Tom Brady. To have one player on a 53-man roster make that much of a difference for a middling team that hadn’t had much success in the previous 15 years is beyond impressive. That he’s doing it in his mid-40s is even more so.
True; however, though the Super Bowl win occurred this year, the successful regular season that led to it was last year. If Brady has another great season in 2021, then I’d see it being more likely that he wins the award.
Brady.
Another vote for Ohtani. He is doing things the baseball world hasnt seen in 100 years. He is also a stereotype buster for Asian athletes.
Right. Brady did something Brady has done before. Ohtani is doing something no one has done before.
I’m surprised no one has noted that Ohtani is Japanese. Huge, huge disadvantage.
SI almost never chooses anyone who isn’t American. They haven’t chosen a non-American in 39 years (Wayne Gretzky in 1982) unless it’s a group pick and they ALSO choose one or more Americans. Ohtani is Japanese, so the deck is stacked against him. They have only ever picked five non-Americans as individual winners, all long ago, all white.
The number of foreign-born athletes who would have been logical choices are were passed over is a big number.
Thanks for pointing this out. I guess Novak Djokovic has no hope.
When you sort by “plays an American sport for a US-based team” does that narrow the number down significantly?
It would narrow it down a little but not that much. Think of all the Dominicans, Venezuelans, and Japanese ballplayers who’ve excelled. Not a one was good enough; they only gave it to Sammy Sosa in 1998 when they could also give it to Mark McGwire. When Ichiro Suzuki was the biggest thing in baseball in 2001, they gave it to Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, for reasons I honestly don’t understand.
cough post 23 cough
Well, yeah, it’s been noted he’s “Asian” and apparently there’s a stereotype about them he’s disproving, though honestly I don’t know what that would be. But the fact SI does not give the award to non-American athletes was completely unnoted, and it’s the single most striking thing about the history of the the award.
Granted, SI also gives a huge number of these awards to American football players and basketball players, sports dominated by Americans (though it’s curious that many fine basketball players aren’t American, but none have won.) Still, it’s just an overwhelming tendency.
Simone Biles is my odds on favorite right now; she’s an all time great athlete, one of the faces of a pressing issue in sports, and she’s American. It’s the perfect combo, though they’ll throw in a few other athletes as well and make it a group choice.
In Los Angeles it has been customary to refer to all Eastern Asians as simply Asian. The stereotype is that Eastern Asians arent really physical as in ‘why arent there Asians playing in the NFL or the NHL’. Ohtani is physically dominating the game as both a hitter and a pitcher. He is also a great Ambassador for the game with his charisma and approachability. He has overcome Tommy John surgery and a frankly horrible 2020 season. Had Biles returned and won a couple of golds I could understand the argument in favor of her.
Time to dust this off again…here is my current list of contenders:
- The women from the USA Olympic & Paralympic Teams - the cover is probably Allyson Felix, Simone Biles, and Tatyana McFadden. Maybe add Suni Lee as well.
- Just Biles & Felix.
- Tom Brady & Andrei Vasilevskiy, representing “Tampa: City of Champions.”
- Shohei Ohtani, if he can reach 50 HRs and ten wins - the main strike against him is, the Angels are already eliminated from the postseason.
I think there’s only one real thing standing in the way of Simone Biles making the cover: how much of a factor people buying the magazine plays a part in the decision, and how many people does SI think consider Biles “a quitter” and would refuse, or even cancel their subscriptions, if she was on the cover?
Djokovic lost his chance by:
- not winning the calendar slam at the US open
- not winning any medal at the Olympics(shocking!)
- well, not being American
Exactly, on all three of those (otherwise, explain how Steffi Graf didn’t get it in 1988), with one possible exception: maybe - very large maybe - had he won both the U.S. Open and the Olympics, completing the Golden Slam, there may have been a case for him and Emma Raducanu to share it, although again, the fact that neither is an American would work against them.
The main strike against him is that he’s not American. SI doesn’t like giving this award to a non-American unless they can make them share it with an American. They haven’t done that in 39 years.
My understanding is that the Angels shut him down for the season, pitching-wise, a week or so ago, due to arm soreness. He’s currently at 45 HRs, but he had a terrible August (.202, 5 HR), and no better so far in September (.203, 3 HRs), so unless he suddenly heats up again, he’s unlikely to make 50 with a week left. (That said, the Angels are whomping the Mariners right now, and Ohtani has two triples tonight.)
He’s still a great story, but the wheels sort of fell off for him the last two months.
If the Blue Jays sneak into the Wild Card game I’d not at all be surprised if Ohtani loses the AL MVP, too. As cool as his season as been the lack of a defining single exclamation point will hurt him.
I think SI will go with a “mental health” theme and it’ll be Biles, Naomi Osaka, and some other athletes along the same lines. That has been the big sports story of the year.
(My bold)
Tatyana McFadden has an amazing story and legitimately belongs in any conversation about “The Greatest Athlete of All Time” (irrespective of gender, sport, or body abiltiy), but I can’t imagine SI naming a wheelchair athlete their “Sportsperson of the Year” - they never have. And I can’t see them giving it to her this year, if they passed her over in 2013, when she became the first marathoner ever to win four major marathons in one year, and won six golds in the IPC Athletics World Championships (winning every race from 100 to 5,000 meters).
The announcement will be made on Tuesday 12/7, during (and presumably at the end of) a Sports Illustrated Awards Show that will be streamed live starting at 8:00 Eastern.