Bill Conlin: No award for Phillies' Happ, just a stellar season

GENE MAUCH used to say, "Close only counts in dancing and grenades, podnah."

Marlins hitting machine Chris Coghlan edged J.A. Happ, Charlie Manuel's Musical Chairs lefthander, by less daylight than you can see in one of those steamy "Dancing With The Stars" tangos. He won 2009 National League Rookie of the Year Award by a point total of 105-94.

Coghlan was somehow omitted on seven of the 32 ballots cast by two voters in each National League city. But he scored the 11-point decision thanks to 17 first-place votes worth five points each. Happ was named on every ballot, but received 10 first-place votes. I wonder how many writers who left Coghlin off their ballots completely were NL West scribes working for reeling newspapers that stopped covering road games. By the end of the regular season, the Los Angeles Times was the only SoCal paper with traveling beat writers. By September, when the sweet-swinging lefthanded hitter was demolishing Phillies pitching, the loneliest place in baseball had to be the Land Shark Stadium press box.

I know some of you will blame the ROY loss on Happ becoming a virtual lab rat after regular-season-ending injuries to lefthanders Jamie Moyer, J.C. Romero and Scott Eyre forced Manuel to reinvent the pecking order of a staff that was in flux from Opening Day.

But the games of Musical Rotation and Name That Bullpen didn't start until the postseason, and Happ himself had to be shut down during the September stretch. The dead-calm lefthander who went from April setup duty to a 12-4 record, a staff-leading three complete games and sparkling 2.93 ERA worked just 16 1/3 innings the final 4 weeks of the regular season. That unwelcome downtime, resulting from a strained rib cage, could have dropped him from first to second and second to third on some ballots. At the same time, Coghlin was putting on a charge that saw him lead all NL rookies in batting average (.321), runs (84), hits (162), doubles (31), total bases (232), multihit games (51) and on-base percentage (.390).

The kid had one helluva year. But so did Happ, who was more than good enough to prevent Cole Hamels' penthouse-to-outhouse plunge from being a blown tire in the Phillies' drive to a second straight pennant.

The annual BBWAA awards are based on regular-season numbers, so all ballots had been mailed before Happ became an unwitting pawn in a postseason game of rotation and bullpen chess that provided almost as much daily drama as the games themselves.