Lance Berkman was recognized for his achievements on the field by being named National League Player of the Month for May. He hit .471 with 9 home runs and 22 RBIs and yada yada yada. You can read the article for the exact numbers.

Anyway, I was reading the article and it mentions other people who got votes and I started wondering.. who votes on this? It can't be the fans, because I haven't seen anything like this for me to vote on anywhere. And that wouldn't be very fair. Is it the players or coaches? I suppose that makes some sense. But then again, players and coaches (coaches mainly) are known to not really pay attention to stats and vote mostly on word of mouth. Is it sports writers or some secret society of player of the month voters who moved up the ranks of Sharp's finest executive program? I suppose I could look it up, but that would spoil my reason for writing this whole paragraph. And it's a slow day.

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but the first results from All-Star balloting for the National League came out a few days ago and Berkman leads all first basemen. He doesn't have many more votes than Albert Poo-Juice, though, so that could change with a slump. This Player of the Month award should help though. That's not a surprise. The surprising thing about the early results is that Astros starters are in the top 5  for every category (top 15 for outfielders.)

WTF?

I feel like the Yankees or Red Sox or something. Tejada being 2nd for shortstops, I can see. Matsui being 2nd for second basemen is a stretch. How is J.R. Towles 5th in the catchers category? Surely there are at least 15 other catchers who are better than Towles. Anyway, you can see the votes by clicking here.

Back to Lance's Player of the Month award... Lance is going to get a 52" AQUOS HDTV. I kind of wonder what the point is behind this. Don't you think he would already have a widescreen HDTV? I mean, he probably has one that's even bigger than that. I know I would if I made $400,000 or more a year. But that's just me.