The Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander would not be denied in 2011 – no matter what arguments the nonbelievers made against the 28-year-old flame-throwing right hander’s chances of winning the American League MVP, it’s only fitting that he still came out with the award on Monday.

“If you had told me at the beginning of the year I would be a shoe-in for the Cy Young, I would have been excited and ecstatic. I would’ve never even thought about the MVP,” said Verlander after learning that he had won the vote. The baseball writers gave Verlander 13 of the 28 first place votes, and he won with a total accumulation of 280 points, according to mlb.com.

The next closest player to him was Red Sox center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury, who finished with 242 total points. As far as individual accomplishments for a starting pitcher are concerned, Verlander achieved practically all of them this year. He led the majors in both wins with a regular season record of 24-5 and 250 strikeouts.

He also led the American League with a 2.40 E.R.A., which effectively won him the league’s pitching triple crown. Let’s not forget that he threw a no-hitter in Toronto against the Blue Jays on May 7, the second of his career. The only thing really missing was a perfect game, which anyone could easily overlook.

All of these triumphs by Verlander earned him the Cy Young award last week. There was only one question to be answered: could this man actually be the league’s most valuable player? No starting pitcher had won the award since Roger Clemens with the Red Sox in 1986, and no pitcher had won it since Athletics Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley in 1992.

The debate lingered for months due to a number of peculiar circumstances. Verlander is not a position player and was not out there every day going to battle with his teammates over the course of a six month, 162 game regular season.

However, Verlander was nothing but absolutely dominating and overpowering nearly every single time he towed the rubber for Detroit. He may have only played in thirty-four regular season games, but he provided an old-school ace-like mentality supported by the most lively arm in the league, almost stating, ‘I’m the best and I know it, so here it comes.’

If there were any pitcher to fear in 2011, it was Verlander. His MVP campaign was strengthened by the fact that the Red Sox suffered the most monumental collapse in history, missing the postseason after blowing what was a nine game lead in the Wild Card on September 3. Ellsbury, was viewed as the favorite for the award until the end of September.

He posted career high numbers: he had an average of .321, 119 runs scored, 212 hits, 105 in RBI, and 32 home runs. Other players who gained much consideration for the award included Yankees center fielder Curtis Granderson and Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista.

Granderson hit 41 home runs, drove in 119 runs, and led New York to the best record in baseball, but his .262 average was likely too low for the baseball writers to accept. Bautista batted .302 and led the majors with 43 home runs, but Toronto only finished at .500 with an 81-81 record.

Since no A.L. position player was able to run away with the award, Verlander began to gain a significant amount of interest as a potential winner.  The conversation will not end here, as many will discuss whether or not the proper decision was made. Nonetheless, Verlander had a pitcher’s dream season in 2011, and no one can take that or his MVP award away from him.

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Judge Reggie Walton declared a mistrial in Roger Clemens federal perjury case on Thursday afternoon. A hearing will be held on September 2^nd to determine whether or not the case should be restarted or dropped altogether. For now, Roger Clemens is a free man, but should this case ever have gotten this far?

Perjury is indeed a punishable offense and shouldn’t be overlooked at all, however this case is about steroids. The topic of steroids in baseball is one that has caused a giant rift among fans of the sport. What do we do with the records from the “steroid era?” Should players that have used performance enhancing drugs be allowed into Cooperstown?

Questions like these certainly are ones that need to be answered, but is it really necessary to spend so much effort, time, and taxpayers money in order to bring these men up on charges? Will that really give us the answers we’re looking for? Do Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds really deserve to face jail time for breaking the rules? Maybe this whole situation has gone down the wrong road.

For arguments sake let’s assume Clemens will not be brought back into the courtroom. His legacy remains somewhat in tact, but these questions certainly remain.

Is the all time postseason wins leader, Andy Pettitte really not going to get into the hall of fame either? When Alex Rodriguez closes his iconic career, will he not be immortalized with a plaque in upstate New York? Is it feasible to have the all time home run king not in the hall? Maybe it is, seeing as how the all-time hits leader isn’t there either.

It’s a sad time for hall of fame nominations. Voters will constantly have to wrestle with the idea that some of the players did it “the wrong way.” Any good player from the 90′s through the 2000′s will have a giant question mark above their heads.

There is one day in the near future that will summarize everything that is hated about this era, the darkest example. Every fan should dread this day for what they will have to hear.

In a couple of years Ken Griffey Jr. will be put on his first ballot. It had been thought that “the kid” could be the first ever unanimous hall of fame choice in the games history. Everyone knew he had the talent and the charisma. He brought new meaning to fan favorite. Nobody hated Griffey the way they did Bonds. Everyone knew he did it the right way. Unfortunately the media will undoubtedly grab hold of the ugly question “did he do it too?”

Bud Selig has done a fine job in fixing the problem on the field. Regular tests are given, heavy suspensions and fines have struck fear into players that think about using PED’s these days, and yet fans are still forced to worry about how the past will effect the future.

