New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez is posting perhaps the greatest April in major league baseball history. So said Karl Ravech of ESPN, who called Friday night's Yankees Red Sox game where A-Rod went deep two more times, making it twelve home runs for the slugger in fifteen games of the season - the quickest pace in baseball history, putting him in line for 130 home runs for the year if his pace somehow keeps up.
And you know what? Ravech is most likely right. Rodriguez is batting .371, is only three home runs this month away from breaking the record for home runs in April, is slugging an absolutely ridiculous 1.048 (for those unfamiliar with that stat, it means A-Rod is averaging just over a base every single time he puts the baseball in play), and has already hit two game-winning home runs for his team.
Hopefully, A-Rod is slamming the door once and for all on the absurd myth that he is not a "clutch player."
However, one thing the sports media doesn't seem to be bringing up is the guy that currently holds the title of greatest April in baseball history: Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals, just last season.
Pujols currently holds the April home run record Rodriguez is chasing, with 14. He drove in 32 runs last April, hit .346, got on base over half the time he batted and, all in all, just couldn't be stopped.
Is this another example of ESPN, the famed Worldwide Leader, ignoring other franchises in favor of the Yankees and Boston Red Sox, as they are so often criticized of doing? Maybe, but I think this is just the latest example of a sports media driven too often by a phenomenon that sportswriter Dan Shanoff, who ironically once worked for ESPN, calls "Instant History."
The sports media in this country -¡- with ESPN being the leading culprit -¡- have taken to estimating things in historical terms very soon after they happen. Sometimes, they don't even wait that long.
The last two college football seasons, the University of Southern California and Ohio State University have fielded great teams that went unbeaten into the national title game and generally looked like a buzzsaw for opponents. Both times, ESPN ran specials on whether these teams were the fabled greatest team in college football history. Both times, the team ended up losing the national title game, and the network ended up with egg on their face for even bringing up the possibility.
The University of Florida recently repeated as NCAA basketball champions, becoming the first team to do that since the Duke University teams of 1991-92. Naturally, everyone in the media, led by Shanoff himself, an avid Gators fan, began plugging this as the latest "Greatest Team Ever." And there's a decent chance that they might be, but it seems nonsensical to debate such a thing before their run as champion is even over.
That, I think, is the biggest problem facing the sports media today. Too often, instead of soaking in the moment, as fans in the mid-1990s loved to do, we are bombarded by proclamations of where this team, or this player or this game ranks among the all-time greats.
And you know what? I like having those debates.
Just save them for after the events have passed. Please?
Write to Andy at ndistops@hotmail.com
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