From The Editor
Making Our Choice
By Tony DeFazio

When we first began seriously considering candidates for the first-ever PSR Sportsman of the Year, it seemed an easy undertaking.

It was early-August, and Craig Patrick was in the midst of rebuilding a once-hopeless collection of youngsters into an exciting mix of young stars and veteran experience…one that just might make a serious run once the season got underway. As Mark Madden wrote in the September PSR, "Patrick beat the NHL's financial system before the system was even in place."

Elsewhere, Dave Wannstedt's Panthers had yet to play a game and already the native son was quickly accumulating the best young football talent in the region. Word out of State College was that the newcomer from Maryland, Derrick Williams, was just a few short weeks away from electrifying the college football world. Big Ben was about to embark on his sophomore campaign and leave "Helmet-gate" in the past. And then there was the kid for the Pirates, quietly improving on every facet of his award-winning rookie season a year ago.

Fast forward a few months. The Penguins didn't manage a win until their 10th try. Pitt didn't beat a Division 1 opponent until their fifth outing. DWill? He delivered - until he was felled by a broken arm in mid-October. And Big Ben was certainly playing well - when, that is, he was playing at all. But all the while, that Canadian wearing No. 38 for the Pirates sort of hovered there, noticeable mainly by his lack of flamboyance.

Once you decide to take full notice of Jason Bay, his choice as the Pittsburgh Sportsman of the Year is revealed as an obvious one. The only Pirate ever to win the National League's Rookie of the Year, Bay stepped it up across the board in 2005. Bay ranked among the top 23 major leaguers in 13 different offensive categories (batting average, home runs, RBI, runs scored, hits, doubles, total bases, walks, stolen bases, on base percentage, slugging percentage, sacrifice flies and OPS) - no one else in Major League Baseball can claim that. Not Derrek Lee, not Andruw Jones, not Albert Pujols, not David Ortiz, not Alex Rodriguez…no one. Only Bay ranked 10th in the entire league in OPS: On-base plus Slugging Percentage, valued by many scouts and managers as the most important offensive stat in the game. The most complete offensive player in the game? No, let's not go there just yet. But clearly Bay is in good company to say the least.

It's been said that "character is simply habit long continued," and that best describes Jason Bay, both on and off the diamond. Of the field, his humility, candor, quiet confidence and sense of team are refreshing; the sort of traits that make even the supposed impartial media pull for him. On the field, well, his production speaks for itself.

Bay's toughest competition came from the east, where a group of young freshmen and grizzled veterans restored the roar to the Lions of Mount Nittany. The most difficult thing about choosing a Sportsman of the Year from the Penn State football team was that they were just that - a team; the very definition. It is impossible to single out Michael Robinson over Paul Posluszny; Joe Paterno over Galen Hall or Tom Bradley. But there can be little doubt that the BCS-bound Lions are the story of 2005.

There were many stories in 2005 worthy of recapturing in these pages; 2006 promises many more. As always, we'll be there to live them with our readers. PSR thanks you for another year.

Tony DeFazio is the editor of the Pittsburgh Sports Report, KidSports Magazine and Keystone Recruiting. Disagree with his inane opinions via email