Awards

League Most Valuable Player Winners

By Patrick Mondout

While a car maker awarded what are recognized as the first league MVP awards from 1911-1914, the first official league MVP award was presented by the American League to George Sisler in 1922. The National League began in 1924. League rules prevented players from winning more than once and from voters from considering more than one player per team on their ballots.

The decision led to some ludicrous situations. For example, when George Sisler won the initial award in 1922, teammate Ken Williams, who had the first 30/30 season and led the league in home runs, RBIs, and total bases, received zero votes writers could only vote for one player on a team. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were similarly ineligible during some of the greatest offensive seasons in the history of baseball.

The leagues abandon the award after the 1928 season, though The Sporting News (TSN) polled the same National League writers who would have been asked to vote on the winners for the 1929 and determined that Rogers Hornsby would have won. (As he had won in 1925, he would not have been eligible.)

TSN began awarding its own league MVP awards in 1930 through 1945 while the current Baseball Writers' Association of American (BBWAA) MVP awards began in 1931.

Here are winners of the League MVP awards for 1922-1928:

1922 AL George Sisler
1923 AL Babe Ruth
1924 NL Dazzy Vance
1924 AL Walter Johnson
1925 NL Rogers Hornsby
1925 AL Roger Peckinpaugh
1926 NL Bob O'Farrell
1926 AL George Burns
1927 NL Paul Waner
1927 AL Lou Gehrig
1928 NL Jim Bottomley
1928 AL Mickey Cochrane

References