Go Game Vaginas!

Shouldn't the South Carolina women's basketball team be called the Game Vaginas?

Whatever you call them, they are now NCAA champs.

 I get to crow about that as a resident of the state of Sa' Calina, once described as too small to be a state and too large to be an insane asylum.

It's been quite a year sportswise for a state without a single major professional team.

The USC women hoopsters have achieved the pinnacle.

The South Carolina men's team beat the odds to make the Final Four.

The Clemson football team is the reigning national champ.

And Coastal Carolina University sits atop the throne of the NCAA baseball world.

We're very proud here. Front page news everyday. It distracts us from the fact that our schools academically rank somewhere in the vicinity of 113th among states in the union, just behind catatonia and just ahead of Mississippi.

Go 'Cocks. And other South Carolina appendages.

Can Acting Like A Cock Increase Your Value?

The following is a baseball story:

The South Carolina Gamecocks lead the Nebraska Cornhuskers 16-13 late in the third quarter of the Credit Card Company Bowl in Orlando when a hockey game breaks out between South Carolina's standout wide receiver, Alshon Jeffrey, and a Nebraska Corn(husk)erback of significantly less note. The pair gets ejected, much to the Gamecocks' detriment.

Before being yanked, Jeffrey supplies the signature play of the game, leaping over a crowd to snare a desperation heave and then diving into the end zone as the half ends.

Following Jeffrey's outburst, the Gamecocks promptly march down the field and register a touchdown to take a 23-13 lead. Their defense clamps down the rest of the way, sacking the Husker QB six times and leading the 'Cocks to a 30-13 victory.

During the post-game celebration, Jeffrey is allowed back onto the field to -- what?!!!! -- claim his most valuable player trophy! This obscenity draws the immediate ire of all at my sports bar table but one. He argues that, because Jeffrey accounted for 148 yards and the go-ahead score, he's a perfectly legitimate candidate.

Let's set aside the salient issue -- that no one committing such an offense should be eligible for an award in the first place. Instead, I engaged my friend in the following discussion:

Waldo: Once Jeffrey left the game, South Carolina scored twice and held Nebraska scoreless without any contribution from him. How is he then valuable?

Friend: They were ahead when he left. He put them there.

Waldo: If instead, the South Carolina drive had stalled, Nebraska scratched out a touchdown and the game had ended 20-16 Nebraska, would Jeffrey be the MVP?

Friend: Of course not, but that's not what happened.

Waldo: So according to you, Alshon Jeffrey is the MVP because for 20 minutes while he wasn't allowed on the field, his teammates dominated the game. Had they struggled without him, he would not be the MVP.

Others at the table: Hahahahaha.

This, of course, is exactly the logic employed by nearly every MVP voter in baseball. According to most baseball writers with votes, Ryan Braun was the NL MVP because he had better teammates than Matt Kemp, whose performance clearly, though marginally, surpassed Braun's. It's also a long-running theme in MVP votes, often expressed this way: they could have finished fourth without him.

At the risk of disinterring a long-deceased horse, a player contributes, by dint of his play on the field, a certain number of wins to his team. Whether those are wins 63-68, 85-90 or 103-108 is a function of others, not him, and therefore immaterial to the determination of his value.

The parallel between Braun's MVP and Jeffrey's is even more poignant given reports of Braun's failed drug tests. Evidently, being a knucklehead does not diminish a player's value, regardless of his sport.
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My All-Star Roster

The composition following this statement is a study in trivia. Nothing you are about to read amounts to a hill of beans. Which is saying something for a blog called "braindrizzling" in which the topic is baseball. So you've been warned.

The aforementioned is so mentioned because this is about the All-Star squad, which matters almost entirely in the sense that a dozen of the 64 participants get bonuses for having their names selected. Beyond that, it's the fans game and they vote for the guys they want.

Here's the really surprising part: the masses do a great job. They are far more rational than the players and managers, who seem to select the guys with the best reputations and whom they like the best, respectively.

It doesn't matter, in part because no one has ever defined what constitutes an All-Star-worthy performance. Is it half a season of accomplishment? Is it the best 162 games, from last ASG to this one? Is it just about being the best player? The one fans want to see?  Or is it some combination of these?

