Kick Off

I've had this blog set up for several months now and have yet to actually write anything on it. I'm not sure why--I could generate a list of excuses, but what does it matter? The point I finally realized yesterday is that I should just go ahead and put something up because (a) There are 100-1 odds no one will ever read it and (b) There are a million other people on the world wide web who generate blogs full of pointless rants and writings every day (myself included) so why obsess over one blog like it's a column in The Mag?

So here goes nothing...

I maxed out my allotted votes for the MLB All-Star line-up today. I'd been meaning to do it for a while, but it wasn't until I saw the prompt on atlantabraves.com during my daily website rounds that I finally got around to it (because really, without a job, school, or any sports that I'm interested in on TV, what else do I have to do?).

The funny thing about voting for me, is that I don't keep up with the daily stats of any players that don't wear an Atlanta Braves uniform. I'm sure this is probably the case for most people--if you have a favorite team, of course you're going to vote party lines. It's ironic, because I think it's what most people also do when it comes to voting for less important things like, you know, politicians and whatnot.

Side tangent:
This is especially true for me, because I'm registered to vote in my parents' home county instead of the one I actually live in, so I could not possibly care less who the town elects for mayor, sheriff, mosquito control board, etc. (By the way, my hometown really does elect a mosquito control board and if you live in Florida, you know how serious the mosquito problem is and therefore understand the necessity for such a panel). So I just go down the line and vote for the democrats.

So anyway, that's basically what I did today--at least for the NL ballot. Picking my eligible Braves (Scott, Kelly, Edgar, Chipper, Brian, Jeff, Matt, and Andruw) was like picking a date between Matt Damon and Joakim Noah. Or really, Joakim Noah and anyone (Ted Bundy and Charles Manson included). Admittedly during my 25 votes I may have thrown a few in the direction of Stephen Drew, but only because of my faithfulness to Florida State (see criteria below).

On the AL side, it was really a free-for-all. I had to bring order to the situation by developing an extremely complex criteria system (finally putting my Future Problem Solving skills to use) that went something like this:

Criteria #1: Plays for the Braves
Criteria #2: Played for Florida State
Criteria #3: Is hot

Obviously Criteria#1 is out, in the case of the AL (hence the dilemma). Criteria #2 only applied to JD Drew (and in the NL of course, Stephen). That left me needing to use Criteria #3.

Side tangent #2:
By the way, if you're sitting there thinking I could have just not voted, you're wrong. Voting in any form is my God-given right as an American and therefore I feel like I have to use it whether I need to or not, just because I can. That's just the American Way (you know, doing something completely unnecessary for no reason at all).

Now, my third criteria could have been batting averages or slugging percentages--any kind of statistic really--but that would have taken a chunk of time from my day I could have otherwise spent napping or watching the NBA draft (which is, brain activity-wise, maybe one step away from napping).

I could also have chosen veteran players I know to be generally good, but I have to assume everyone else will vote for those people (this could also be called the Sanjaya Principle--voting for someone you assume no one else will vote for--if applied in this situation by too many people, it could lead to the Rangers flushing the AL line-up).

But instead I chose something more simple and obvious for my third criteria--The Hot Factor. As I have said before, "You can take the sports fan out of the girl, but you can't take the girl out of the sports fan" (and before you say it, that is not meant to be a double entendre).

At any rate, this criteria lead me to select Joe Mauer, Grady Sizemore, and Alex Gordon (had he not conflicted with Mauer, Jason Varitek would have made the list as well). I also threw in a vote for Nick Swisher in the spirit of Moneyball (it's not a criteria, just a cause).

For the remaining slots left unfilled (because I wasn't familiar enough with the players to know who was hot or not) I went with the old stand-by, vote for the Red Sox because it pisses Yankee fans off (this is not a criteria, it's a fact of life).

So there you have it, my all-star ballot. I feel comfortable that it will have little to no affect on the actual team selection--most likely none of the Braves will wind up as starters--but it's okay. I tried, just like I try to watch my team whenever they're on TV--only to wind up babbling to myself like a crazy person because Bobby leaves his pitchers in too long (insert glaring eye gesture at Will Cormier) and Andruw is back to his old habits (read: swinging at every ball whether it's over the plate or over the state line) and Bob Wickman looks like the iceberg that sank the Titanic (though he does sink a few batters from time to time).

But I digress.