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So, apparently the Oscars were on Sunday, and in honor of Hollywood taking its time out to congratulate a bunch of movies for Outstanding Achievement in Wanting to Win an Oscar, I thought we'd do something fun today and hand out my own special RotoBaller Oscars for Outstanding Sports Achievement in 2014-2015.
It'll be just like the real thing except there won't be any winners with outrageously pretentious subtitles. Looking at you, Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance). Your subtitle sounds like an unreleased Jane Austen novel.
So without further ado...
Best Sports Commissioner
Nominees:
Adam Silver, NBA
Bud Selig, MLB
You may notice that this is a very short list of nominees. There are reasons for this. Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL, has had two work stoppages happen on his watch and is therefore disqualified for any sort of Best Anything award. Roger Goodell is not on this list because making fun of the NFL's terrible administration is way too easy and that's not what we're looking for in Best Commissioner. This ain't the RotoBaller Razzies. The guy who runs MLS isn't on here because I don't know who that is and since half the teams in MLS are called things like Dallas F.C. and Sporting Kansas City I assume that they use a European style of commissioning and that's just communism.
Now, on to each commissioner's qualifications: Silver ascended to the top job in the NBA after David Stern's retirement. Almost immediately afterward, the Donald Sterling audiotapes were released. Silver responded by banning Sterling for life and forcing the sale of the Clippers to Steve Ballmer, an owner who actually gives a shit. Silver was universally praised for his handling of the issue, and the NBA has been largely controversy-free since. Selig finished his career as commissioner of the MLB by banning Alex Rodriguez for an entire season (good), but he did allow his final season to be upstaged by the league-wide Derek Jeter Jerk-off Derby that culminated in Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright all but admitting throwing batting practice balls to Jeter during the All-Star Game (bad, unless you're a Yankees fan living in the early 2000s).
With that in mind, this seems like an easy category to pick. The winner is: Roger Goodell, which is quite a surprise! I guess we shouldn't have sent him that video message to tell him he wasn't nominated. That's on us.
Most Valuable Player, All Sports
Nominees:
LeBron James
This award is basically to parse out which regular-season MVP was the MVPest of them all. I'd consider the postseason MVPs, but the Spurs' most valuable player is basically "the Spurs," a pitcher won the MLB's postseason MVP, and a dude who plays two games out of six in a series isn't really gonna move the needle here (foreshadowing!), and the NFL's MVP* was on a team that won* its fourth* Super Bowl. If some asshole Internet writer can use that many asterisks describing your championship, it's not looking good for you.
That said, let's get down to it! Like I said before, Kershaw is out. He was dominant enough in the National League this year to earn his MVP award, but when stacked up against every other everyday MVP, pitchers just fall short. Rodgers had another typically excellent season, during which he threw just enough interceptions to make us doubt his status as a cyborg, but J.J. Watt absolutely tore up the NFL this season and in my opinion probably should have won, so Rodgers is out on one count of robbery.
This leaves LeBron James and Mike Trout. LeBron won his fourth MVP award as he led the Heat to its fourth straight Finals berth, where they fell short to the Spurs. Trout had his worst season statistically, but "Trout's worst statistical season" still results in "videogame bullshit numbers," and the Angels romped to the best record in the American League before being ousted by a Royals club with some serious "team of destiny" action going. LeBron had to carry Dwayne Wade's knees through the whole regular season, but Trout also had to carry the terrible contracts of Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols, so that's a bit of a wash. This one is too close to call-- we'll have to see whose name comes out of that envelope.
And the winner is: James by the tiniest of margins. Mike Trout is a phenomenal baseball player, but at the end of the day, LeBron is still probably a superhero, and I don't think the Heat could have made it as far as they did without LeBron just willing them to victory in the playoffs. Can someone check to see if D-Wade still actually has functioning knees, or have they just been replaced with ball bearings and hope?
Best Championship Run
Nominees:
San Antonio Spurs, NBA
San Francisco Giants, MLB
Connecticut Huskies, NCAAB
Ohio State Buckeyes, NCAAF
New England Patriots*, NFL
"Best Championship Run" here means "most Hollywood-worthy," in the spirit of the awards that inspired this column. This disqualifies the Spurs immediately, since the Spurs doing Spurs things to win the NBA Finals is pretty much the least Hollywood championship ever. A bunch of well-seasoned professionals who've been working together at the highest level forever executing flawlessly and winning using fundamentally sound if not flashy basketball? The only thing Hollywood about the Spurs winning a championship is the plucky underdog reporter who gets more than 10 words out of Gregg Popovich. The Giants are right out, since they've clearly struck up some bizarre voodoo bargain to win multiple Series (but only in even-numbered years), and we can't endorse dabbling in the black arts. The Patriots* are out because this joke is getting old now.
Which leaves the NCAA champions, and it should be well obvious that our winner is: the Ohio State Buckeyes! Sure, it might seem obvious that this whole column was set up for this award, but I have two ready counterarguments to prove the legitimacy of this pick. The first: prove it. The second: Ohio State beat every Heisman finalist at a neutral site, in succession, with their third-string quarterback. They were underdogs every game. The only way this team could have been more Hollywood would have been if Ezekiel Elliott were actually being played by Sean Astin.
There are a lot more awards that we can give out, but our final nod to the grand tradition and pageantry of the Oscars, we're going to tune out after the only three categories everyone cares about! Until next year's RotoBaller Oscars (gotta be a better way to say that), remember: the athletic performance you liked best probably won't win!