Everyone seems to have their own, sometimes variable, formula. Here's mine, and it's no more defined than any other: I vote for the best players having the best seasons. How's that for vague? Albert Pujols is the NL first baseman unless he's hitting .230 with six home runs. Jerry Hairston, Jr. and his .695 lifetime OPS doesn't make my starting roster batting .400 with 20 dingers unless David Wright falls down a flight of stairs and takes Scott Rolen, Chipper Jones, Placido Polanco, Mark Reynolds and the Kung Fu Panda with him.

I take into consideration when a player has only played half of half the season, but I pay no mind whatsoever to whether a player is currently hurt. If he deserves the nod, I bestow it. Let the manager replace him.

That said, here are my votes for the Mid-Summer Classic.

NL

1B Albert Pujols

2B Chase Utley

3B David Wright

SS Hanley Ramirez

C Brian McCan

OF Ryan Braun

OF Andre Ethier

OF Matt Holliday

AL

1B Miguel Cabrera

2B Robinson Cano

3B Adrian Beltre

SS Derek Jeter

C Joe Mauer

OF Josh Hamilton

OF Ichiro Suzuki

OF Vernon Wells

DH Vlad Guerrero

You'll notice that there aren't any rookies or surprise names on this ballot. Jose Bautista is going to have to go all Mark McGwire on AL pitching for more than 260 at-bats before I get ramped up about him. Moreover, not everyone here is having a great year. Jeter's batting .286 with middling power and speed. McCann's at .259 and he's missed some games. They are still clearly the best in their league at their position. (It helps that no NL catcher or AL shortstop is lighting it up.)

There are plenty of tough calls here. Prince Albert sets a lofty standard, but Ryan Howard, Adrian Gonzalez, Adam Dunn and Joey Votto all have OPS above .900. At least one of them will watch the game from a bar. ("Adam, your turn to buy a round!) The same in the AL, where Justin Morneau makes every bit the case Cabrera does, and Paul Konerko and Kevin Youklis are both having great years.

Chase Utley is by far the best second baseman in the senior circuit, so the fact that four other keystoners are putting up the same numbers in bigger ballparks doesn't excite me. David Wright and Scott Rolen are both great candidates, but Rolen has a history of fragility and Wright plays in a cavern. I gave the AL third sacker job to a raking Beltre, but Evan Longoria, ARod and Michael Young all make cases.

In the outfields, Josh Hamilton and Andre Ethier are the in-shooiest. I'm not so sure about Ichiro; you could have reasonably picked Alex Rios, Carl Crawford, Shin Soo Choo, Torii Hunter or Nick Swisher. Brett Gardner, a College of Charleston product, needs to show me more before I elect him to stardom. The same for Colby Rasmus in the NL, who's hitting up a storm, but we've yet to determine whether that front will blow through. Likewise, I eschewed Jayson Werth's ballpark-aided results, and Alfonso Soriano's inconsistency. Andrew McCutcheon is a stud in the Steel City, but he's a lock for the game as the Bucs' sole representative, so I gave Holliday the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I've employed woefully weak reasoning to break what amounts to a tie. It's no worse than penalty kicks.

Kudos to the fans: most of the names listed above are on the their wish list. In the AL, they've got Morneau at first, Longoria at third and Crawford in the outfield, all legitimate alternatives, though with Nelson Cruz's overblown Texas stats too close for comfort behind Crawford. They totter a bit on the NL squad, with Polanco wrongly leading Wright and Yadier Molina leading McCann. Jason Heyward is their worst selection, but who can blame them for irrational exuberance about a well-mannered 20-year-old stud?

I know, it's all drivel, and we'll forget who went to Anaheim by year's end when the real All-Star team (aka the New York Yankees) collects another championship trophy (yawn.) I can promise you this: it won't be nearly as exciting as the NCAA championship won yesterday by my home state Gamecocks, the pride of South Carolina, who defeated UCLA 2-1 in 11 innings. "No one can lick our 'Cocks."

See, drivel is suddenly looking good.

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