The Diamond Girl Award

Most of you probably know that I love closers.  They are players who work under extreme pressure and throw upwards of 100 mph.  They are the one and only on their team.  They are glorified and vilified in the same week.  They are generally the weirdest off the field, as well.  What’s not to love?

So here’s my question: why is there no award for closers?  We have the Cy Young Award (for starting pitchers), Silver Slugger (for hitters), Golden Glove (for fielders), various awards for relievers… but nothing for closers.  (Incidentally- why are the sluggers silver and the gloves gold?)  Is that offensive or what?  (If you know of an award and I am incorrect, please do tell me.)

Here’s my proposal: The Diamond Girl Award.  It would be an annual award to honor the best closer in the game- one in the AL, one in the NL.  It could be voted on, the same way as the Cy Young award or maybe it would be fan-voted, like the All-Stars. We can work out the details later.

 The big difference between this award and others in baseball is that the announcement would be much more exciting.  In every other industry there’s a ceremony with an, “And the ______ goes to…” so why don’t we have that in baseball?  I can just picture it.  We’d  have, say, 10 nominees from each league and it there would be tons of suspense.  It would be nationally televised and the ratings would be huge.  And I would get to present the awards.  At least for the first year.

So who would you nominate to get the award this year?  The first commenter to guess who I would give it to wins a virtual hug. 

Diamond Girl