Friday, December 11, 2015

2015 Awards II

Thanks to the reporters who get the interviews, stand in there or attempt to avoid it and stay dry and the players who provide the walk offs, performances and coolers and the photographers and video guys who document it all. Thanks to those networks who provide lots of video online. Hopefully more will follow (looking at ROOT, SportsnetLA)

How long until Spring Training?

Recapping the 2015 season with some random awards:

Best Dressed for Clinch Celebration
Julia Morales' bright dress survives a complete beer/champagne soaking. Her end of the night selfie seemed to doubt it was salvageable despite her attempts at protecting with a poncho. Did she forget to put it on right away? How did the poncho fail so badly?

https://instagram.com/p/8b_p2MpShX/?taken-by=juliacmorales
She reported the dress survived, but do heels recover from beer and champagne soakings? Wearing a great dress and heels on clinch day reaffirms her status as one of our favorite reporters 


Most Endurance during Clinch Celebration
The Dodgers have celebrated division clinches 3 straight years. This year they brought out baby powder. Poor Alanna Rizzo got multiple beer showers and baby powder to the face and hair. She took it all like a professional, without a poncho, soaking a blue top and grey T shirt. Maybe Alanna is slightly glad the Mets took game 5 and she didn't have to endure another celebration, although I'm sure she has enough blue dresses that losing one for a series win would've been ok.





Best Postseason photo
Britt McHenry probably was glad her playoff reporting duties ended after the ALCS, she found herself caught in a lot of Salvador's celebrations





Best Regular Season Photo
Alex Curry, in one of her rare times not able to avoid the dousing:
It's a shame she's so good at dodging, her facial expressions when she gets caught are epic


Most Surprising Reporter to be dry after interview
Julia Morales after Fiers' no hitter. Astros seem to bring several coolers for a walk off, but just some small bottles during the interview and she walked away with just a little baby powder on her dress. Was her twitter reaction partly shock at covering a no hitter without getting soaked?


Honorable mention may have to go to Sam Ryan covering the Mets NLDS win over the Dodgers, no gear over her dress or eyes, nothing directed her way. She had to be a big Mets fan that night after seeing what the Dodgers did to Alanna earlier.

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/94951848/v523458083/nymlad-gm5-wright-on-mets-32-win-in-nlds-game-5/?game_pk=446258 


Another surprise was Salvador not getting Erin Andrews in on the celebrations through the ALCS and WS. Apparently by the end of the WS she was on edge, expecting it.

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/63106348/v526619883/ws2015-gm2-moustakas-on-royals-battling-vs-degrom/?game_pk=446274

Rookie of Year
    Emily Austen's new job with the Rays included a few victory dousings, mainly in the first half, either she got better avoiding them or asked them to keep her out of the celebrations.



Best Photo Sequence
Doesn't get any better than the AP photos of Kelli's shower, showing how to cover the fun before during and after. Here's one of the before, Howie's giving it away... check the link out for during and after



AP Photo Set


Best Post Cooler Selfie

Seemingly a down year for availability of the showers/aftermath, despite that, Julia continues to be great at posting many photos and selfies from on the field. She provided great commentary on her feelings after their clinching celebration (see above) and earlier in the year, provided a great post cooler selfie of a freshly patterned by Powerade dress. It's a shame ROOT doesn't provide more videos of her interviews to the MLB website.

https://www.instagram.com/p/3fjVJRpSjr/


Most Improved (staying dry)

Took a quick look at reporters who covered a team full time in 2014 and 2015, compared scores to see who fell the most. 2014 winner Alanna (60) dropped to 36.7, but Meredith Marakovits, covering the Yankees, after scoring 4th (27.5) in 2014 managed to stay completely dry in 2015, avoiding any coolers and scoring a clean 0 for the year. In previous years, Brett Gardner has been known to bring out the coolers, but despite winning enough to be the wild card team, Brett never got to Meredith this year. Her wardrobe enjoyed the 27.6 point improvement at staying dry.

2016 Look Ahead

As long as Salvador plays for KC and is healthy, Joel will be the favorite to win it all again.

The Astros look to be good for a while, I'm guessing Julia will have some more dry cleaning to do in 2016, she jumped up quite a bit from 2014 to 2015. 

Could Emily Austen's rookie year lead to more dousings in 2016? Not being the primary sideline reporter keeps her interviews from MLB video site, may loose some points there.

Will one of the teams that dried out last year (Yankees, Dodgers, Marlins) make a comeback?

Will the Diamondbacks big offseason provide another West team with plenty of shower celebrations?

Can someone challenge Perez and the Royals?