MALKIN IS ONLY 20 YEARS OLD, IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN

It seems the media doth protest a little too much over the Evgeni Malkin debacle. (Scott Burnside, the fine ESPN.com hockey writer, has a piece that's a fairly good example.) The more we learn about this, it seems less the cloak-and-dagger stuff of a John le Carré spy novel and more about a confused 20-year-old being treated like a bird on the wire.

James Mirtle nails it by pointing out that this should make Malkin more of a sympathetic figure. Mirtle also notes that Malkin's relatively humble beginnings are a big, hidden part of this story:

Unlike his close friend Alex Ovechkin, who is from Moscow and whose parents were both famed athletes (his mother won two Olympic gold medals as a basketball player and his father was a professional soccer player), Malkin is from humble beginnings. I believe his father was a small shopkeeper in Magnitogorsk, and that the family struggled to make ends meet during some of the tougher times of the country’s decline.

... one can’t help but see these differences between Ovechkin and Malkin, and how easy it was for one to escape his homeland, and how the experience was the exact opposite for the other.

...You can call it status or whatever you like, but the deck was certainly stacked much more heavily against Malkin than his now-famed pal.

You could say this might be lost on many hockey writers, who don't have as much experience with athletes from lower-class backgrounds as the men and women who cover the NBA, NFL and major-league baseball. It hadn't occurred to me at all, I have to admit.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Eric Hinske is already a Fenway Park folk hero. He just doubled in his first at-bat for the Red Sox in the opener of that five-game series against the Yankees that you might have heard about.
• SI.com baseball writer John Donovan has a column up slugged, "Hold off on those (Derek) Jeter-(David) Ortiz debates. Don't overlook the AL MVP race's forgotten star." Before you can say, "Great! The media's realized there are 12 other teams in the American League!" it turns out Donovan is writing about Red Sox slugger Manny Ramírez.
• It is justified, though. Hardball Times' latest update has Jeter, ManRam and Twins catcher Joe Mauer in a three-way tie for the AL lead with 22 Win Shares. (Ortiz has 19.) For Win Shares Above Bench, the lead is shared by those same three guys and White Sox DH Jim Thome. Each has 14, one more than Ortiz. The feeling here is that if the votes were tabulated today, Jeter might win it as a kind of Lifetime Achievement Award, but he would also a pick most fans could accept.
• Hometown breakdown note: Jim Hulton, former head coach of the surging tide that is the Kingston Frontenacs, is trying is hand at university hockey with the hometown Royal Military College Paladins.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.