Jake Peavy is, by all accounts, a super guy. He’s a beloved teammate. He can talk Gram Parsons with you for hours. And he likes the Giants, which, say, so do we! His most important quality, though, might be his commitment to community outreach and giving back. For that, he was named the Giants’ nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award, and we should redirect our Belt-getting-into-the-All-Star-Game powers toward helping Peavy win this award.
Reminder: You spent a lot of time helping Brandon Belt win the Final Vote. Look at what you did.
The Roberto Clemente Award, defined:
Each year, Major League Baseball presents the Roberto Clemente Award to recognize the player who best represents the game of baseball through sportsmanship, community involvement and positive contributions, both on and off the field.
The first winner? Willie Mays in 1971. That was the last Giants winner. They have a pretty good chance this year, though.
Now, this isn’t like the Final Vote, where we can be homers without worrying too much about who deserves what. I have very little idea what the other 29 players nominated have done. Sean Doolittle has been an advocate for LGBT rights, and he hosted 21 Syrian refugees for Thanksgiving. He’s awesome. And, I’m assuming, so are the other 29 players.
But Peavy is a very worthy winner. He found out this year that he was scammed out of at least $16 million, but he’s still all over the place with his efforts and contributions. The list of recipients of his charity in that article is exhausting to read. Veterans, kids, his hometown, and the towns he’s played in have all benefitted from the Jake Peavy Foundation. So while I don’t know exactly how to measure one player’s community work against 29 of his peers, I’m pretty sure that if you tweet or Facebook a #VotePeavy or 30 starting Wednesday, you’re not going to vote for someone you regret.
I have no idea if the visibility that comes along with the fan voting is worth the vote-for-my-favorite-uniform fervor that will overshadow what these players actually contributed. Probably, even if that's an icky trade.
What I do know is this: Jake Peavy is at least deserving to be a co-winner in a 30-way tie for the award. So voting for your favorite uniform is less icky when it’s a tie. Maybe? Probably.
The most important thing, though, is to remember that Peavy is a generous fella with a big heart. We spend a lot of time on wins and losses around here, which is a perfectly normal focus for fans. It’s worth remembering that we’re often rooting for some pretty neat human beings, too. Jake Peavy is one of them, and there’s a chance he’ll be acknowledged as such when the winner of the award is announced during the World Series.
It’ll be extra cool that he’ll be on the Giants in that World Series, playing the Red Sox, his former team. "What were the odds?", we'll say. "What were the odds of that happening?"
Pretty low, I’d imagine. Especially considering the Giants will never win another game again. Pretty, pretty low. But it will still be extra cool.