The eighth amendment of the United States Constitution protects defendants in criminal cases from cruel and unusual punishment.
Baseball is considered America's Pastime.
It's very coincidental. Why? Because baseball is as cruel and unusual a sport as one can find.
Take for instance the 2011 National League regular season. In particular, look closely at the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Dodgers, playing way out on the left coast, thousands of miles from the media-favored east coast, were victims of cruel and unusual punishment.
The Dodgers, the team, organization and fans only seemed to make national headlines a couple of times this season.
The talk all season about the Dodgers has been the divorce. While I won't get into specifics, most of America is well aware of the current state of the team's ownership and the trials and tribulations that have taken place over the last six to 12 months.
Then there was the tragic incident in which Brian Stow, the Giants fan who attended opening day 2011 at Dodger Stadium, was beaten so brutally that his life was in jeopardy.
To this day, he remains hospitalized. Thankfully, he has made great strides in his recovery, but he still has a ways to go.
It's easy to understand how and why these two stories dominated the headlines nationwide. For sure, they are both compelling.
What isn't so easy to understand is how and why Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp haven't been making their own nationwide headlines.
A lot is owed, I suppose, to the fact that the Dodgers aren't very good.
They finished the season at 82-79 and were never really in playoff contention.
On the other hand, Kershaw and Kemp have been nothing short of dominant.
Clayton Kershaw, the 23-year-old left handed starting pitcher for the Dodgers, has been as good or better this season than any pitcher in the majors, and that includes this year's media golden boy, Justin Verlander.
Kershaw dominated the league this year, posting a major league best 2.28 ERA.
He was also second in the majors in WHIP at 0.98 and first in the majors in strikeouts per nine innings for pitchers with over 200 innings pitched.
While I don't usually put much credence in a pitchers' win-loss record, I think that in Kershaw's case, the fact that he went 21-5 for a team that finished the season three games over .500 just further exemplifies what he accomplished this season.
In terms of his National League counterparts, Kershaw sits atop nearly every major category: ERA (2.28), WHIP (0.09), wins (21) and strikeouts (248).
The only major category which he does not lead is innings pitched, where he sits at 233.1, good enough for third on the list behind Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay.
Obviously it's easier to give the Cy Young to Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, the top two pitchers for the vaunted Philadelphia Phillies.
After all, those two and the rest of the Phillies have been the talk of the baseball world since before the season even started.
As a whole the Phillies and all of those great pitchers have lived up to their expectations, but individually, not one of them out pitched Clayton Kershaw.
Kershaw clearly dominated the national league and is on his way to what should be his first Cy Young Award.
On the other side of the equation stands the Dodgers' 27-year-old center fielder, Matt Kemp.
Again, here is a guy who has been a very good baseball player in the past but has emerged this season as a bona fide superstar.
Sure, I've seen Kemp's name in the headlines in the past, but most of those had to do with his dating R&B superstar Rihanna.
While that's newsworthy to a lot of people, it definitely took the focus off of what Kemp is capable of on the field.
Kemp did everything he could to remind everyone this season that he is a baseball player and not tabloid fodder.
He succeeded.
Kemp had the single best season of any National League player this season. He won two of the three triple crown categories after leading the NL in both home runs (39) and RBI (126). He also hit .322 which was good enough for third place overall in the league.
Add into that the fact that Kemp stole 40 bases, putting him exactly one home run shy of the ultra exclusive 40-40 club—and I'm not talking about Jay-Z's chain of clubs.
I'm talking about 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases. It is a club occupied by only four other major league players.
Of those four other players, three (Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez) have questionable pasts that causes anything they've done to be scrutinized.
The fourth player is Alfonso Soriano, who accomplished the feat in 2006.
Kemp had a great year and is young enough that I fully expect that he will give it another run or two before his career is over.
His rare combination of power and speed makes him the ultimate threat at the plate and on the bases.
While some may say, since this Dodgers team as a whole wasn't very good and they missed the playoffs, perhaps Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder or someone else moving onto the postseason is more deserving of the MVP.
I would disagree.
Matt Kemp has played and produced like an MVP this season and should be rewarded with the hardware.
All in all, I feel like these two Dodgers haven't received their just due this season. They have outperformed every one of their contemporaries, albeit while flying basically under the radar for the entire season.
I'd say, for talents like these two, that was is a bit of cruel and unusual punishment.
Everyone should now know both of their names.
A Cy Young and an MVP should help with that.
Colin Curtis Kevin Russo Curtis Granderson Nick Johnson Javier Lopez Alex Hinshaw
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