November 17th, 1971: 22 year-old Vida Blue of the A's wins the MVP award, becoming the youngest player to do so. He also wins the Cy Young award that year. At the time, the lefty was only the fourth pitcher ever to win both in the same season. Here are his stats from the 1971 season...
| W | L | WP | GP | GS | CG | Sh | SV | IP | BB | SO | ERA | WHIP |
| 24 | 8 | .750 | 39 | 39 | 24 | 8 | 0 | 312 | 88 | 301 | 1.82 | 0.952 |
Six American League pitchers have won both the Cy Young and MVP Awards in the same year:
Denny McClain in 1968
Vida Blue in 1971
Rollie Fingers in 1981
Willie Hernandez in 1984
Roger Clemens in 1986
Dennis Eckersly in 1992
Speaking of Cy Young Awards, Congrats to Roy Halladay for his selection as the winner of the National League Cy Young Award. It was a unanimous decision and he became only the fifth pitcher to win the award in both the AL and the NL. He went 21-10 on the season, leading the NL in wins. He also recorded a 2.44 ERA, 219 strikeouts and led the league in innings pitched with 250, complete games with 9, and shutouts with 4. Absolutely nuts. Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals finished second and Ubaldo Jimenez of the Rockies was third. That is right where they deserved to be. Halladay anchored the pitching staff of the team with the best record in baseball and became only the 20th pitcher ever to throw a perfect game. If this hadn't been a unanimous decision, there would have needed to be an investigation into who didn't give Halladay a first place vote, and they would have needed to have their voting rights revoked.
Lastly, Congrats to Padres manager Bud Black and and Twins Manager Rod Gardenhire for winning the Manager of the Year awards in the NL and AL, respectively. Too bad the two managers of the teams in the World Series, Bruce Bochy of the Giants and Ron Washington of the Rangers, GOT ROBBED. Excuse me, but Bochy's Giants won the NL West over Black's Padres (who sucked down the home stretch) and Washington's Rangers were never have been considered playoff contenders at the beginning of the season, unlike Gardenhire's Twins. Bochy finished a distant third in the NL voting, Washington finished second in the AL. Total travesty.
No comments:
Post a Comment