Changing Times in Baseball Awards Voting, 11/16/05

• It's Jack O'Connell's Oldsmobile.

11/16/05 by Ben Westhoff, Riverfront Times on Changing Ways of Baseball Awards Voting, "The Times, they are a-Changin'":

• "Though the pool of writers has been shrinking for years, the (Atlanta) Journal-Constitution's withdrawal was particularly problematic because it

compelled the BBWAA to assign an Atlanta vote outside the Atlanta market.

• The Journal-Constitution's MVP vote went to ESPN.com's Jayson Stark, based in Philadelphia.

Stark put Pujols at the top of his ballot. The region's other MVP ballot was cast by Travis Haney of Morris Publishing Group, which owns three papers in Georgia. Haney, the sole Braves beat writer to vote for NL MVP, says he picked Pujols as well.

• "The Atlanta thing really bothered me," says BBWAA secretary and treasurer Jack O'Connell. "I was always worried that a one-newspaper town would do this.

• I've been permitted for the last eight years now
• to use national writers in emergency situations,
• but I'm never really comfortable with it. I'd much rather get people who are there.""

Houston Chronicle sportswriter Richard Justice tapped Jones. But he says it may have been his last MVP vote.

• "I personally think there are too many issues that smack of conflict for us to continue," Justice comments via e-mail. "My sports editor hasn't decided, but I'd guess he's leaning the same way.
• There's no way of getting around the fact that many players have bonus clauses for these awards.""

(Jack O'Connell today is an employee of MLB.com)

• P.S. For the 1 or 2 people interested in this subject, I found 1 other view of the NL MVP vote which I printed for myself a long time ago. It is available online at accessmylibrary.com dated 11/10/05. By Gordon Wittenmyer, from a St. Paul Pioneer Press article on 11/7/05 which confirms the selection of the "Philadelphia writer" as a substitute Atlanta voter. But Wittenmyer says the second "Atlanta" voter was actually selected from the Minneapolis chapter. From Wittenmyer's article: "That meant no writer who covered Atlanta's Andruw Jones, one of the top 3 MVP candidates in the NL this year (2005), voted on the award." ("Newspapers Withdrawing from the Voting Process," by Gordon Wittenmyer, Pioneer Press, 11/7/05 or 11/10/05).

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