra's wrist injury. However, White Sox fans can sympathize, as Frank Thomas' right tricep gave them nightmares of their own.

Whether this illustrates some sort of curse derived from the use of "Sox" as part of a team's name, we can't be sure.

Biggest Freak/Wacko

The Red Sox complete their Trifecta of Trouble by taking their third consecutive award, this one for Carl Everett's behavioral quirks. Everett ran away with the voting for this trophy, and while he couldn't be here to accept the award, he did offer to send a videotaped crotch grab.

A distant second was John Rocker, apparently just on principle as the biggest news around him this year was the Seattle mob taunting him. The BoSox add another to the top three with GM Dan Duquette. Peter Gammons, David Wells, Turk Wendell and Izzy Alcantara made representative showings as well. Even though Albert Belle is retired, we accepted a token vote for old times' sake.

Best Baseball Writer/Broadcaster

Another fragmented category, 34 different journalists made the cut but ESPN.com's Rob Neyer was your clear favorite. And there was much rejoicing. Now if they'd only put him on TV instead of Campbell.

A three-way tie for distant, distant second included Cards broadcaster Jack Buck, ESPN/Giants play-by-play man Jon Miller, and the Braves' Skip Caray. Names also appearing on more than a couple of ballots included those of Vin Scully (Dodgers), Dave Niehaus (M's), Joe Morgan and Bob Costas.

We are humbled to have also been included in the handful-of-votes category, with Michael Cox tying Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan for second place behind Neyer among print/web journalists. Both Strikethree.com and BP made excellent showings, illustrating your continued good taste.

Worst Baseball Writer/Broadcaster

Thank God we didn't appear anywhere in this category. 35 others did, running the gamut from TV icons ("everyone on FOX" earned a number of votes) to local broadcasters (White Sox fans will be happy to learn that their long-time play-by-play combo of Ken Harrelson and Tom Paciorek have been reunited via Worst Broadcaster voting).

In another example of playoff perceptions altering the vote, an early neck-and-neck battle for the prize between ESPN's Peter Gammons and his protege Jayson Stark came to naught when the world once again remembered that Tim McCarver is still out there.

Also tapped for ineptitude by our readers were the likes of Morgan, Costas, Tim Kurkjian, Tom Boswell (curiously, from the same folks who voted Neyer as Best Broadcaster), Chris Berman, Ron Fairly (M's, but Giant and Angel fans remember him too), SI's Rick Reilly and Jeff Pearlman, Chip Caray, Dave Campbell, Harold Reynolds, and Yankee broadcasters Michael Kay and John Sterling.

Also appearing on ballots was Brian Williams, causing a measure of befuddlement before we realized they meant the Blue Jays broadcaster and not the guy on CNBC.

Greatest Moment of the Year

You laughed. You cried. Okay, we'll deal with the crying in the next category. Here we wanted to know what turned that frown upside down, and you told us it was Barry Bonds breaking the single-season home run record. Yep, that was great, wasn't it? Barry also earned some votes for his speech after number 71 and 72, as well as for his record-breaking slugging percentage (what?).

Second place was a much-deserved Rickey Henderson, for the moment he broke Ty Cobb's runs scored record with a homer. Tied for third were the Indians' come-from-waaaay-behind win over the Mariners and Cal Ripken's All-Star Game homer. Ironically, fifth place was Ripken's retirement.

Also making you happy was the Mets' first game back at Shea after Sept. 11, Ichiro's laser throw to nail Terrence Long at third base, A.J. Burnett's no-hitter, Bud Smith's no-hitter, and the Mariners' "victory lap" with the flag after clinching the AL West.

Worst Moment of the Year

Okay, a lot of you were unsure whether it counted as a baseball moment, but nevertheless you voted Sept. 11 as the worst event of the season. Because it did happen to baseball (as well as to everything else), of course we'll allow it.

Among events occurring within baseball, you picked the Red Sox' firing of Jimy Williams by a good margin over Bob Brenly's "unwritten rules" tirade after Ben Davis's bunt single broke up Curt Schilling's perfecto. Also picking up a handful of votes were Everett's crotch-grabbing antics against Seattle, The Indians' comeback against the Mariners (that would be the Seattle fans, we imagine), the Cubs' late-season fold, the Braves winning the NL East again, Bud Selig's All-Star Game interruption, and also "anytime Selig opens his mouth."

In all, 34 different moments appeared in the hundreds of ballots we received, including one stating simply, "Gary Sheffield."

Weirdest Moment of the Year

This category produced the widest variety of responses, and quite frankly, we're a little worried about the kinds of things some of you feel are "weird." For every person listing "Bonds being pitched to under any circumstances," there was another submitting "Bonds not being pitched to." And the Japanese media wanting nude pictures of Ichiro? Come on, these are the Japanese we're talking about!

The voting was so spread out in this category that it resulted in a tie for the ultimate weirdest moment, yet decisively determined that whatever moment it was included the M's and Tribe. Omar Vizquel's tantrum over Arthur Rhodes' earring and Rhodes' tantrum over removing it ended up in a dead heat with the Indians' 12-run comeback to beat the Mariners, although we're not sure how either of these were stranger than the third-place moment, Randy Johnson's pitch nailing a bird in flight. Of course, that did occur in spring training, so you might not remember.

Also weird were Mike Sweeney charging the mound after Jeff Weaver insulted him, Jimy Williams' firing, the battle for custody of Barry Bonds' 73rd homer, and again, Selig's "halftime show" at the All-Star Game.

Some clever souls remembered Scott Hatteburg hitting into a triple play then swatting a grand slam in the same game, Lloyd McClendon literally stealing a base, and the Pirates mounting a ninth-inning comeback against the 'Stros. Some thought it odd that Doug Mientkiewicz actually led the AL in hitting at one time, and that the aforementioned Boswell supported the idea of the aforementioned Sosa for MVP.

Crazy? Perhaps, but they're no bird getting hit with a pitch!

So, that's our show for this year, and just like other awards shows, we've run waaaay overtime. Only one more prize is left: the coveted Strikethree.com t-shirt.

The winner is...Terry Schackmann of Kansas City, MO. We'll be getting hold of Terry shortly. yes, we do believe that's his real name.

about the author

If you have any notions that the voting might have been rigged, keep them to yourself, okay? Otherwise, feel free to comment at editor@strikethree.com.