Why We Love: Kelvim Escobar

Hello, Left Fielders. This is Ted of A Price Above Bip Roberts reporting for Sunday night duty over here. The basic concept of Why We Love - baseball is a game we all enjoy. It's the national past time of one of our nations - well, theoretically at least - and heck, the Blue Jays provided one of the top walk-off moments in World Series history, and damned if the Expos weren't about to win the 1994 World Series had it happened, so Canada's rolling too. But there's *reasons* we love the game, and those reasons are often rooted in the players themselves. Every Sunday, we imagine a player whom, while good, isn't A-Plus level in terms of notoriety. For example, this weekend, Alex Rodriguez became the youngest player to hit 500 home runs, Barry Bonds tied a cherished record, and Tom Glavine might be the last pitcher to win 300 games in 2.5 hours. We wouldn't address one of those guys; you know all about them.

This is about another man: Kelvim Escobar of the first-place Anaheim Angels, who is 11-6 with a Top 5 MLB Era of 2.79 as of right now. With the Mariners playing good enough ball to keep it interesting, Escobar is going to need a strong finish as a complement to John Lackey to keep those Angels rolling. And, if the team has ANY chance to topple Boston and Detroit in the AL, his performance becomes even more unflinchingly valuable. Why else should you love him? Let's explore.

- Love him because he's a former Jay. He played with the team from 1997 to 2003.

- Love him because he reversed the trend. While normally a starter morphs into a closer, Escobar was in and out of the Toronto pen for years before becoming a starter in 2003. He went 8-3 after the All-Star Break.

- Love him because he has an arsenal of weapons: the fastball, the change (listed as "deceptive" by Wikipedia), the split-finger, the two-seamer, and the slider.

- Love him because he's from Venezuela, along with other ballers like Bobby Abreu, Tomas Perez, Andres Galarraga, Magglio Ordonez, and Carlos Zambrano.

- Love him because he was part of history once. On August 15, 2001, he beat the A's (as a Blue Jays pitcher) 5-2. Giovanni Carrara of the Dodgers, Omar Daal of the Phillies, and Freddy Garcia of the Mariners also won their starts. As such, it was the first time in MLB history that four pitchers from Venezuela won games on the same day.

- Love him because his April 11th birthday (1976) means he shares his happy day with professional wrestler Balls Mahoney (who is, granted, four years older than him), as well as Jason Varitek and Trevor Linden.

- Love him because this will take you back. His first MLB appearance was on June 29, 1997 against the Orioles (the Blue Jays won, 3-2). The Jays' line-up that day led off with Otis Nixon, had Jacob Brumfield in the two slot, Joe Carter in the three hole, Carlos Delgado batting clean-up, Ed Sprague playing third and batting fifth, Shawn Green hitting sixth, Charlie O'Brien two from the bottom, and Alex Gonzalez and Carlos Garcia bringing up the rear. The Orioles line-up at the time featured big boppers like Brady Anderson, Rafael Palmeiro, Pete Incaviglia, and Geronimo Berroa. The Cito Gaston/Mel Queen-led Jays finished 76-86 that season, FYI.

- Love him because he's a social networker. Uh huh. This is his MySpace page.