Baseball Awards Out of Left Field

And now, my 1997 baseball awards:

Worst Weather

(tie) Cleveland, a good town to be a moose, and Florida, home of the Seventh Inning Stroke.

Best Banner

By a fan in Miami: “I Would Rather Play Baseball in a Football Stadium in Baseball Weather Than Play Baseball in a Baseball Stadium in Football Weather.”

Worst Prediction

Indians in five. (Yeah, right, Downey. In five decades.)

Best Organist

The guy in Florida.

He played a song from “Dr. Zhivago” for shortstop Omar Vizquel, because the film starred Omar Sharif. He played “Some Enchanted Evening” for outfielder Marquis Grissom, because Grissom ends with som. He played “Mandy” for Manny Ramirez. (On second thought, make that Worst Organist.)

Worst Umpiring

(tie) Eric Gregg, because I’m pretty sure he called “Strike 1 and Strike 2” on an intentional walk, and Ken Kaiser, who called a guy safe who was out by about 89 feet.

Best Managing

Jim Leyland, for winning the World Series and for saying to people who called it boring, “You make me puke.” Get those T-shirts made, Florida: It ain’t over till the fat lady pukes.

Worst Ownering

(Ownering. I just made that up.)

Wayne Huizenga.

“I’m selling them. I’m selling them not. I’m selling them. I’m selling them not.”

Best General Managing

Cleveland GM John Hart let Albert Belle go.

(Added note: Parents, don’t forget, Friday is Halloween. Do you know where your children will be? Albert Belle is out there, somewhere, in a Ford Explorer.

(Kids, please, don’t ring Mr. Belle’s doorbell.)

Best Scheduling

Games 6 and 7, on Oct. 25-26, in the National League’s city.

Miami, temperature 83.

Worst Scheduling

Games 6 and 7 could have been in Denver, which needs a retractable roof.

I don’t mean Denver’s stadium.

Denver.

Best Roots

Ken Griffey Sr., Sandy Alomar Sr., Felipe Alou, Clyde Wright, Dick Nen. . . .

Attention, wannabe players: If your daddy didn’t play ball in the bigs, raise your hand.

Second-Best Roots

Pete Rose Jr. finally got to bat in the majors.

I bet his dad was proud. Well, not bet.

Most Heartwarming

“Mom comes from Cuba for final game” (Livan Hernandez), breaking old World Series record of “brother in hospital needs transplant” (Joe Torre).

Least Heartwarming

(tie) Jose Mesa, Wil Cordero, Mark Whiten. (No use going into details again.)

Best Catch

Jim Edmonds, center fielder, Angels.

He caught a couple of balls, Willie Mays would have said, “Nahhh, I can’t get to that.”

Worst Catch

Mark McGwire, first baseman, Angels . . . uh, I mean Cardinals.

(A 1998 conversation: Ken Griffey: “I would love to play in Anaheim for the rest of my life.” Angels: “Gosh, thanks, Junior, but we hate to break up our outfield.”)

Best Trade

(tie) San Francisco, desperately needing pitchers, dialed 1-800-REINSDORF.

(A 1998 conversation: Giants: “Uh, could we have Frank Thomas too? We will give you a shiny new nickel.” White Sox: “Duh, OK.”

Worst Trade

Seattle practically gave away Jose Cruz Jr.

(See “Best Roots,” above.)

Best Start

Cubs go 0-14. And they say tradition is dead.

Worst New Tradition

Marlins, age 5, win World Series.

I can smell 1998 now: Devil Rays in seven.

Worst Suggestion

“Cal Ripken needs a rest.” “Bench Cal.” “Cal’s hurting the team.”

Oh, shut up.