The John Rocker Award

It's that time of the year again. With baseball over (World Series? What World Series?) and the offseason officially underway, it's time to dole out some hardware.

Award season kicked off yesterday with the news that Carlos Delgado had been named the recipient of the 2006 Roberto Clemente Award. The honor is presented annually to the player who demonstrates exemplary play on the field and community-mindedness off it.

As heads is to tails, yin is to yang, and good is to evil, so too is there a flip side to the Roberto Clemente Award. This award is presented annually to the player (or place, or inanimate object) that proves most despicable, most detestable, most anathema to everything that is good and pure about the Mets.

The John Rocker Award.

The award is named in honor of perhaps the most hated opponent the Mets have ever known, John Rocker, who embodied everything there was to despise in a rival. He was brash on the field, and brazen off it. He broke our hearts by striking our best hitters out, and boiled our blood by shitting on our city.

No one has ever come close to touching Rocker's odious legacy, but every year there are those who etch a place in our hearts for all the wrong reasons.

In no particular order, presented here are the candidates for the 2006 John Rocker Award.

Yadier Molina

In an MLB career spanning 937 at-bats, Yadier Assholina has hit all of 16 home runs in the regular season. That's one home run every 59 ABs. His slugging percentage in 2006 was .321, or worse than what Rey Ordonez could muster in two of his seven legendary seasons as a Met.

So what does he do? Well, you know what he do. Molina collected the single biggest hit by an opponent against the Mets in 2006, instantly qualifying him for the John Rocker Award.

Besides, he just looks like an asshole.

Jose Guillen

Remember this guy? I know the tension between him and the Mets peaked a long time ago now, but for a week there in April things between the Mets and Nats looked like they were gonna get nasty.

In his first start of the season, a rusty Pedro Martinez beaned Guillen twice, nearly inciting a brawl between the two teams. Before Pedro's next start against the Nationals, this time in Washington, Guillen said "it's going to get real ugly" if Pedro beaned him again.

Well, things never actually got ugly between the two teams (although Y2K had scientifically determined that the Mets would prevail in a round of fisticuffs). Pedro shut the Nationals down, with Guillen himself grounding into a critical double play with the bases loaded.

Nevertheless, for a solid week there, for hating on our beloved Pedro, Guillen was the most hated man in Metsville, and for that he earns his nomination.

Duaner Sanchez's Taxi

As the Mets' bullpen dazzled in October it became almost difficult to remember that the relief corps had lost their most reliable member two months earlier in a freak taxi accident.

The morning of the trade deadline, on an off day for the club, the Mets were in sunny south Florida, and Duaner Sanchez, setup man extraordinaire, had a hankering for some food. Along with some friends from the area, Duaner entered a taxicab in the earliest hours of the day headed for some Dominican food, but destined for heartbreak.

The accident Duaner's taxi was involved in cost the Mets not only their primary setup man, but also the promising young career (and powerful righthanded bat) of Met pin-up Xavier Nady.

The Mets bullpen solidified down the stretch with Aaron Heilman and Guillermo Mota stepping up, but the Mets' offense never quite recovered from the loss of Nady, and struggled against southpaws down the stretch.

Johnny Damon

In the one-year history of Y2K, no player has gotten as much grief as Johnny Damon. His defection from the Red Sox to the Yankees was a betrayal of epic proportions, and even if he never harmed the Mets directly, his willingness to walk away from a team and city that loved him for that team and city's greatest rival affected us all.

It seemed to confirm our worst fears about our baseball heroes. It seemed to confirm that these guys were nothing more than mercenaries.

Luckily for us, Omar signed Jose Reyes and David Wright to long-term extensions, but still, a part of the fun of baseball died the day Damon signed with the Yankees, and for that, he earns his nomination.

The Home Run Derby

It all seemed so harmless at the time. Just good old fun and games, right? Oh we were so naive.

As shot after shot sailed through the night and into the stands at PNC Park, we were thrilled. Here was our golden boy doing his thing before a National Audience.

Wright led all comers through the first round of the Derby, socking 16 home runs, the highest single-round tally of the event. Even though he fell to Ryan Howard in the final round, it seemed that Wright had had his coming out party, from there on out, the sky was the limit.

Something happened to Wright in the second half of 2006, however, the same thing that had happened to the previous Derby winner, Bobby Abreu. After hitting vastly more home runs than anyone expected of them coming in to the festivities, both experienced a severe power outage.

Wright's numbers after the Derby were similar to those he put up in the first half of the season, with some notable exceptions. Wright's power numbers dropped off big time (6 HRs compared to 20) as did his run production (42 RBI vs. 74) and slugging percentage (.469 vs. .575).

For the role it played in sapping one of Shea's finest of his power, the Home Run Derby earns its nomination.

Braden Looper

He's the fuck who started the Cardinals' mock "Jo-se, Jose-Jose-Jose" chant following their victory in Game 7.

As worthless to the Cardinals as he was to the Mets, Looper somehow felt entitled to twist the dagger in Mets fans' backs in spite of the fact that he'd done basically nothing to help secure the Cards' series victory.

We hated this guy before, but really, this slight will never be forgotten.

"Our Team. Our Time."

Not the slogan, silly, that one actually grew on me. How could you not care for a marketing campaign that allowed so much room for improvisation? It was just so versatile:

"The Team. The Time. The N.L. East Division Champions."

"The Team. The Time. The New Ballpark."

"The Team. The Time. The debilitating playoff exit."

The possibilities were endless!

Unfortunately, that's where the trouble began. See, an enterprising young emcee named Steven "Boogie" Brown, famous for street anthems like "NYC PEECH BOYS" and "Smurf For What It's Worth," decided to record a track expressing his enthusiasm for the 2006 Mets.

Although Steamin' Mikey Lehman declared the song "butter," I've just got no love in my heart for this tune. Hopefully it will be forgotten by the time Spring 2007 rolls around, but for now it makes the list.

* * * * *

So there you have it, folks, the nominees for the 2006 John Rocker Award. Now it's your turn. Simply vote in our interactive poll for who you think is most deserving of this year's honor. The results will be announced on Friday.

Who is most deserving of the John Rocker Award for 2006?
	Yadier Molina
	Jose Guillen
	Duaner Sanchez's Taxi
	Johnny Damon
	The Home Run Derby
	Braden Looper
	"Our Team. Our Time."
Free polls from Pollhost.com

If you would like to write in a candidate, please refer to the comment board.

- A.F.O.M.G.