And The David Eckstein Grindiness Of The Year Award Goes To...

Every season, starting this year, I am going to award the "David Eckstein Grindiness Of The Year Award" to the baseball player with the season's best Grindiness Per Nine Inning (G/9) ranking. The DEGOTY Award, as it is ostensibly known, is meant to award the players who best encapsulate "trying," "heart," "passion," "the intangibles," and "not clogging up the bases."

The first nominee of the year unequivocally goes to Miguel Olivo, who passed a kidney stone in the 8th inning of yesterday's Rockies-Diamondbacks game...and then came out to play in the 9th inning. Quote:

Rather than sit out as most mere mortals would, Olivo exited the bathroom, grabbed his catching gear and finished the game.

Olivo insisted that despite evidence to the contrary, he's not superhuman.

"Believe me, it’s not fun," Olivo told the Post. "Sometimes, when I’ve got that thing, I just want to die. But I can handle pain a little bit. Once it's gone, I'm normal, I'm good. Let's play baseball."

Olivo is hitting .314 with five homers already this year, which is all well and good, but he's bringing a new meaning to "doing the things that don't show up on the stat sheet."

Olivo's humbleness and intangibility gives him a slight edge over my second nominee for the 2010 DEGOTY Award, Brian Kownacki. Kownacki will forever go down as baseball's most acrobatic player for jumping over a catcher in a tied ballgame to score the winning run. Video of the amazing play below. Who else will make the nominee list? Time will only tell. There are still five more beautiful months of baseball remaining.