Hopeless Joe’s MVP Picks

Ah, the MVP awards. Where we make virtually every player feel bad just so we can honor two guys for their luck-enhanced statistics. Haven’t we figured out by now that it’s all just statistical noise? Roll the dice and Jacoby Ellsbury can hit 32 home runs, or R.A. Dickey can be unhittable for six months, or Nick Punto can be above-replacement-level. One in a million seasons, I could probably get a hit or two, walk once or twice, and end up with a million-dollar contract instead of this minimum wage job shoveling coal into the boilers here at the local mental health facility. And yet we continue to award the random nature of results instead of what’s really important: the rational understanding that life is meaningless, sports are diversions to help us forget we’re all going to die, and the real most valuable player is the one who best distracts us from dwelling on the truth.

Which makes this year’s most valuable players Alex Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera, because I still have hundreds of articles to read about each of them, and that will prevent me from thinking too hard about the exceptions in the fine print of my life insurance policy.