MLB: The Show Gives No Respect to the Philadelphia Phillies

Posted by Stephen Gallo

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

As we all know, Aretha Franklin sang about respect back in the late 60’s. The catchy lyrics have crept into your mind and loitered for a while at some point. Rodney Dangerfield also made a living talking about how little respect he’d received over the years. Well today, I’d like to bring to your attention a specific case of disrespect.

As a baseball fan, I could never get too much of the game. That being said, I also enjoy wasting a couple hours (when the Phillies aren’t playing, of course) in front of my TV, playing baseball video games. MLB “The Show” is the best baseball game out there and then 2011 edition will be released on March 8th. However, the reason I bring this all up is because they recently released their game’s rankings of the top teams, hitter, pitcher, etc. See the link here.

Top rated teams
Are you kidding me? The Yankees and the Red Sox are the top two teams in the game? I can understand the Red Sox being at the top, but how are the Phillies not up there with them, instead of the Yankees?

The Phillies lineup is aging yes, but the only lineup that is aging even quicker is the Yankees! On top of that, let’s talk about the starting rotation. Obviously, anyone would rather have Halladay or Lee over Sabathia, and Oswalt and Hamels are right behind Sabathia. If you were to put just the starting pitchers in ranking order for the Phillies and Yankees, here’s how it would stand:

1) Halladay – PHI
2) Lee – PHI
3) Sabathia – NYY
4) Hamels – PHI
5) Oswalt – PHI
6) Hughes – NYY
7) Blanton – PHI
8) Burnett – NYY (LOLz)
9) NYY garbage #4 starter (LOLz)
10) NYY garbage #5 starter(LOLz)

The above shows that anyone would agree that the Phillies rotation is more talented. I could do the same thing for the lineup and bullpen, put you get the point. The Phillies are better than the Yankees. Period. The fact that SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) got lazy and ranked the Yankees higher is asinine.

Top Hitter
Albert Pujols is the best hitter in baseball, that is easy enough to agree with.

Top Pitcher
Talk about disrespect! While Lincecum (who is really a high school girl, btw) and Jimenez had great years, how could they be ranked higher than Doc Halladay when it comes to being the top pitcher?

Roy lead the league in wins and won the NL Cy Young award. I’m sold.
He was a workhorse, pitching almost 40 more innings than Lincecum, and 30 more than Jimenez. He had more K’s than Jimenez and finished just 12 behind Lincecum.
Dare I even mention the Perfect Game and playoff No-hitter her threw in 2010, which all together makes for one of the best pitching seasons in recent memory?

The choices for other categories aren’t as outlandish as these. I saw this article today and was outraged at the disrespect shown to our hometown team. Maybe Sony was quick to hold a grudge against Halladay and the Phillies because Roy is the cover boy for the other baseball game due to hit shelves this month, MLB 2k11. Hmmm…

Am I being too much of a hometown fan, or do you agree?