Quote:
Originally posted by Skipaway
Perhaps we should wait for quotes from those two writers to see if that's the real reason they left Matsui off the ballot. Nobody left Ichiro off the ballot in 2001, were the voters different then? Ichiro got 27 1st place votes, and one 2nd.
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here you go:
Ballou: "I really do think he is not a rookie in the traditional and true sense of what a rookie is," Ballou said. "I think major league baseball has to look at redefining what a rookie is."
Souhan: "I just could not in good conscience pretend that Hideki Matsui, this great player from what I consider to be a major league, was on the same footing as a 22-year-old kid trying to learn to hit a major league curveball," Souhan said. "I think it would be an insult to the Japanese league to pretend that experience didn't count."