"Send Swish" Succeeds... At Annoying The Sh*t Out Of Everyone

Hey Yankee fans! Check out the team's website this morning and tell me what the first thing you see is.

Is it a recap of last night's game, which most people who are up early on East Coast time would probably be interested in seeing? Why, no, it's yet another message from the Yankees telling you to vote Nick Swisher into the All-Star game to go along with the - not kidding - THIRTEEN other mentions of the Final Vote and TEN pictures of his face on the front page before you even have to scroll down.

We have:

1. A gaudy background design telling you to "Send Swish" and visit Yankees.com, even though you are already there.
   
   
2. A banner ad on top of the site.
   
   
3. Underneath the main picture, there is a link to this page created for the "Send Swish" campaign.
   
   
4. And a link to an article Bryan Hoch wrote about all the support Swisher is getting (with a video interview).
   
   
5. And a link to an article about Brian Cashman coercing children into stuffing the ballot box under the guise of charity work.
   
   
6. Another link to an article by Hoch on the status of the vote (Swish is in the lead!!1!). I'm sure Bryan is having a fucking blast writing all of these!
   
   
7. And a link to where you can vote under that.
   
   
8. And a contest (for two regular season tickets and an autographed ball! (/makes wanking motion)) that you could potentially have a 1:10,000,000 chance of winning if you vote for Swisher.
   
   
9. Another link to Swish's campaign headquarters.
   
   
10. On the right, there is the video with him and his surfboard that you would have to have been living in a hole not to to have seen ten times already.
    
    
11. Under that, there is a second link to the support article.
    
    
12. And a second link to the status article.
    
    
13. And yet another link to where you can vote.

This is in addition to the four or five emails the Yankees have blasted out, the shameless plug in the recap, the innumerable on-air mentions, more articles that Hoch has probably been forced to write at gunpoint, and pretty much every Yankee blog happily joining in this massive, elaborate PR circle jerk to maybe see Swisher play a couple of innings in an exhibition game over someone who is more deserving.

To be clear, it's not really the Yankees who are at fault here. They are just doing what they do best: flexing their considerable resources to gain an advantage over the competition. I'm sure the Red Sox campaign for Youk is equally exasperating. The true culprit here is the concept of the "Final Vote", which is baseball's equivalent of having a play-in game for the 64th spot in the NCAA Tournament - a stupid attention grab that means next to nothing.

Sure, all of the All-star voting is essentially a popularity contest and teams are all too happy to promote their own guys ad nauseam as soon as they have the chance, but the Final Vote takes everything that is wrong and irksome with the process and shoves it down your throat constantly for four days straight.

I get it, "Let's rally around our guy". Swisher is having an excellent year. In terms of WAR and wOBA, he trails only Robinson Cano on the team. He's never been an All-Star and since he's a corner outfielder, he's not going to get all that many chances to be one. From his perspective, the opportunity to rally the Yankees' massive fanbase around his candidacy is probably his best shot of ever being able to add the feather of playing in the Mid-Summer Classic to his cap. He seems to sincerely want it, too. But I don't care.

I'm not voting, and if I was - and I know this is tough to believe - I would vote for Kevin Youkilis (you know, the guy who is the best player among those available). He's been worth nearly a full win more than Swisher this year (with Paul Konerko, Michael and Delmon Young trailing well behind) and, as much as we hate him, deserves his third straight All-Star selection more than Swisher deserves his first. Furthermore, when push comes to shove, if the AL needs a pinch hitter in extra innings of the ASG to win homefield advantage in the World Series, I'd much rather see Youk at the plate than Swish. Wouldn't you?

Some Shameless Self-Promotion

Our friend at Simon on Sports has been conducting a feature called "Blogging the Offseason" in which he asks a blogger from each team ten or so questions about the issues facing their respective organizations this winter.

Today, he's covering the World Series participants and talked to Meech from The Fightins and Mike from River Ave. Blues. Last and probably least, he asked some know-nothing from another Yankees blog to chip in with his two cents.

In other news, the folks over at the always funny It Is High, It Is Far, It is... Caught are conducting a poll to determine the Yankee Blog of the Decade. For one reason or another, despite only existing for about a year, we are actually in third place. If you are so inclined, head over to the left hand margin of their site and show your support. Since you can select multiple blogs, be sure to kick some votes towards RAB and IIATMS as well since they are severely underrepresented as of right now. By the time you're done, the weekend will almost be here.

All-Star Game Voting Ends Today

One of the spoils of living in a Democratic Republic such as ours is suffrage: the right to vote. Today my fellow Yankee fans, I urge you to exercise that right, up to twentyfive times, as All-Star Game voting ends at midnight Eastern Daylight Time.

Derek Jeter is comfortably ahead at shortstop. But as of Tuesday's update from MLB, our namesake and archnemesis led Mark Teixeira by just over 40,000 votes.

Come on Fackers; we can't allow that to happen. So head on over to mlb.com and rock the vote. Vote Teix. Vote early. Vote often. And if you're so inclined, throw a little support towards Ian Kinsler to try to keep the Sawx off the right side of the infield.

Maahhk Passes Yoouuk

There's really no point in gloating about All-Star balloting since who is leading really depends more on the size of a team's fan base or the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns than who the most deserving candidate is. FOTB Jason did an excellent job of laying out exactly why the voting for the ASG is a joke, just this morning. However, if we are going to maintain this niche of Kevin Youkilis hatred we have going here, we are sort of obligated to point this out:

Mark Teixeira shook off a slow start in pinstripes to begin playing like an All-Star, and the fans have taken notice. A blistering May propelled him past rival Kevin Youkilis in the most recent updates for the July 14 All-Star Game at Busch Stadium, but it's still a very tight race. Teixeira's lead over Youkilis stands at just over 1,000 votes.

After spending the beginning of his career in Texas and splitting time between the AL & NL last year, it will be only the second time in his career Teix has been voted in. I guess it's not that surprising when you consider that Teix is a consistently slow starter and first base tends to house a lot of powerhouse offensive players.

Youk's contract runs through 2012 with an club option for 2013 while Teix is signed through 2016. These guys are going to be in duking it out for that 1B spot on the AL All-Star team for a long time to come.