Walter Johnson Award (Cy Young)

National League:
First Place Vote – Roy Halladay (Philadelphia)
Second Place Vote – Ubaldo Jimenez (Colorado)
Third Place Vote – Adam Wainwright (St. Louis)
Fourth Place Vote – Josh Johnson (Florida)
Fifth Place Vote – Tim Hudson (Atlanta)

American League:
First Place Vote – Felix Hernandez (Seattle)
Second Place Vote – David Price (Tampa Bay)
Third Place Vote – CC Sabathia (New York)
Fourth Place Vote – Trevor Cahill (Oakland)
Fifth Place Vote – Jered Weaver (Anaheim)

On Wednesday, Alexei Ramirez of the Chicago White Sox was named the shortstop on The Sporting News American League All-Star Team, as voted on by a panel of 326 major-league players, 25 managers and 24 general managers.

Ramirez, 29, hit .282 with 29 doubles, 18 home runs and 70 RBI in 156 games with the White Sox in 2010.  He is just the third shortstop in White Sox history to be honored by The Sporting News and the first since Luis Aparicio in 1970.

After a slow start to the 2010 season, Ramirez ultimately led all AL shortstops in average (.282), home runs (18), slugging percentage (.431) and total bases (252) and ranked second in RBI (70), third in runs scored (83) and tied for third in doubles (29).

He also led the league with 768 total chances, the most by a Sox shortstop since Ozzie Guillen in 1989 (806), as well as assists (499) and range factor/games at SS (4.79).

Ramirez joins South Side legends Aparicio (1968, ’70) and Luke Appling (1936, ’40 and ’43) as the only three White Sox shortstops to receive the prestigious recognition.

Next up for Ramirez is the Silver Slugger.

Tune in at 7pm ET on Thursday night for a special edition of The Baseball Show with MLB agent Matt Sosnick of the Sosnick Cobb Sports Agency.  Clint and I are extremely excited and honored to have Matt on the show, as we have no doubt that his experience as an MLB agent will generate a stimulating and insightful discussion.  For those who are unfamiliar with Sosnick Cobb, here is a brief list of players who they represent:

Jay Bruce, Kyle Blanks, Ryan Doumit, Josh Johnson, Brent Morel, Ricky Nolasco, Freddy Sanchez, Josh Willingham, Aaron Cunningham and Dontrelle Willis.

Don’t worry, in case you are unable to listen to The Baseball Show as it airs, it will be posted and available to stream or download later that night.

The Golden Sombrero presents MLB Look-alikes Playoff Edition: Ian Kinsler and Efraim E. Diveroli

We all know who Ian Kinsler is, but who is Efraim Diveroli?

The New York Times’ C.J. Chivers wrote about him in 2008,

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.

For those of you who are either new to The Golden Sombrero or unfamiliar with our writers, you will quickly learn that we are all huge fans of Trey Parker and Matt Stone.  This year, we named our fantasy league “The Denslow Cup,” after the main tournament in their excellent movie, “Baseketball.”  Hell, one of our writers was even nicknamed Towelie –The Towel is also acceptable– nearly 6 years ago; sometimes I sincerely forget that his name is really Justin.  Seriously.

Therefore, when I stumbled upon the “Lincecum! Fuck Yeah!” video the other night, I instantly knew that it had to be posted on the Sombrero.  Even though most of the baseball community has probably already seen this absolute gem, I want to make sure that our writers have the opportunity to enjoy it as well.