2004 Astrology Awards Recap
View the 2004 FABL Lineups Here!
I was a college freshman during the 2004 playoffs, and I can remember no better moment of baseball camaraderie than watching the curse-breaking Red Sox in the lounge with a bunch of new friends. And by “new friends,” I mean mostly-strangers, who I was too shy to talk to about anything but baseball most of the time. But we were able to bond over our shared love of the game, and amazement at watching the first comeback from an 0-3 championship series deficit in MLB history. And if that wasn’t magical enough, we then got to retire to our dorm rooms and play MVP Baseball 2005 on our PS2’s. But more on that game next time.
The most magical fact about the 2004 Fantasy Astrology Baseball League season was that Scorpio took home the points crown, the only time in the scope of this project so far. That means that from ’04 thru the end of the decade (2009, of course), no sign repeated as points leader: SCO, LEO, TAU, PIC, SAG, LIB. Never mind that Libra (the ’09 winner) would win the next two years as well, in a sort of mini-dynasty. It’s much more interesting that the sequential essences of the winning signs goes Fixed, Fixed, Fixed, Mutable, Mutable, before breaking the mold with the Cardinal Libra. We’ll get more into essences as we go back to the previous year.
“Giants” actually turns into “Lions” pretty easily, especially when the end of the word is obscured.
For now, let’s marvel at the Positive Polarity MVP-winning, neck-busting, steroid-popping season of Leo leftfielder Barry Bonds (3,137 / 21.3), a season where he would win the fourth of four consecutive real-life National League MVP’s. But the most infamous tidbit about Bonds’s 2004 was that he wouldn’t allow himself to be licensed to the above-mentioned MVP ’05, inspiring the legendary “digital scab” Jon Dowd. His Negative Polarity counterpart, the always-incredible Capricorn first baseman Albert Pujols (3,054 / 19.8), joined Bonds in the 3,000 point club, but he was closely trailed by honorable mentions Pisces Bobby Abreu (2,914 / 18.3) & Taurus Carlos Beltran (2,906 / 18.3). It’s also worth mentioning PP runner-up was Aquarius Vladimir Guerrero (2,891 / 18.5), the AL MVP.
The race for NP Cy Young Award was so close between Johan Santana (3,015 / 88.7) and Randy Johnson (3,010 / 86.0), that it wouldn’t be fair to call anything but a tie between the Pisces and the Virgo, respectively. As it happened, Johan won the real life AL CYA for the Twins, while Randy finished second in the NL for the D-Backs. We have another NP pitcher before we get to the Positive Cy Young winner, and that is Ben Sheets (2,622 / 77.1), who fronted a Cancer rotation that would have been worst in the league if not for Aquarius… which is actually the home sign of the PP CYA Jason Schmidt (2,553 / 79.8).
The relief pitching realm was headlined by Capricorn Eric Gagne (2,517 / 36.0), who extends the streak of Reliable Reliever awards won by either a CAP or a Pisces to nine. On a personal interest note, the back of Gagne’s 2005 Topps card plugs the children’s book he wrote, titled “Breaking Barriers.” In the PP, Mariano Rivera (2,463 / 33.3) takes the crown for the second straight year, the fifth out of six that a Sagittarius would win the award. No rookie broke 2,000 fantasy points in 2004, with Leo bench outfielder Lew Ford (1,992 / 12.9) coming closest. Interestingly enough, the next highest-scoring rookie won the Negative Polarity’s Rookie of the Year award, Virgo’s own Jason Bay (1,554 / 13.0). And more interestingly, both signs would repeat RoY winners the following year in 2005.
Any trip back to 2004 requires an in-depth look at the greatest baseball video game of all time, which happens to use that year as its statistical baseline, MVP Baseball 2005.