ESPN's Rob Parker, the man who makes Skip Bayless look like a professional sports analyst, has gained infamy across the internet for his comments attacking intelligence and individuals who prefer advanced statistical metrics to understand baseball.  Why a man who went to Columbia hates learning new things is beyond me, but nevertheless, this jockular wagon that makes him look like a fifth grade bully is the one Parker has hitched himself to.  

Parker went on a Twitter tirade thumping his chest over Miguel Cabrera winning the MVP over Mike Trout, basically proving everything that's wrong with this old school vs new school debate.  In managing to offend those of us who like to use our brains for something more than a weight on the top of our necks, he also mocked followers with the hilariously clever hashtag #wattimeisurshow.  

Just remember as you read these tweets that ESPN sees something in this guy to continually put him on the air to talk about sports and inform viewers.  This is a guy who used to be an actual honest to goodness sportswriter.  Like, in a real newspaper…

So this is what we've become as sports journalists?  Openly rooting for certain award votes to break the right way so a certain section of sportswriters can be proved right in some way?  Just don't tell Rob Parker about his own network's MVP poll, where Mike Trout won 21-7 in a vote of ESPN baseball analysts.  I guess they aren't real baseball fans either.  By Parker's logic, advanced metrics failed because a small sample of MVP voters who think just like him couldn't be swayed to vote for Mike Trout.  It's just too perfect.

But forget the AL MVP vote.  This is about something more than a silly award.  This is about Rob Parker outflanking Skip Bayless in the trolling department.  This is about a guy using inflamed, offensive, bullying language for a stupid baseball argument that really doesn't matter all that much in the end.  The fact that any national television personality could get away with this angers me.  Have we made such little progress where a sportswriter can turn a sports argument into an attack on people that may look at the world in a new way?  If just one human being is encouraged to be a bully or make fun of "nerds" because they want to be cool like Rob Parker, he's already done more damage than one dumb MVP vote ever could.

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