The Moonshot: Yordan Alvarez and Pride in America’s Pastime
By Staff
Well, we believe in exit velocity, bat flips, launch angles, stealing home, the hanging curveball, Big League Chew, sausage races, and that unwritten rules of any kind are self-indulgent, overrated crap. We believe Greg Maddux was an actual wizard. We believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment protecting minor league baseball and that pitch framing is both an art and a science. We believe in the sweet spot, making WARP not war, letting your closer chase a two-inning save, and we believe love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.
Welcome to The Moonshot.
Aaron Judge should be MVP, but Yordan Alvarez deserves his own title
Fresh off a weekend where Yankees behemoth Aaron Judge played superman not once, but twice to top the Houston Astros, it’s clear that New York’s superstar has both the narrative advantage and numbers advantage in this year’s MVP chase.
Judge undeservedly lost the trophy to Jose Altuve at the conclusion of the 2017 season mostly because sportswriters were tired of hulks hitting home runs and excited by the idea of a small man doing it; none of Altuve’s core numbers exceeded Judge’s, except his strikeout rate. Add in Houston’s surprise World Series berth and the Yankees being the Yankees, and it’s clear why Judge went home empty-handed.
This season, though, will not be the same, as long as Judge stays on the field and active. On the verge of free agency, the slugger has essentially changed positions mid-year, sliding to center field while pounding 28 homers and racking up 3.9 WAR. Add in the Yankees playing at a record-setting pace, and other contenders like Jose Ramirez will have to play at double time in order to sway the electorate this time around.
Forgive the mid-column swerve and the very un-Yankee like ambition to honor an Astro, though, but all that being said … Judge is the MVP, but Houston slugger Yordan Alvarez is also the best hitter in baseball, and deserves far more of your respect. The fearsome bull turned a Jameson Taillon fastball into a bullion cube this weekend, and if given the short porch at Yankee Stadium to work with everyday, Alvarez might send a fan per game out on a stretcher, giving a meek thumbs up after learning Zack Hample ended up with the baseball anyway.
In an era of depressed offense, watching someone sting a baseball as well as Alvarez does feels like a relic from a bygone era; his league-leading and absurd 198 OPS+ tells a good portion of the story, but the way he stands in the box like a sedated statue, daring you to throw an inside fastball so he can uncoil tells the rest.
Lefties are occasionally his kryptonite, but Alvarez is the rare breed of slugger who can take over a postseason series all by himself these days. The Astros don’t make last year’s World Series if he doesn’t extinguish the Red Sox with liners, hitting .522 with just 5 strikeouts in 26 plate appearances in the series. When he’s on, he doesn’t miss.
Judge is your MVP; Alvarez, best suited as a DH, is the most terrifying presence in the box this side of Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts in a trenchcoat standing on each other’s shoulders. And that merits an award, too.
Baseball, but for your ears
Pride and America’s Pastime
Being a baseball fan is, among many things, a double-edged sword.
On the best days, fandom allows you to unite with people from all walks of life, joined together by a common passion. For that reason, in this increasingly divided world, I’d argue that sports are more crucial to the human experience than maybe any other time in history.
But on the worst days, I can’t believe I share the human experience with people who wear the same team logo and go to my favorite ballpark but see the world so differently. Naively, I often forget that just because we root for the same squad does not mean we have anything else in common. Maybe because even now, I want to see the world and people as better than we are.
This week, Pride Month draws to a close. Major League Baseball will pack away their rainbow flags and the most colorful versions of their caps, and change their social media photos back to the classic logos. Some teams did a good job of making the ballpark more inclusive with their Pride Night activities (the Texas Rangers are the only team without one.) Many call MLB’s pride events performative money grabs, but many of my friends in the LGBTQIA+ community enjoy them. One told me it’s the only night of the year they want to go to Fenway Park.
As a cishet woman, it is not for me to decide if MLB is doing enough for Pride Month and LGBTQIA+ causes, though multi-billion-dollar organizations can always do more. I will say that seeing individual MLB players like Liam Hendriks, Taijuan Walker, and Mark Canha being so vocal in their support felt like a step in the right direction. Hendriks told The Athletic (subscription required) that signing with a team that is committed to LGBTQIA+ inclusivity was important to him, and Walker surprised New York Mets fans at the team store on Pride Night and paid for their purchases.
