Hill I'm Willing To Die On: Baseball Edition

For much of baseball history, there was the National League and the American League. They were completely separate entities with the winners of each league facing each other in the World Series. Otherwise, teams from each league would never meet during the regular season. There were separate league presidents, and umpires were employed by either the AL or NL. Limited interleague games started in the mid-90s with each team playing teams from the other league for a handful of games, but the percentage of interleague games during the season was still fairly small. Now, although there are still separate leagues, there are no league presidents, umpires are employed by Major League Baseball, and every team plays against each other each season. For the 2024 season, each team played 46 interleague games. That's a substantial number. So why are there still separate awards (MVP, CY Young, etc.) for each league?  The hill I'm willing to die on today is that there should be one baseball award winner. Period. 

Instead of Shohei Ohtani being the National League MVP and Aaron Judge being the American League MVP, there should only be one like in every other American sport. (The MVP debate this season would be unreal!) Look at the NBA for the 2023-2024 season. Nikola Jokic won MVP while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished second and Luka Doncic finished third in the voting. All three play in the Western conference. If this was baseball, Giannis Antetokounmpo would have been the Eastern Conference MVP which seems a little ridiculous. 

In football, Lamar Jackson easily won the NFL MVP last season. Would Dallas Cowboys fans really celebrate Dak Prescott being the NFC MVP? The answer is probably not. Let’s stop this two MVP and two Rookie of the Year award nonsense in baseball and just have one award winner for the entire sport.

Please click here to see more of my extremely sporadic Hills I'm Willing To Die On series.

Olympic Thoughts

I really like Coco Gauff. She's the present and the future of American tennis. I'm rooting for her to win the gold medal in Paris and the US Open next month. However, there is no reason why she should have been the flag-bearer for the United States. This is Gauff's first time competing in the Olympics. The people honored to carry/hold the flag should have multiple trips to the Olympics, and for America, multiple medals from previous games. 

Staying with the opening ceremonies, I was stunned seeing Rafael Nadal carrying the torch. I understand that he's loved in France for winning 181 French Open titles, but he's from Spain. The torch should be reserved for home-country athletes. I'll give a comparison. Nikola Jokic from Serbia is arguably the best active player in the NBA. Even if he wins the NBA MVP each of the next 4 years and the Denver Nuggets win all of the NBA titles during this time, he's not going to carry the torch in Los Angeles in 2028.

I'll make an exception to this statement. Let's say you are an Olympic star from a nation that is never going to host the Olympics. Think Usain Bolt. The International Olympic Committee is not going to have the games in Jamaica, so he could be part of lighting the torch in a different country. Serena Williams and Carl Lewis should (and will) be part of the opening ceremonies in LA. No reason for them to be part of the Paris torch ceremony. 

Early prediction for lighting the torch in LA in 2028: 2-time Olympic gold medalist and one of the most famous people on earth: Michael Jordan.

Enough criticism. Let's get to the good stuff.

Go to the 4:25 mark of the US women's rugby highlight video. Ilona Maher is just awesome.

I've really enjoyed watching handball. I don't understand all of the rules, and there seems to be a foul on every play (and it's extremely difficult for goalies to make saves), I have two questions.

1. Why is one player (and sometimes two players) always in the corner and get the ball maybe once every 15 possessions?

2. Who decided to use a car horn blast in handball? (Go to the 4:30 mark of this video to hear it). I have flashbacks to being at a friend's house and my dad honking from the car to pick me up!

NBC showed a fantastic segment of Mary Carillo with a snail farmer and an escargot restaurant. If I can find it, I will share it here later. (Of course, NBC Sports isn't allowed videos to be played on sites other than YouTube.)

Teremoana Teremoana is a great name and looks extremely intimidating in the boxing ring. I'm rooting for him!

I miss Ric Blas not being at the Olympics. (If you don't know who this is, please go through my archives including my interview with him.)

Enjoy the games!

Photos by Team USA; Corbis/VCG via Getty Images; Dan Himbrechts/AAP Photos