. . .you're so desperate to find something to write about that you do a Google News search for "baseball," and half of the results are about people assaulting or killing other people with baseball bats.
Stupid Super Bowl.
While I'm thinking about it, though, I'm trying to figure out the baseball analog of Eli Manning winning the Super Bowl MVP. It's certainly more improbable than Aaron Boone: playoff hero, but nothing as crazy as Ozzie Canseco hitting in 57 straight games. I'll chew on it a while.
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Not for anything, but I don't see what's so over-the-top surprising about a number 1 overall draft pick who has shown flashes of brilliance on numerous occasions, rising to the occasion on the biggest stage of all, just as he has done throughout the rest of the entire playoffs. I think people forget how tough the quarterback position is for any young kid, never mind when your older brother is arguably one of the best of all time. Big brother hadn't even won a single playoff game at Eli's age.
Four years into his career, Peyton had a TD/INT differential of +30. Through that same time, Eli is +13. Peyton also had QB ratings significantly higher in each of the first four years out of the gate.
More importantly for my point above, at this point in his career, no one ever suggested that Peyton might be his team's biggest liability, while there had been open talk of that re: Eli for a long time, only abating midseason this year.
This is not to suggest that Eli is a fluke -- he was impressive in college and he obviously stepped up his game this season and especially in the playoffs. All I'm saying is that if anyone says now that this time 1 year ago they thought they'd be congratulating Eli Manning on leading his team to a Super Bowl victory over what was, until last night, considered to be the best team ever assembled, well, they'd be lying or a Manning or possibly both.
Or Ernie Accorsi. lol
I really wasn't trying to compare Eli to Peyton, just noting that the devlopment of young QB's is a strange and unpredictable thing. (Michael Lewis wrote an excellent piece on this titled the Eli Experiment not too long ago about this very topic)
Sometimes something just clicks for special players. Maybe it was the Week 17 game. Maybe it was the after effects of a star of Tiki Barber's caliber calling him out. Maybe it was Shockey's injury and new found chemistry with Boss. Maybe it was Steve Smith's return to health. Maybe it was the first road playoff win. Or maybe nothing has clicked, and this is just a run of typical Eli randomness (good play soon to be followed by terrible play). All I'm saying is that it's less surprising to me that Eli Manning had this maturation and type of performance than it would be if say, Wrecks Grossman or J.P. Losman did.
how about derek lowe winning the closing game of every series in 2004?
I like the Lowe comparison a lot more because at least Lowe's a talented guy who people just questioned in the big spot. I mean Aaron Boone and Ozzie Canseco are epitomes of the stereotypical bum little brothers, which I never really considered Eli to be.
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