Over the years, it has become more and more obvious that the awards given for fielding excellence are being tainted by how well a player does at the plate. I was looking at the list of past Gold Glove winners and noticed that many of the recipiants were far from the best fielder at their respective positions. Many it seems won the award for their hitting, not their glove work.

A perfect example of this is Rafeal Palmerio of the then Texas Rangers. Palmeiro won the 1999 AL Gold Glove award at first base even thou he only played the position in 28 games! How on earth can a player win a fielding award when he was hardly ever in the field? Palmeiro did hit .324 with 47 home runs and 148 RBI's however and he did win the award legitamitly the previous two seasons, but that should have no bearing on the season in question.

Another example is the case of George "Boomer" Scott, the first and third basemen of the Milwaukee Brewers (1972-76) and Boston Red Sox (1966-71 and 1977-79) with short stays with the Yankees and Royals in 1979. He was somehow able to secure 8 Gold Gloves at first base, 6 of them consecutively, and yet he was only the AL's leading fielder once!

In 1967, the first season he won the award, Scott finished next to last in fielding at .987 among first basemen that played at least 100 games at the position. In 1968, the year he won his second Gold Glove with an average of .987, he tied for 7th place in the AL.

He won his third award in 1971 with a .992 fielding percentage which was 4th best in the AL. This was the first of 6 straight he would win between 1971 and 1976. In 1972 he was 6th in the AL, 1st in 73, 3rd in 74, 5th in 75, and 5th in 76. Only once in that entire stretch did he finish with a fielding percentage higher then the league average.

Why he won so many awards for fielding excellence is beyond me. He was clearly not the best fielding first baseman in 7 of the 8 seasons he won.

There are many other such cases at the other positions around the diamond that I could list, but I think it's obvious that the Gold Glove award, in many cases is a joke!