Baseball Bloggers Alliance Press Release-Connie Mack Award

As a member of the Miscellaneous Chapter of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance it is one of my duties to cast votes for their various post season awards. What follows is the press release announcing the winners of the Connie Mack Award. I urge you to check out the website as well as check out some of the fantastic blogs in the BBA.

WASHINGTON, BLACK WIN CONNIE MACK AWARD

Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers and Bud Black of the San Diego Padres were named winners of the Connie Mack Award by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, noting them as the best managers in their respective leagues for 2010.

Washington, who weathered a drug controversy in spring training, led Texas to their fifth divisional title since 1994 and their first since 1999.  While the voting was based on his regular season accomplishments, Washington also guided his team to their first ever postseason series victory when they eliminated the Tampa Bay Rays in five games in the American League Divisional Series.

Washington received ten first place votes in route to accumulating 74 total points.  He edged out Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, who received 67 points.

In the National League, Black’s guidance of a Padres team almost universally expected to finish last to first place most of the summer helped him edge Dusty Baker of the Cincinnati Reds by the slimmest of margins.  The fact that the Padres fell just short of the playoffs while the Reds won the NL Central helped lead to the tight race.  Black garnered nine first place selections and 53 total points to Baker’s seven first place nods and 51 total points.

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):

American League

Ron Washington, Texas (10) 74

Ron Gardenhire, Minnesota (7) 67

Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay (4) 35

Terry Francona, Boston (3) 20

Cito Gaston, Toronto 9

Buck Showalter, Baltimore 9

Joe Girardi, New York 2

National League

Bud Black, San Diego (9) 53

Dusty Baker, Cincinnati (7) 51

Bobby Cox, Atlanta (2) 33

Bruce Bochy, San Francisco (3) 29

Charlie Manuel, Philadelphia (1) 27

Brad Mills, Houston 3

Mike Quade, Chicago 2

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 224 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot.  Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and tabulated on a 5-3-1 point scale for first, second and third. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis.  Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.

American League

Camden Crazies (Baltimore)*

Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*

Toeing The Rubber (Boston)*

The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*

Motor City Bengals (Detroit)

Switch Hitting Pitchers (Detroit)

One Royal Way (Kansas City)

Seth Speaks (Minnesota)

Bronx Baseball Daily (New York)*

Contract Year (Oakland)

Jeff’s Mariners Fan Blog (Seattle)

Rise of the Rays (Tampa Bay)

Baseball Is My Boyfriend (Texas)*

The Blue Jay Hunter (Toronto)

500 Level Fan (Toronto)

Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*

Misc. Baseball (History)*

Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*

Blogging From The Bleachers (General)*

National League

Prose and Ivy (Chicago)*

Cincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)

Astros County (Houston)

Feeling Dodger Blue (Los Angeles)

Bernie’s Crew (Milwaukee)*

Brewers Bar (Milwaukee)*

The Eddie Kranepool Society (New York)*

Dugger’s Corner (Philadelphia)

Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? (Pittsburgh)*

i70 Baseball (St. Louis)

The Outfield Ivy (St. Louis)

Friar Forecast (San Diego)*

Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*

Misc. Baseball (History)*

Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*

Blogging From The Bleachers (General)*

Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf (Miscellaneous)*

Prior Winners

2009: Mike Scioscia, Los Angeles of Anaheim; Jim Tracy, Colorado

The official website of the BBA is located at www.baseballbloggersalliance.com.  The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba.  Members of the BBA may be heard at Blog Talk Radio every Tuesday night with their call-in show, BBA Baseball Talk, which may also be downloaded as a podcast from iTunes.  For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.

DMB World Series Replay- 1st Anniversary Post

The DMB World Series replay is 1 year old today. 12 months of replays and baseball history, 12 months of gradually increasing readership, 12 months of researching the history of this great game.

