Several times I have had a discussion with Matt Greydanus about the nature of the Rookie of the Year Award. He would like to argue that recent winners like Hideo Nomo (1995), Kazuhiro Sasaki (2000), and Ichiro (2001) should not be eligible because the Japanese league they came from is a higher level of play than American AAA or AA minor leagues. I have argued that a rookie is a player playing his first season at the Major League level, regardless of where he played last year. In the wake of George Steinbrenner's disappointment at Hideki Matsui falling short the American League Rookie of the Year to the Royal's Angel Berroa, he had this to say:
"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."
I actually agree with King George, in this case, although I had never tought to argue it that way.
Posted by at November 11, 2003 08:55 PM