Hmmm... surveying the nominations for Dwight Meredith's Koufax awards, I see I've may have garnered one. Or maybe not; the nomination was for "best idiosyncratic blog", which isn't on Dwight's list. That surprised me for a bit; I really do think of myself as trying to do mostly political commentary from a left-of-center perspective.

Then I looked at my output for the past week, and found not a single post --- not one --- about Trent Lott.

It's not that I don't care, really. I just didn't think I had anything to add to what other people were saying, and didn't see the point of adding echoes to the chamber. (Though then again, there seem to be folks around who do need to hear the message another few times before it really sinks in --- Colby Cosh, for instance, who apparently still thinks that

The argument against [Lott] generally takes the form "I know he's not a racist; I know he didn't mean it; but he's got to go anyway, because his comments are going to be used against him by the Democrats."

days after such matters as Lott's interview with a neo-confederate rag which described the Voting Rights Act as "punitive", and his vigorous opposition to the desegregation of his own college frat left even sensible Republicans acknowledging that Lott's problems were very real).

But, on the other hand, there are so many equally egregious things flying around --- the appointments of Iran-Contra sleazeballs to high posts, or the apparent coverup of Dubya's own insider trading at Harken, even as he preaches responsibility in business. It's somewhat of a surprise to me, I confess, that this thing in particular has captured public attention.

Not that I'm complaining...

Also, getting back to the awards themselves, I'm a bit surprised at the lack of attention for Jeanne D'arc's consistently thoughtful Body and Soul, and Meredith's own PLA.

By the way, the comments on the PLA "Koufax award" post, in addition to nominations, include a debate about whether the award should really be named after Koufax, a superb left-hander to be sure, but arguably not as good as Lefty Grove. I know it's a long shot, but as a Red Sox partisan, I'd like to suggest remembering a little-known left-handed fireballer named George Herman Ruth, who was on the squad in 1918, the last time they won the world series, and was one of the keys to the team's success. Not only was Ruth a superb pitcher, with a stellar 1.75 earned run average in his best year (1916, 44 games, averaging nearly eight innings pitched --- let's see a modern pitcher match that!), but he was quite versatile, hitting unusually well for a pitcher, and even occasionally playing in the outfield. Unfortunately, he left the team after a dispute with management, and apparently his pitching career ended shortly after that. I'm not really sure what became of the guy...