2007 home run derby controversy

I have successfully picked the winner of Major League Baseball's Home Run Derby that last two seasons. In 2005, the biggest underdog in Bobby Abreu won the Derby. I happened to be in Las Vegas at the time and I was going to put $20 on Bobby. It would have won me $160, but I got the time zones screwed up and I wasn't able to place my bet.

And last year, Ryan Howard was my pick to win. I had already picked Howard to win the Home Run title before the season began. A friend was in Vegas before the 06 season and showed me a sheet of the odds of about 100 players to win the Home Run crown. Howard was a relative unknown and his odds were about 200 to 1.

I am officially filing a protest in the 2007 Home Run derby. Albert Pujols was my pick. He was eliminated in the second round by one home run. The winners of the second round are determined by the total homeruns hit in the first and second round combined. In the first round, Darth Pujols hit a homer off the top of the outfield fence. It was called an out. ESPN showed no replay, but I replayed it about 5 times with my Tivo. The no-brain trio of Chris Berman, Joe Morgan, and Dusty Baker were too busy giving each other massages to notice that it was actually a homer. Pujols and Vladimir Guerrero should have gone into a faceoff to determine who goes into the final round. Instead Vlad went to the final round and defeated Alex Rios with 3 homers hit with 7 outs. Certainly, Pujols would have outhit Alex Rios to win the title. Fortunately Vladimir Guerrero is one of my favorite players (as noted in a blog post from last year's All Star Game), so I'm happy he won, even though he really didn't win.

what was the total number of homeruns hit by each player? I only caught the ending of the derby, but got the impression that this year's derby was very flat on homeruns.

Home run totals were down considerably. Do you think it has anything to do with the new steriod testing policy? Hmmmmmm....

Oh, and I can vouch for Moose's Ryan Howard prediction from last year. I specifically remember him telling me that Ryan Howard was going to win the HR title before the season even started.

How'd you like Peter Gammons comment that there should be a pitcher's home run derby? That was bizarre.

berman, morgan, and baker kept coming up with excuses for the lack of homeruns. Here's what I could remember:

- outfield wall too far away. outfield wall too high.

- they took too much batting practice in the inside cage at AT&T Park

- they weren't stepping out of the batter's box and collecting themselves enough

- the ball is heavier on the west coast because the midwest and east coast is more humid (that's a dusty baker gem)

- the shadow was over homeplate, but not the pitching mound effected how the hitters were seeing the ball. I have no problem with this arguement except for the fact that this condition only lasted for no more than 10 minutes. There were only two hitters in the first round effected by this.

- at one point, Joe Morgan was blaming Jon Miller for talking on the PA while the batters were batting.

I didn't mind Gammon's comment about a pitcher's homerun derby. It was funny in a weird way. I immediately thought that Zambrano would win the thing hands down.

I thought it was more bizzare how arod and bonds were having a 60+ minute conversation on the field. Well, "bizzare" isn't the right word. "Staged" is a better word. The only reason those two were chatting was because there was a camera on them the entire time. Those two are the most self-concious players in the league. But the manner in which both players handle their self-conscious states couldn't be more opposite.

I heard one person on ESPN mention a baseball skills contest, a la hockey.

They could time players running from 1st to 3rd, have outfielders throw to a target at home plate, pitchers do...whatever it is they do, etc.

Personally, I got bored, and stopped watching, by the middle of the second round. A commercial break between each batter?! Come on. Talk about a waste of time. I couldn't believe the thing took so long.

I was lucky and had the Tivo running. I started watching about an hour after the Derby started so I was able to fast-forward through the commercials. My wife is the best because she put up with me watching the entire home run derby.

Here's the 2007 home run derby totals:
----------------round1----semis----finals----totals
v. guerrero------5----------9---------3--------17
a. rios------------5---------12--------2--------19
m. holliday------5----------8----------x-------13
a. pujols*--------4----------9----------x-------13
j. morneau------4-----------x---------x---------4
p. fielder---------3-----------x---------x---------3
r. howard--------3-----------x---------x---------3
m. ordonez------2-----------x---------x---------2

*Pujols advanced in a Round 1 Swing-off, 2-1

what happened to howard this year? 3 hr?