The Best, No Questions Asked

There's something that's really been irritating me during this whole A-Rod-to-the-Red Sox saga. Nearly every columnist, pundit and talk show host has been referring to Alex Rodriguez as "the game's best player." While there's no doubt that he's beeen steallar the last few years, there's a little something preventing him from being baseball's best. That something is Barry Bonds. This is a man who's won three consecutive MVP awards and literally changes the way the game is played when he's in the lineup. The home run record, the batting title, the NL pennant, the countless walk-off homeruns... and Barry's reward is to be instantly ignored whenever the name of Rodriguez is brought up.

This is similar to what happened in the NBA from about 1998 up until last spring. Shaq was always called the "most dominant" player, or the "most overpowering" player, but never "the best." That honor usually went to Kobe or Tracy McGrady (and now deserves to go to Tim Duncan), when everyone should have gotten their heads out of the sand and appreciated Shaq for what he is: a great basketball player. It's time people stop looking at guys like Bonds and Shaq as freaks of nature, and start realizing that not every young player deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with them.