Thank you for making this blog a small part of your day. In the coming year we’ll gradually keep moving forward in our chronological journey through the history of the game. We’ll meet some players you might not have heard of, get some thoughts on some interesting baseball cards of the era, and get a small dash of world history as well. And Oh yea………some World Series replays. We’re currently in the middle of a Pirate/White Sox World Series that didn’t really happen in 1901, but should have, and we’ll start replaying some actual World Series very shortly. Each replay will of course have a team review, and a review of what actually happened in that particular World Series. This should be an interesting year that should take us to around 1920.

One of the neat things to happen with this blog was a comment I received from Norman Bellows. Norman is the grandson of Joe Visner, a catcher for the 1889 DMB World Series Brooklyn Bridegrooms. Norman wanted to make sure I had his Grandfather properly identified in the team picture. The internet can be very cool sometimes.

I also, from time to time post a Hall of Fame profile using the art work of Dick Perez. At one time Dick was the official artist of the Hall of Fame, and I contacted him to make sure it was OK to use his art work. He responded almost immediately and gave me permission to use his artwork. The internet can be very cool sometimes.

I’d also like to thank Cliff Blau. He is a member of SABR and my most ardent commenter. His knowledge of baseball is unsurpassed, and he has on many occasions corrected me on my mistakes. You have made me work harder on my research and I thank you for your continued support and fact checking.

This blog is a proud member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance and if you haven’t checked it out yet, I urge you to do so. Not only does it have bloggers for every Major League team, but it also has some very good general baseball blogs as well.

Another replay blog that I recommend that you check out is 1924 and You Are There!  Jeff Polman is replaying the entire 1924 season using Strat-o-matic and the fictional accounts of baseball scribe Cal Butterworth, and Vinny Spanelli, a teenage Phillies fan. Jeff’s writing style is right out of the 1920’s, and I’m completely jealous of his literary skills. When this replay is completed, Jeff will fast forward to a 1977 replay. Bell-Bottoms and a possible Yankee Championship, I can’t wait.

Also check out A Second Time Through The Order  Jimmy Moore is in the middle of a 1967 replay. His website is fantastic and I am completely jealous of his web design skills. I just wish he’d utilize his blog more.

I don’t know of any other blogs that are doing seasonal replays whether with Strat-O-Matic or Diamond Mind. If you know of any, please let me know.

Check out the Baseball History Podcast as well.  Bob Wright does a great job putting together a brief player biography each week, and he has an archive of podcasts that cover players from the 19th Century to the current ERA. He also graciously played a promo for this blog back in July.

Some non-baseball podcasts and blogs that you should also check out:

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. His 4 part series Ghosts of the Ostfront is a fantastic account of the Battle of Stalingrad.

365 Days Of Astronomy A daily 12 minute podcast on all things astronomy sent in by people all over the world. You’ll even find a submission by yours truly.

Bad Astronomy Phil Plait is the coolest science nerd on the planet.

The Geologic Podcast George Hrab is a talented, funny, and bald skeptic that we should all listen to.

The Amateur Scientist Podcast Brian Thompson makes science funny. The quote on his home page says it all, “Hilarious!”- Pol Pot

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Funny, informative skeptic goodness.

Thanks again for a great year.

Kevin G.

Baseball Bloggers Alliance-AL Cy Young Voting

 

Never won a Cy Young Award

Once more the DMB Historic World Series Replay steps out of character to fulfill my obligations as a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance to submit a ballot for the AL Cy Young Award.

Honorable Mention: Showing some Yankee love I need to make sure I include some Yankee hurlers. Mariano Rivera had another dominant year as the Yankee closer. CC Sabathia won 19 games and was a key reason for the Yankees success this season. Justin Verlander won 19 as well and led all pitchers with 269 Ks.

3. Roy Halladay won 17 with a 2.79 ERA, and an impressive 4 shutouts and 9 complete games.

2. Felix Hernandez went 19-5 with a 2.49 ERA. A fantastic season, and missed being my Cy Young pick by an eyelash.

1. Zack Greinke went 16-8 for the low scoring Royals, and could have easily won 20-22 games with just a little more offensive support. Add a miniscule 2.16 ERA and 242 strikeouts and you have this season’s AL Cy Young winner.