how there's no crying or intelligence in baseball

rafael palmeiro finally gave his side of the steroid story today, only 100+ days after promising it, and still not owning up to anything and giving a rather implausible excuse about how it might have been in a vitamin B-12 shot even though that has been disproven. again.

idiot.

and that comes on the heels of the baseball writers awarding the cy young award to bartolo colon. mind you, the cy young award goes to the best pitcher in the american league. so colon got it, even though he ranked 8th in ERA, 7th in innings, 3rd in WHiP, 8th in strikeouts and 10th in complete games.

whereas johan santana ranked 2nd in ERA, 1st in WHiP, 2nd in innings and 1st in strikeouts, among others.

so who is clearly the better pitcher?

well, bartolo colon had 22 wins, while santana had only 16. so colon is therefore better.

what?

the reason colon had 6 more wins than santana was not based upon his pitching; rather, his bullpen never blew a save in any of his games, and his offense garned 6 runs a game for him. don't believe me? here's some more from baseballprospectus.com:

Colon got 6.02 runs per game of support, a figure that was seventh in the league among ERA qualifiers. Santana got 4.70 runs per game, 30th in the league. That's 1.32 runs per game of support--stuff the pitcher has no control over, that's effectively the luck of the draw--that went Colon's way rather than Santana's. That's why Colon won the Cy Young Award, and why Santana finished third: because in 2005, the voting pool for the award can't see past the "W" column to look at the actual pitching.

so they gave an award for the best pitcher in the league not based on pitching but on support and offense. smart thinking there.

and i haven't even broached that mariano rivera actually deserved to win.

idiots.

plus, on top of all that, since the comissioner's office and the player's union failed to come together with a steroid plan by the end of the world series as promised, congress has quickly put together a bill to suspend steroid abusers a half year for their first offense, a year for their second and a lifetime ban for the third. good job again, baseball.

a whole damn bunch of idiots.