I demand a recount! Pedro Martinez was robbed of the 1999 MVP award


So does anyone know what the hypocritical, pedantic, stubborn clown George King is up to? A cursory glance through the Net of Inter reveals not much in the way of information on the presumably former NY Post ‘writer’. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Those with reasonably long memories will recall George King was the idiot who left Pedro Martinez completely off his MVP voting card in 1999, costing Pedro the award, despite a transcendent year that makes Justin Verlander’s 2011 season look like the back of John Wasdin’s baseball card.


Pedro tearing apart the Yankees in the '99 ALCS

Naturally, there had to be a ‘George King’ in 20011 too. Let’s hope Jim Ingraham’s career turns out better than Mr. Kings. Verlander appeared on 27 of 28 ballots and was omitted by Ingraham of The Herald-News in Ohio, who voted Bautista first.. At least Ingraham tried to give an explanation for his omission.

"I'd wrestled with this for a long time. If I was ever going to vote for pitcher for MVP, it would be him this year, he hasn't appeared in 79 percent of their games, any starting pitcher really doesn't appear in 79 percent of his team's games in a year.''


Ingraham has obviously never tried getting a batter out in his life. Those Muppets bleating that no pitcher should win the MVP award as they only play every fifth day, have probably never pitched in a competitive game in their life. I have some insight on this, having thrown over 1,400 innings in the Irish baseball league and in European competition. That’s fifteen levels in terms of quality below the Majors, approximately, however the effect on my arm is the same. Positional players, by and large, don’t lay in bed at night putting weight on their arm to stop it hurting. They don’t go to bed after a particularly taxing game on a cocktail of painkillers. They do not, by and large, go through anything like the physical strain and pressure the average starting pitcher goes through. They do not risk their arm every time they take the hill. Coming out with that tired old stale cliché merely means you know nothing of what a person gives physically to be a starting pitcher.

What hurts most of all is when you look at Justin and Pedro’s statistics, the Dominican Dandy puts Verlander in the (mango tree) shade. In 1999, in the middle of the juicing era, Martinez had a completely insane 2.07 ERA. For 2011 Verlander submitted a very respectable 2.40. Martinez struck out 313 batters, or 13.2 per nine innings pitched. Verlander struck out 250 batters, or 9.0 per nine innings pitched. Simply no comparison. Martinez walked just 37 batters, for a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 8.46. Verlander walked 57 batters, for a 4.39 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Even the most casual of fan would surely agree, Martinez has superior numbers, just no award. Incredibly Martinez was even better the following year in 2000, when he went 18-6 with a 1.74 ERA, however in a mind-boggling turn of events, he came in fifth that year. Go figure.

This isn’t about the validity of a pitcher being as valuable as an ‘every-day player’, this isn’t about anything other than some stubborn idiot leaving Pedro completely off the ballot in 1999, spoiling an absolutely wonderful season that fully deserved the MVP. This has been hammered home by Verlander taking home the 2011 award, and putting an exclamation point to the end of the sentence that reads; ‘George King is an idiot, and always will be!’

Let none of this take away from Verlander, and his superb 2011 season. Congratulations Justin. Pedro, we will never forget your sensational, scintillating, sexy 1999 season. It deserved better.





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