But for every step forward, there are many who want us to step back. Five Tampa Bay Rays pitchers declined to wear the patch that their team added to the uniforms for Pride month and rainbow Rays caps, claiming it was a “faith-based decision.” One of the pitchers, Jason Adam, called it a hard decision because “what we want is them to know that all are welcome and loved here.” However, his words rang hollow, given that he continued by saying that while they didn’t “look down on anybody,” they also “don’t want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who’s encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior.”
Putting on a rainbow patch or cap doesn’t make you gay. So despite these Rays pitchers’ claims to the contrary, they didn’t make people feel ‘welcome and loved’ at Tropicana Field. The language that these men used made it clear that they think being anything but cishet is a choice, and one with which they do not agree or condone. Imagine being an LGBTQIA+ Rays fan and finding out that players you root for do not support you simply because you’re being who you were born to be.
When I made a TikTok praising Hendriks and calling out those who left hateful comments on White Sox Pride content, my comments section was filled with ignorant users hiding behind profile pics that weren’t them. Some told me that they have no issue with LGBTQIA+ people, but they didn’t understand why it had to be brought into sports. Many went with the very unoriginal, “Keep politics out of sports.”
For those of you who love to sing that old, tired tune, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but someone should tell you. Sports have always been political.
But more than that, the things that you call politics are actually human rights. The right to love who you love, to bodily autonomy — whether it’s a matter of reproduction, gender-affirming care, or gender expression — to feel safe and welcome in this country and at a ballpark. These should be the fundamental tenets of being alive, inalienable and eternal. Instead, they’ve been politicized.
So really, when you say that politics should be kept out of sports, what you mean is that people should keep issues you disagree with out of sports, and therefore people who are different from you.
Sports are a microcosm of society, and since Pride Month began, the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade and Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that gay rights could be next. These issues impact millions, including baseball fans.
If baseball is meant to unite us, then it should be for everyone, an experience that joins the most different people and helps them find common ground. And making baseball a welcoming community for all doesn’t mean you need to change who you are, but how you treat others, tolerating people who are different, and treating one another with kindness and respect.
For decades baseball has proudly called itself “America’s Pastime.” As Pride Month comes to a close, I urge baseball not to stay in the past, but to get with the times.
4 stories from around the MLB Division you need to read
It was an extremely busy weekend in the MLB. Here are four stories you need to to read to catch up on the biggest storylines of the past few days.
Freddie Freeman Returns to Atlanta for First Time — Freddie Freeman’s return to Braves Country on Friday for the first time since joining the Dodgers was an emotional one. Jake Mastroianni of Tomahawk Take writes that it’s time for any fans to let go of festering anger over his departure as it’s clear Freeman still loves Atlanta and Atlanta loves him.
Astros make history with first no-hitter at new Yankee Stadium — On Saturday, the Astros no-hit the Yankees for the franchise’s 14th no-hitter ever and the first at this edition of Yankee Stadium. They nearly repeated the feat Sunday, throwing another seven no-hit innings before eventually falling on a walk-off home run from Aaron Judge. Climbing Tal’s Hill contributor Marty Coleman did a deep dive into the stats and explained the significance.
Bryce Harper’s injury comments are heartbreaking — The Phillies’ playoff prospects changed dramatically on Saturday night. Finally winning games in June after replacing former manager Joe Girardi with Rob Thomson, Philadelphia now faces an uphill battle after superstar slugger Bryce Harper had his thumb fractured by a Blake Snell pitch. Gabrielle Starr notes at That Ball’s Outta Here that Harper would rather take a pitch to the face than the thumb because he doesn’t want to miss any games. That’s some real commitment to his team and fans.
LA Angels show fire in epic, old school bench-clearing brawl — Usually, when we say there was a baseball brawl, it’s more quadrille and less Royal Rumble. Not this time. The Angels and Mariners got into it on Sunday. Punches were thrown. Seeds were thrown. Twelve were suspended by MLB for the altercation. Maybe that will light a fire under the middling Halos.
More. Subscribe to The Moonshot. light