2012 SJ.com Awards Ceremony

Welcome, everyone, to another meaningless awards show. I'll be your ridiculously good-looking centaur host as we proceed through this inane exercise in back-patting and glad-handing. Suzy Favor Hamilton was supposed to be back stage, but Kenny Tran says we don't click enough ads.

Before we get to our awards, we want to thank our corporate sponsors, most of which manufacture penis enhancements. We also want to thank the 26 voting members, each of whom spent three minutes filling out a ballot to make this whole darn thing possible.

Here they are, in a list no one will read: Amy, Bubbler, buckweaver, Care Bear, Chef2, Dick Whitman, dooley_womack1, Double Down, Gehrig, I Should Coco, Johnny Dangerously, jr/shotglass, LongTimeListener, Lugnuts, MisterCreosote, Norrin Radd, printit, Riptide, Rumpleforeskin, SpeedTchr, Tom Petty, Uncle.Ruckus, Versatile, waterytart, WriteThinking and YankeeFan.

This year was an interesting one for SportsJournalists.com. We lost another crucial member, SF_Express, whom we will honor later in the ceremony. We gained (and brought back) a few more, which is a good thing even if Tom Petty was the side effect. Puns were spun. Songs were rewritten. Complaints were made. MisterCreosote was wed. And everything was overanalyzed.

The choices of the voting committee reflect this year pretty well. There were ties, which are the equivalent of arguments with outofplace, and blowouts, which are the equivalent of The Big Ragu's posts on the banking system.

With no further delay, here are your winners:

All-SportsJournalists.com first team
Bubbler: The official ranter of SportsJournalists.com gave us Kermit the cuckold, Yoda the syphilitic lecher and an investigation into why suburban white teenagers identified with N.W.A.
Care Bear: Violent and vulgar, this new mother endeared her son to the board, ruined butterscotch pudding and bought a new computer.
dooley_womack1: This man of few words and many posts became SportsJournalists.com's career leader, settled a crucial argument and lapped the field in inside jokes.
Double Down: This eloquent statesman wrote a dissertation on TV, defended his friends and made nuanced stands on important topics such as the election and Tim Tebow.
Versatile: The official vote collector probably cheated to make this list.

All-SportsJournalists.com second team: Bob Cook, buckweaver, dixiehack, imjustagirl, LongTimeListener, Lugnuts, MisterCreosote, RickStain

Smartest Poster
Frank_Ridgeway: The veteran journalist mostly serves as a mouthpiece for men's fashion.
RickStain: SportsJournalists.com's official chess master is a Bears fan and insomniac. It's complicated.
Runners-up: Alma and doctorquant

Funniest Poster
Bubbler: Longer intervals between haircuts would have sealed the solo win for him.
Care Bear: Florence Nightingale can eat a big bowl of dicks.
Runners-up: Double Down, Starman and Versatile

Master Debater
Dick Whitman: The lesson of this vote: Always start with the most extreme example possible.
Runners-up: Azrael and Double Down

Best Canadian
HC: That musical Christmas card clearly was a campaign tactic.
Runner-up: JR

Best Moderator
Moderator1: The name recognition probably is an unfair advantage.
Runner-up: Flying Headbutt

Best Troll
MankyJimy: This makes up for Miguel Cabrera robbing Derek Jeter of the AL MVP.
Runner-up: Norrin Radd

Best Newcomer
Amy: The presenter of this award better not have a fucking goatee.
Runner-up: Gehrig

Best Feud
Penn State: Mark2010 doesn't understand the big deal.
Norrin Radd vs. jr/shotglass: This seems redundant.
Runners-up: outofplace vs. everyone and Tom Petty vs. Armchair_QB

Thread of the Year
"Petrino - not riding solo," started by Moderator1: Freqposter, “she's a 6” and so much more originated here.
Runner-up: "THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD," started by Moderator1

Post of the Year
"Case hates JackReacher," by Care Bear: Give a hockey assist to YGBFKM.
Runner-up:"This was Compuserve," by Versatile

Running Joke/Meme of the Year
Kate Upton is fat:

Runner-up: She's a 6

Lifetime Achievement Awards
For this section, honoring two of our greatest members, we turn the microphone over to all-SportsJournalists.com first-team member dooley_womack1. His words are italicized.

Ron "spnited" Drogo Memorial Award: BYH
Just take eight seconds to consider what BYH has meant to this board. A good friend and listener to many; a learned baseball man, Joe Girardi's opinion notwithstanding; a man of education, deeply caring that Donna Martin graduated.

And yes, a lovable crabass above all else. His salary-cap feuds with OOP and Columbo in his various guises are the template of entertaining vitriol. He and spnited of course were a perfect pair, one needing saltpeter, the other needing Viagra, and both cussing out the Mets' latest fuckup. I can think of no better dickhead for this award than BYH. It's a shame the man whom the award is named after won't be back, except in spirit. I hope we won't have to say that about the winner of this memorial honor.

Craig "SF_Express" Stanke Memorial Award: Johnny Dangerously and Moderator1
As Craig Stanke, he made a big impact on the journalism world. As SF_Express, he made a big impact on the SportsJournalists.com world. Those impacts were so big that it takes two people to do his memorial award justice. And there are none more fitting than Moderator1 and Johnny Dangerously.

Like Craig, Moddy is a leader, a shaper of journalists and journalism, not afraid to be forthright and let the chips fall where they may. And like Craig, JD looks at life with humor and perspective and a joie de vivre. Neither of them, even with a cold one waiting at the finish, were nearly as good of runners, I am sure.

Amy, you needn't worry. SportsJournalists.com has done right by Craig's legacy.

With that, thank you all for coming. Vote in the poll, which expires Dec. 31 at about 1 a.m. ET. And have a happy holiday season. I'm going to go tear up some mare butt.

 

A couple stats from the nerd department:

• 42 posters received all-SportsJournalists.com votes.
• 14 received votes for the smartest poster, most for any individual category.
• Tom Petty received votes for four different feuds.
• Gehrig voted for himself as Best Newcomer.
• Former Poster of the Year winners Bubbler (2005) and Double Down (2007) are vying to be the first two-time winner. Mizzougrad96 (2003), imjustagirl (2004) and Jones (2006) are the other previous winners.
• Shut up, Care Bear.

 

So Versatile voted for himself twice?

 

That seems to be the only logical explanation.

Edit: I see what you mean. And no, I didn't vote for myself even once.

 

Lesson 1. Don't vote for yourself, or fuck box will call you on it

 

Great job with this, Vers.

This awards ceremony was as solid as Ryan Seabiscuit's, uh, handle.

 

Thanks everyone. I'm going to make a dead deer on Waikiki very happy tonight!

 

Thanks for the votes, folks. Or thanks to Versatile for rigging the votes. I hope he wins the first Frank Ridgeway Memorial Award someday.

 

good work, fuckbox!

 

Thanks for your votes. I have no illusions about the next part of the process. My over-under is 3 votes in the poll, if my sock puppets don't vote.

 

I accept the Best Troll runnerup with a mixture of amusement and arrogance.

Apparently, receiving Best Feud votes is not based on whether or not the feud is evenly matched.

But I will also accept that particular doorstop.