first, the comeback players of the year.

best comeback by a middle-aged, paunchy, admitted steroid using, caucasion corner infielder with bad facial hair goes to:

jason giambi, new york yankees.  sure, his average is down, but HR, RBI, 2B, and runs scored are all up.  plus he stole 2 bases this year, after posting a goose egg the last 2 seasons. 

runner up goes to jim thome.  i dont recall if he ever sported bad facial hair this year, so that worked against him, plus he played very limited time at 1st base.

best post-all-star performance  by an aging, steroid-using accused african american goes to:

frank thomas.  And you all thought i was going to say barry bonds.  shame on you!  besides, i'm still not convinced that bonds is black.  also, i havent really heard anyone accuse thomas of using steroids, but going by the general warning signs of picking out the users, it's obvious thomas must have used at some point.  seriously, look how huge his head is.  isnt that how we determine who did and didnt use?

runner up goes to bobby abreu.  it has to be obvious that his increase in production after the trade to new york has nothing to do with the fact that the yankees have a laoded lineup.  i dont know if anyone else noticed, so in case you didnt, i personally witnessed this guy tell another guy to call "bobby" and tell him his "stuff" was going to be delivered as planned.  this occurred the day after the trade went through, so it must be true, and should hold up in court.

 some other random awards.

 best statistics by a controversial, good looking (according to him), bi-racial, mega-millionaire whose teammates dont even like him award goes to:

 alex rodriguez.  if this guy was only making $12 million a year, every team on the planet (except the royals and pirates) would be trying to figure out a way to get him on their team.  not to mention they'd completely disregard his defensive struggles.   its not like he put up bad numbers at the plate.  (.290 BA, 35 HR, 121 RBI, 26 2B  )the one thing that sticks out to me though, is when he called off jeter on a pop-up, and dropped it.  jeter proceeded to stare a hole through the back of a-rod's head for about 30 seconds after that play. 

 runner up goes to....well, i cant think of anyone off the top of my head who fits into all these categories, so we'll be changing the name of this award to "the A-Rod-nobody loves me" award starting next year.

 worst manager who lost at least 5 guys due to injury for a minimum of 2 months each AND had his most consistent offensive player traded away goes to:

 ned yost.  this one is a no-brainer.  j.j. hardy went down may 19 with a severe ankle injury and missed the rest of the season.  corey koskie went down with post-concussion syndrome just before the all-star break and didnt return.  rickie weeks was lost in late july, and had season-ending wrist surgery.  ben sheets missed about 2 1/2 months, as did tomo ohka.  dont forget carlos lee was traded on july 28.  none of that matters though, as hardy was temporarily replaced by chris barnwell, who probably couldnt make your local softball team, koskie was replaced by david "double play" bell, sheets and ohka were replaced by minor-league callups, and carlos lee was replaced by kevin mench.  weeks was actually replaced by a more stable performer in tony graffinino, but without the benefit of a good offense around him, still didnt have numbers that reflected how important he was.

runner up goes to joe girardi, but only because he managed a team with 83 rookies, told his owner to stop harrassing umpires, and knew he wasnt the GM's first choice to manage the club in the first place.  

 dishonorable mention goes to felipe alou for managing a group of social security eligible players, and dusty baker for once again having to deal with mark prior and kerry wood spending 95% of the year on the disabled list, as well as losing derek lee for the better part of the year.
 

 worst front office move of the year goes to:

 since this is a baseball award, i cant give it to the houston texans for passing on reggie bush, even though some recent reports indicate the pro football hall of fame has waived the 5 year waiting period after a player retires so that bush can be enshrined next year, along with alex smith and terrell buckley. 

 anyway, the award goes to the washington nationals, for doing nothing with alfonso soriano.  the nationals have less chance of holding onto soriano in free agency as i have of marrying stacy keibler.  the difference is, they could have gotten something for him if they had traded him away prior to the deadline.  or, they could have made some type of effort to re-sign him at some point.  or, maybe they would have had a chance to bring him back for slightly less money than he'll wind up getting if they hadnt forced him to move to the outfield.  lets be honest, he wasnt real happy with that move, and even if that nats had the money, i dont think he'd come back.  he's already stated he doesnt want to play anywhere else but 2nd base, a position he wont be playing in washington.

 runner up goes to the mets for not following through on any trade to get barry zito or figuring out how to swing that deal for roy oswalt.  at the time, it didnt appear to be that big of a deal, but with the injuries to pedro and glavine (not to mention his age), and ineffectiveness of the rest of the staff, the mets are looking at getting slugged out of the playoffs.  sure, they've got plenty of offense of their own, but at some point their opponent is going to have better pitching.

 dishonorable mention goes to the boston red sox for standing pat at the deadline as well.  then again, i'm not sure any of the guys that were rumored to be on their wish list would have done much good after the 5 game disaster against the yankees.