The Gaslamp Ball Rationale for our vote in the SB Nation Baseball Awards

I don’t want to be right.

dodger lover.

Somebody left the back door open, and there’s a bunch of guys in blue sneaking in. They all seem to be walking funny like they’ve got their panties in a bunch or something. I guess it’s because Mr. Kershaw won’t get that bonus they had written into his contract for winning the SB Nation CY Young Award. I think it was 50000 Zynga points so he can really spruce up his Cityville.

I am a Diamondbacks fan who is devoted to the Dbacks. However, I visit here on a semi-regular basis. Why? Because I want the fans’ opinionated, biased view of the San Deigo Padres. This means that this blog is filled with biased opinionated fans. To expect them to be anything else for any activity is a pointless waste of time.

The word ‘mockery’ has been thrown out a lot in this thread. I’ll tell you what is the mockery. Not the fact that GLB’s ballot was incredibly biased, but the fact that there was a ballot in the first place. When I joined first AZ Snake Pit and, by extension, SB Nation, I was under the impression that it (SB Nation) was a group of sites directed at fans of certain sports and certain teams, and run by fans of those same sports and teams. To expect anything else is the mockery, not the other way around.

Now that I have had my say, I think that I shall retire back into lurker-dom, unless of course, I change my mind

The inherent awesomeness of this post is evident in the madness I went through to retrieve the necessary information to even make this comment.

I rarely comment because I forget my log-in information to SB Nation. But I also forget the password to a rarely used email address in which the SB Nation account is attached. It’s all a pain really. So instead I generally just read along and laugh.

I too am part of a “network” where I am expected to vote. Do I do it? No.

I watch 162 Padre games a year. What the efff do I know about any other team? Does seeing the Dodgers play the Padres 19 times a year make me an expert on the abilities of Dodger players? No. In fact, after 19 games I’m not even going to say I am an expert on the innate douchiness of Dodger players*.

Yet here we are. The opposition visiting GLB and not understanding the laughter. The use of humor to point out absurdities… it makes me… erect.

A sense of humor is a sign of intelligence. Not everyone has it. And because they don’t have it they nearly always stumble in detecting it. I’m not here to hurl names (although I just have). I’m just here** to point out that in life, nobody gets out alive. As such, a sense of humor is required… especially if one cheers for the Padres. Gaslamp Ballers have the sense of humor in spades.

As always, excellent work Dex. And a hat-tip to all GLBers who commented. I laughed out loud. I shall now go rec comments.

• Status unchanged from previous seasons. Expert level achieved after game 7 of 2011.
  • I’ll also take pats on the back for the detective work necessary to even be able to post this comment that simultaneously lauded Padres fans and guffawed at Dodger fans. The best type of comment really.

…is that one day the Padres can boast the Most Valuable Player and the Cy Young winner as voted by the internet and parlay that into a third place finish in a relatively weak NL West.

My fear is that we would be called… the 2011 Dodgers.

The fact that you are being butt hurt over us not voting your precious SP as our #1 choice for the Cy Young award is pathetic. We hate the Dodgers, I for one am surprised that Kershaw’s name even came up on our ballot. Your pitcher may have been the best in all of baseball, but I don’t care if it was Sandy Koufax in his prime. He is a Dodger, therefore he sucks. He can have a 25-0 record, yet still sucks. I don’t care if he threw 19 perfect games, still sucks. And you guys as fans, make it worse. Even if Kershaw was on the Diamondbacks, he might have gotten a 4th place vote (because D’Back fans are higher up on our scale than you.) And time after time Dex has explained that the only criteria in voting for this is OWNING A BLOG. If this award was determined purely by stats, why would a vote be needed? I don’t expect you to vote Mat Latos for Cy Young if he deserved it, nor would I expect any NL West (or Seattle) team to vote for him. Because you are supposed to hate us, just like we hate you. We don’t care if you don’t think that there is a rivalry with us. and we don’t care if we finished in 5th place. Guess what, we have finished in last before. It isn’t the first, and probably wont be the last. But San Diego has a real core of true fans who love this team with all of their hearts. You think it’s easy being a San Diego fan? Our only good team is an arena soccer team. But I don’t care. Whether it’s Tony Gwynn or Rueben Rivera in uniform. I support them. So go take your serious baseball attitude back to your blog. I love my team. I hate your team. Mat Latos > Clayton Kershaw. Cameron Maybin > Matt Kemp. Swinging Friar > Your Face. and most importantly

GASLAMPBALL > TrueBlue.

I’m pretty pleased with the outcome of the awards voting. It’s a little crazy how seriously people are taking this, though I’ve been guilty of that same kind of thing in the past. Whatever. You’re a fan of a baseball team. You’re supposed to have fun with it.

1) Hard core Dodger fans are completely incapable of reading.
2) Dodger fans take themselves too seriously.
3) Giants fans are only useful for jumping in and saying something obnoxious.
4) Diamondbacks and Angels fans are actually tolerable.
5) I really really hate LA.

i think i found my new favorite SB Nation blog.

i completely agree with your voting rationale. if i had a vote in these fake MLB awards, i would’ve voted the same way. i hate the phillies and the giants. i wouldn’t vote for any of their players even if i was being held at gunpoint. anybody who gets ‘butt hurt’ over that shouldn’t even be reading this blog at all.

kudos for this post.

p.s. is it true that you guys have an all-you-can-eat pavillion too? i’m not fat i promise.

SBNation is a fantastic set up. It allows for unique communities with almost complete freedom of writing and analysis styles while still providing opportunities and support of A large corporation. The end of the year awards are essentially meaningless, but as a company growing in popularity, and chance to gain national credibility is a chance worth taking.

You are more than welcome to hate the Dodgers. Post photoshops of Clayton Kershaw with a smeared mustache and pink tutu. Whatever you like. That’s the beauty of it. I don’t know if the voter in question had the same rationale Dex is defending, but I assume it is.

The vote didn’t break any rules. You could gave put Cory Luebke first and left off Kershaw altogether. That’s most certainly a right to vote as one sees fit. But this vote-with-an-apparent-agenda did more than rile up Dodgers fans.

See, this voting may mean nothing to you, but it does extend outside of San Diego and Los Angeles. There were 58 other voters that took it very seriously, some spending multiple hours fine tuning their vote. As SBNation strives for more and more validity in the market, season award votes are part of it. Throwing a non-serious vote in the mix skews something other people care about.

Which brings me to my point: if you don’t care about the season ending award vote, why partake at all? Why waste time soiling others’ efforts? A better “statement” against the process would be to hold your own awards, name HEath Bell number one, then laugh at Kershaw’s placement at #69, just below Tim Lincecum. You could have done that without trying to make a mockery out of A carefully conceived process by Eric Simon, implemented with much thought by dozens of great writers.