One of my biggest pet peeves involving baseball fandom is how we take the great players for granted and come to expect incredible performances instead of treasuring them. Newer players experiencing similarly solid campaigns or players that come from out of nowhere seem sexier and often cause us to look past the tremendous players that produce at high levels each season.
. . .
This isn't to say that Lee nor Lincecum did not deserve their accolades last season but rather that the proven aces who have helped carry their teams for several seasons should not be the Woody tossed aside for the Buzz Lightyear.
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FanGraphs: Johan Santana is Still Good
I'm posting this largely because I like the quote. This comes from a fantastic piece from Eric Seidman about how really awesome -- still -- Johan Santana is, and it's worth a read for that stuff, too.
But I really like the quote and will always point out that I think the same thing: that players are constantly forgotten for being consistently awesome. If you're awesome but merely stay that awesome in successive years, it's like a film sequel; George Lucas new he needed to make
The Empire Strikes Back bigger and better than
A New Hope because, if it was the same, no one would like it as much. We should do that, but we do it with players. And it's worse if they have down years, even if those years are still great. A few of my friends and I actually have a term for this phenominon. We call it: "Getting Pujolsed."
In any case, it's just a hang up of mine, and I like seeing Seidman voice the same thing. And his article about Santana's awesomeness is also good.
And I also like mentions of
Toy Story.