San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Tatis should win NL MVP award
Sez Me …
Fernando Tatis Jr. should be National League MVP. He’s mine, anyway. And that counts for plenty. Here.
Up to a blip, a two-week September recession, he was. In a small season he provided a large sample size.
He probably won’t win because of that slump. The honor likely will go to Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman or L.A.’S Mookie Betts. It shouldn’t.
Not that they aren’t great players. They are. Over the regular season, which is what determines MVP, I’ll go for Tatis for multiple reasons.
It’s just that, in a year of extreme crisis for MLB, when COVID threw shade and shortened the season, Tatis was the game’s light. Its sunshine. Its face. Its front. Its back. Its matinee idol. Its elegant choreographer.
He was baseball.
He was the Most Important Player from here to Boston. Thus, the MVP.
For close to three generations, I’ve seen every great shortstop, and I’m not here to anoint the Padres’ Tatis the greatest to play position 6. He’s 21. It would be terribly premature and unfair to him, and to the greats whose shows ran longer than 143 days.
Tatis is a swashbuckler who plays the game dangerously, with great risk, without a net — as Capone said in “The Untouchables,” with great “enthusiasms.” He is his own fun zone. He moves with flair, a conjurer with feline grace.
He runs every red light. His instincts and passion won’t allow him to play it any other way.
There are times when he seems to take the bridge too far, throwing his body around, but if he’s one of those “enjoy him while you cans,” that’s how it’s going to be.
Hopefully he remains more star than comet. He’s a 24-hour party with an open bar, the Willie Mays of shortstops.
His endowments are the greatest among legitimate all-around shortstops of my lifetime — and the most photogenic. Alex Rodriguez had everything — he also could steal a base — but didn’t have Tatis’ panache, and he spent the second half of his career playing third base and admittedly doing PEDS — possibly from the start, who knows?
I don’t count juicers. As with Willie, Fernando’s six tool-plus — the sixth being his contagious frenzy. There is no clog in his pipes. Only fast flow.
He plays the only game founded on failure. And yet, even when he fails, he looks good doing it. To those who love baseball and its nuances, Fernando is magic. To the casual fan, no one appears to be more movie star playing a terribly difficult role.
As Reggie Jackson says of him: “Baseball needs you.” He is a big smile from a smaller market. Sportscenter stays up for him.
He will be remembered as the 2020 performer. The real MVP, no matter what.
A good time not only is being had by Fernando. But by all. …
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