Saturday, February 26, 2011

Oscar night at the K

Two things will happen tomorrow, February 27, 2011; the Royals will play their first Spring Training game and the hardly working men and women of Hollywood will dole out tiny statues which signify great achievement in their field. We here at the PBR thought it appropriate to hand out our awards for best performances from the 2010 KC Royals team, here goes:

Best Director: This is a no-brainer...and the award goes to Dayton Moore. After spending the previous 5 years honing his craft as a comedy director, Moore is ready to take on the task of directing the artsy dramatic feel good story of turning an organization from pathetic loser to winners. If the Royals go .500 in 2012, will you remember Jose Guillen? If they are soon battling the Twins for the Central Division crown, will you still bring up the Betancourt trade? If Hosmer & Moutsakas are two of the best hitters in the league, will you still harp on the Kendall signing? Of course not. Yes, there is still a long way to go and we're as skeptical as anyone, but if you went to every team in baseball and said: "would you trade your organization for an organization with the best minor league system and a $30-$40 million dollar budget surplus?" all but about 3 or 4 teams would probably say yes, despite the prospect of losing another 90 games in 2011.

Best Actor: And the Kauffman goes to....Jason Kendall. Surprised? This guy is so type-cast that he deserves the award, no other Royal could pull off such a performance. The gritty-veteran-club house leader-pitcher handing-passed ball blocking-Crash Davis-y role has been so mastered by him that this is more of a life time achievement award for Kendall. He somehow convinced Moore that a 40-year-oldish catcher with no arm and no ability to hit even one home run a year, was worth 2 years and $6 mil. This is pure acting because there are no numerical measures of why this guy is even able to still play baseball at a major-league level, but here he is convincing people that he still has a talent.

Best Supporting Actor: Earning his 6th consecutive (and final) Kauffman for his role as a supporting actor is...David DeJesus! David, this is your farewell gift from the PBR, we really never noticed that you were that good, but you really were a good player for KC. David is probably not ever going to take down that leading actor role, but the guy does his job quite well and probably would have been a great guy to have on the 2013 Royals. However, this year would have been another year being a very solid player on a last place finishing team . David we wish you well. The fact that he was still worthy of a young starting pitcher, while on the DL after a pretty serious injury, should tell you that he is/was a pretty valuable player.

Best Foreign Language Film: The Yuniesky Experiment. This documentary-style film was really something to watch over the past year-and-a-half. Perhaps no player better exemplifies how much baseball has changed in the last 20 years; in 1992 Yuni would have been considered one of the best shortstops in baseball and coming off a year in which he led your team in HRs AND RBIs, while looking good to the back-hand side, he might have gotten a life-time contract. In 2010 that makes you a cast-off, mercy trade chip, when we have laser-guided video analysis which tells us that maybe one too many balls squirted up the middle and you can't cross the modern Mendoza-line (.300 OBP) those other (HRs, RBIs and backhanded plays) stats don't amount to much. Yuni also fits this category so well, did anyone ever hear one word of English come out him? I think he always used Brayan Pena as his translator. I will actually miss Yuni to some degree - not really for anything he did on the field - because it was so much fun watching/reading so many conflicting reports about his worth. Next year will be even more interesting when the Brewers try to prove that you can still win even with a Yuniesky Betancourt on your team.

Best Actress: Natalie Portman, wait maybe Alex Gordon because he still has some questionable cajones, but we'll see if this really is the year.

Best Editing: Trey Hilman, just couldn't waste the opportunity to use the name Tokyo Trey one last time. He wins this category more for the fact that he was the person most in need of self editing when he spoke, seriously the things that came out of that guys mouth were Tobias Fünke worthy. "Trey you blow-hard"

Best Short Film: Rick Ankiel, lets just hope we get more than 92 ABs out of Jeff Francouer - then again maybe not. This was an absolutely excellent signing, I know Rick would like to thank the Academy and the Kansas City fans for giving him this opportunity. I can just picture Ricky up on the stage sheding a little tear for all his time in KC.

Drum Roll Please.

Best Picture: Project 2012, granted it is rare that a preview wins the award for best picture, but every Royals fan is already playing out the story of a rejuvenated, youthful franchise winning Division Titles and reigniting the George Brett vs. Yankees drama that once existed. It all starts now, bring it on!

Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, the PBR will not be reporting live from Surprize, AZ but we wish we were. Rejoice, Baseball is FINALLY here again!     



   

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