There's an unwritten rule that whenever I say the blog is on vacation I come up with 12 things to post. In any event, I had to comment on last night's home run derby.
The only people who watch the home run derby are either
1) young and foolish
2) trying to signal that they have no opportunity cost to their time
And despite the fact that I often fall into category 2, I did not watch. (Instead my wife and I took a walk down to the national mall and later worked on a jigsaw puzzle.)
But I woke up this morning and heard that Minnesota Twin Justin Morneau won the contest, the first Twin in history to win the contest. So I flipped on SportsCenter to see what happened.
Classic. Morneau won, but Josh Hamilton hit 28 home runs in a round and so Morneau's 5-3 "victory" in the finals was a disappointment to the crowd. Morneau even cheered for Hamilton when he was batting and Morneau's victory speech included him saying, "I'm not the real winner here." Insert Canadian accent here: Those darn Canadians are always stealing the glory, eh.
So the first Twins "victory" in the home run derby is a bit by default. But that's not the end of the story. Check out these quotes from the StarTribune story by Joe Christensen.
"Proof that the Twins first baseman is still largely unknown came when the man representing the event's sponsor called him 'Jason' during the trophy presentation."
"Morneau wasn't even invited to participate in the derby until Sunday -- after Ichiro Suzuki declined an invitation. Suzuki's past 36 hits have all been singles."
Wow, after Ichiro Suzuki. I think that says it all.