A proposition for Cooperstown: treat this time as just another era. The “dead ball” era, the “live ball” era, the integration era, the free-agent era, the steroid era. Why should one of these be singled out?

There are countless players from all different times that are in the hall, and these players should not be victims of a calendar, punished merely for the time they played in and what happened during that time.

If fans are really so up in arms about it, put a little sign under Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds name that says “steroid era” on it. Heck, create a whole wing in Cooperstown just for these guys. What’s the difference?

The hall of fame is a place for fans of the game to go and relive times past. Learn about what happened in the game before their time. The greatest players can be enshrined forever in glory. It is of course a sacred place, but it is silly and naive to think that great players of the past weren’t using drugs or putting pine tar on their bats, yet they are not persecuted.

The point is, there is time to fix this flaw, the powers that be just need to admit that there is something wrong and that it should be addressed.

Nobody is forcing anyone else to like these players. If someone has a personal vendetta against Roger Clemens and the countless others for not playing the way they would have hoped, then so be it. That certainly does not mean that they were not fantastic baseball players.

The time is over, we can all move on, but we don’t have to forget. In 50 years, this will merely be a notch on the timeline of America’s greatest past time. Don’t let it be ruined by a silly needle.

Image Courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/keithallison/2415655444/

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The New York Yankees defeated the New York Mets 9-3 Sunday after a huge seventh inning to take the first leg of the Subway Series and tie the Tampa Bay Rays for first place in the AL East.

The six games between the Mets and Yankees are always some of the most looked-forward to games of the entire season by fans in New York. No matter how the teams seemed to have been playing before, the stakes rise with pride and bragging rights on the line.

Since 2000 when the two teams met in the World Series, the games have only gotten more intense. Countless unforgettable moments make this series so much more than just a few games in the standings.

Fans will always remember the feud between former Mets’ catcher Mike Piazza and Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens which resulted in a hard fastball to Piazza’s head.

The Mets’ faithful will of course never be able to live down Luis Castillo’s error on a routine fly ball off the bat of Alex Rodriguez in the bottom of the ninth inning to lose the series in June of 2009.

It seems as though when these two teams get together, there are bound to be fireworks. Unfortunately, all we had heard about these teams early-on in the 2011 season had to do with abundant struggles and big problems that needed to be addressed to turn their seasons around.

This series showed signs that such rash judgments may have been a bit premature.

The Yankee captain Derek Jeter came up big amidst his struggles, driving a two-rbi single up the middle to tie the game in the bottom of the 7^th, sparking a monstrous eight run inning for the Bronx Bombers en route to victory.

The Yanks welcomed their hot inning, since they are so often criticized for only being able to score via Home Runs (most of which from the bat of the red-hot Curtis Granderson), and their lack of ability to play “small-ball” and manufacture runs. These criticisms are quite unfair.

As any baseball fan knows, teams always seem to hit better in the summer months when the whether gets better and the new players on the team (which the Yankees have plenty of) get a chance to become accustomed to their new surroundings.

Yankee fans need not worry, their team will be fine. Judgments of a team by their mediocre record in May must come with a grain of salt. Not to mention they are perched atop one of the toughest divisions in Major League Baseball, and have a better record than the Boston Red Sox who were deemed the favorites in the entire American League after all of their off-season acquisitions.

Injuries have really bitten both teams early on in the 2011 season. Yankee manager Joe Girardi is patiently awaiting returns from pitchers Phil Hughes and huge free agent pick-up, Rafael Soriano, who should bolster a pitching staff that when healthy, can be scary for opposing lineups.

In Queens, first year manager Terry Collins has had to deal with star players David Wright, Jason Bay, and Angel Pagan see stints on the DL, not to mention waiting for left-handed ace Johan Santana to return from off-season shoulder surgery.

All things considered, Collins has done a fine job so far in his first go-around in New York. Jose Reyes is having a career year, Carlos Beltran seems to be healthy again for the first time in nearly two-seasons, and knuckleballer R.A. Dickey seems to have become a fan favorite, holding down a seriously depleted pitching staff.

Coming into the 2011 season the Mets did not seem to have very high expectations, and yet they find themselves hovering right around .500, with a renewed attitude that could carry them into a fight for a wild-card spot in the National League should things go their way.

If nothing else, this series proved that the Mets could at least hang with one of the better teams in the league, even on the road.

As for the Yankees, winning this series may be a small victory in terms of the standings, but it was a bigger sign for fans, proving that this teams struggles are not permanent. The team must adjust to now being one of the older teams in the league, and with that, must come the knowledge that losing streaks happen. They have proven winners, veterans, and a solid mix of young talent that should allow them to make yet another run at a World Series title this season.

All in all, good things seem to be on the horizon for both New York ball-clubs. As summer begins, look for the bats to heat up, and both teams to compete night in and night out. There’s no quit in New York.

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