My 2007 Baseball Awards Ballot

Like last year, it looks like I'm too late to vote in the Internet Baseball Awards. Anyway, here are my votes:

American League Most Valuable Player

1. NYA Alex Rodriguez
2. NYA Jorge Posada
3. DET Magglio Ordonez
4. TB Carlos Pena
5. BOS David Ortiz
6. DET Curtis Granderson
7. CLE Victor Martinez
8. CLE C.C. Sabathia
9. CLE Grady Sizemore
10. CAL Vladimir Guerrero

You can't argue with ARod. It's always a challenge to decide how much to value defence, but if Big Papi played 3B with the same skill as Rodriguez, my vote would still have gone to ARod. My impression was that VMart was the most valuable Indian. Honourable Mention: Brian Roberts, Mike Lowell.

National League Most Valuable Player

1. NYN David Wright
2. ATL Chipper Jones
3. PHI Chase Utley
4. FLA Hanley Rameriz
5. MIL Prince Fielder
6. COL Matt Holliday
7. SD Jake Peavy
8. FLA Miguel Cabrera
9. STL Albert Pujols
10. SF Barry Bonds

Unlike the AL, I'm sure you can argue with Wright. And, unlike the AL, all of the batters listed above have somewhat comparable stats. Even Barry Bonds on-based .480 (wow!) in 126 games. I've heard Holliday considered to be a favourite for the award, but the question is, how much does playing in Denver inflate his stats? But, even if they put up the same numbers in neutral parks, I'd go with Wright over Holliday due to his defensive position. Honourable Mention: Jimmy Rollins.

American League Cy Young Award

1. CLE C.C. Sabathia
2. CAL John Lackey
3. OAK Dan Haren
4. CLE Fausto Carmona
5. BOS Josh Beckett

When it comes to choosing a Cy, I tend to favour high IP and low ERA. Sabathia lead the majors in IP, so that's a good place to start. Is there a correlation between high IP and future arm trouble? Will his arm fall off? Considering October, maybe it already has. It felt strange not voting for Johan Santana, but I had Beckett edging him out for 5th. Joba Chamberlain was almost worthy of consideration, believe it or not, giving up 1 ER while striking out 34 in 24 innings.

National League Cy Young Award

1. SD Jake Peavy
2. ARI Brandon Webb
3. LA Brad Penny
4. ATL Tim Hudson
5. ATL John Smoltz

I don't think many will argue with the choice of Jake Peavy. Webb looks to be an obvious choice for #2. After that, it gets murky. Penny, Hudson, and Smoltz all look pretty close to me, along with Roy Oswalt and Aaron Harang.

The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith

Considering my thoughts on The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, it might seem strange that I picked up the audio version of The Kalahari Typing School for Men when I saw it it the library. I suppose that there is a lot of stuff at the library that I know nothing about, so I thought I might as well go with something I knew wouldn't be horrible, instead of something totally random.

Maybe I'll do that sometime -- walk in and randomly select an audiobook.

Anyway, Typing is number 4 in the series. Rather than focusing on individual cases, Typing focuses more on relationships:

• Mma Ramotswe is still engaged to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.
• Mma Ramotswe's assistant, the single Mma Makutsi, meets a man who seems too good to be true.
• Mma Ramotswe's main case of the book, Mr Molefelo, is looking to correct wrongs he committed in the past.

Overall, the book seemed to have less of a "life in Botswana" flavour, but had more of a story and was more of a journey with people you know. Though slightly different in focus than No. 1, it was about as likable. I'm surprised I only gave that one two stars. I'll give this one two and a half stars out of five.

Gorilla Warfare

When I was young, I would hear news reports about gorilla attacks on villages in Africa, or bouts of gorilla warfare in various places. This scared me. I mean, what if some gorillas escaped from the zoo and decided to attack my house?

I was reminded of these past fears today when I saw a BBC report that an Indian politician died after being attacked by monkeys.

Primates == Scary.

Another Football Player?

High Temperature Athletic Training

Consistently run, work out, or whatever, when it's, say, 25 to 30C (77 to 86F). Of course, you shouldn't over-exert yourself in high temperatures, or low temperatures for that matter. Then, when the temperature falls to 10C (50F), you may be surprised that you're suddenly faster.

Will You Be My Friend?

My Internet time sink of the week is Facebook. Do you have an account there? I created one and am now up to a massive count of 5 friends. I didn't know I had that many.

And it does seem to have the potential to be an addictive time drain, which is, I assume, what advertisers and Wall Street are looking for. There are numerous little applications that you can add to your site depending on your interests. I'm having fun adding pins on a map listing all the cities and towns in the world that I've visited, though I can't say it's all that productive.

Anyway, I don't expect to do a whole lot with my site, and I won't link to it here. But if you have a Facebook account, go ahead and send me a message through it.