A History of the History of the MVP and Cy Young Awardsby Ray FlowersSeptember 17, 2004 Every year after the trash talking has ceased, the beer has been drank, and that crappy plastic trophy has been given to the winner of your fantasy league, Major League Baseball releases the winners of the past seasons awards, chief among them are the MVP and Cy Young awards. While this is nothing new to any baseball fan, what might be new is just how the history of these awards evolved. In this brief article, I’ll attempt to briefly sketch that storied history. (The information below is gathered from Total Baseball, 7th edition, pp.192-194 for the MVP portion of the paper, and pp.205-206 for the Cy Young segment). MVP HISTORY Originally the MVP award was presented by Hugh Chalmers, president of the Chalmers Motor Company to the player with the highest batting average in major league baseball (in 1910). However, after the Ty Cobb/Nap Lajoie fiasco of 1910 in which the St Louis Browns allowed Lajoie to go 8 for 8 in a double header with seven of the hits coming on bunts (because they detested Cobb so much), it was determined that in 1911 the MVP award, and the car that went with it, would go to the one player in each league who was the “…most important and useful player to his club…” This “adjusted” process continued until 1914 when the Federal League and World War I caused interest in baseball, and its awards, to wane (on top of these reasons is the fact that Chalmers had signed only a five year deal with baseball to present the award and the accompanying car, which ran out after the 1914 season). In 1922, the American League established a new set of rules and procedures and decided to reinstate the award after neither league awarded a trophy from 1915 to 1921 (the National League followed suit, though it waited until 1924 to reinstate its award). However, a few quirks in the original rules deserve mention. First, the original rules prohibited teammates from both receiving votes in the same season. Secondly, players who also managed were disqualified from being chosen. Thirdly, in the most blatantly stupid idea of the whole history of the award, once a player won the award he was ruled ineligible forever more, meaning that players like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were only eligible to win the award once (in fact, in what must be regarded as the Babe’s 2nd best season of 1927, when he hit his record 60 HR, as well as batting .356, with 160 RBI and 158 runs scored he was ineligible because he had won the award in 1923). So disenchanted were those in the know with the whole process involved with the award, that on May 6, 1929, the AL award ceased to exist meaning that the 1928 winner would be its last (the NL followed suit, but only after awarding a winner for the 1929 season). In 1930, The Sporting News - yes the same one you still read today - presented its own “unofficial” winners. Following this turn of events, the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) determined at its meeting on Dec. 11, 1930, to appoint two separate committees, one for each league, to select the MVP. This meant that the modern day MVP award was officially begun in 1931, and though the awards voting process has changed through the years in subtle ways, (such as including more writers in the voting and changing the way the points awarded are tabulated) the award has basically been carried on since that point with little change (1938 was the season most of the “final” changes were enacted). The MVP exists today, largely unchanged after over 60 years…but who knew of the tumult it faced at its inception?
Ty Cobb (1911)
In 1956 Ford Frick the Commissioner of baseball, determined that pitchers were not receiving their due in MVP voting. So he proposed creating a new award that would be given solely to pitchers. Since the winningest pitcher of all time, Cy Young, had died less than a year earlier, it only seemed natural to name the pitchers’ MVP award after him (though surprisingly, the vote to place his name on the trophy only passed by a 14 to 12 margin). To record the vote major league baseball chose one writer from each big league city, a simple matter. More difficult was the decision pertaining to how many Cy Young awards would be awarded yearly. Frick was greatly opposed to the idea of multiple winners, so from 1956-1966 there was but one joint Cy Young award for both leagues. In 1967, after Frick died, William Eckert asceeded to the wishes of the writers and fans an authorized the commission of two awards, one for each league (Eckert had replaced Frick as Commissioner). Again there have been minor changes to the voting process since the date of its inception, but it is in essence the same award it has been since its inauguration in 1967. Unanimous Cy Young winners: Sandy Koufax (1963, 65-66) ***McLain is the only player ever to unanimously win both the MVP and Cy Young awards. That means that there have been 17 unanimous Cy Young winners out of the 85 awards given over the past 47 years, or a total of 20% of all Cy Young awards. RAY’S NOTES Ray Flowers can be reached with comments/questions or suggestions at: ray@athomeplate.com. You can also visit Rays’ website for other interesting tidbits on baseball at: www.wildpitch.blogspot.com
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