Mantle missed a quarter of the season, Kaline more than a third. I
have a problem with giving the MVP to a player who misses so much
time... but who else deserves it? I think it is very reasonable to
say that Mantle did more in three quarters of a season than the others did
over the full year.
This was Mantle's third MVP Award, and his last. It's also the
last I am giving him; I've also added five others, for a total of
eight. You often hear a player described as the best player in
baseball over a certain number of years; usually, it just means
that the player has the best overall numbers, but wasn't the best
player every year.
Mickey Mantle was the American League's best player from 1954-1962, a
nine year period. I've given him eight MVP's in that term, and could
have given him all nine. He really was the best player in the AL every
year, and ranks among the five or six most dominant players of the 20th century.
Rocky Colavito also had one of his best seasons.
When I was young, I used to get Colavito mixed up with Norm Cash and Orlando
Cepeda, because they all played at the same time and hit almost the same
number of home runs and their names began with "C". In Rocky's case, he hit 374 lifetime homers. Colavito
began his career with Cleveland, and led the AL in home runs in 1959; the
Indians then inexplicably traded Rocky to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn. Colavito
had some big years with the Tigers, including a monster 1961 season. He
played for 14 years, and was an All-Star six times. Colavito was a first-class
home run and RBI man who would also take a walk, and he also had one of the
best throwing arms of any outfielder in the league.
Speaking of Norm Cash... he had a good year for Detroit, but it wasn't quite what the Tigers were expecting. The year before, he won the batting title with a .361 batting average; this year, his average dropped 128 points, all the way down to .243. Cash never hit .300 again, but he was always a good player, a lifetime .271 hitter who hit 377 homers in his 17-year career. He had some of his best seasons in the late 1960's, when pitchers were in control of the game, and was a key player on the 1968 championship Tigers.
He was a late bloomer who didn't start to play baseball until he was in college, and spent two years in the army after he was signed by the White Sox. He was traded to Cleveland, the Detroit. His breakout season in 1961 included a career high 41 home runs, 132 RBI, 119 runs scored and .487 on base percentage; it still ranks as one of the greatest years ever by a hitter, and one of the game's great fluke years. After Cash retired, he admitted to using a corked bat during this season; today, Cash's great year is often attributed to the cork.
Perhaps this was the case. But consider that no other player in baseball history (that we know of) has ever benefited so dramatically from using a corked bat. It is also hard to imagine that a corked bat could improve all of Cash's numbers across the board to such a great extent; to be honest, I'm not even sure if corked bats work. And if it was the cork, why did it stop working the next season?
Such are the little mysteries of baseball's history. The cork admission didn't do much to change his reputation; Cash was a popular player, famous for his sense of humour (he once went up to the plate wielding a wooden table leg, on a night in which Nolan Ryan had struck out 17 Tigers), and infamous for his many late nights at the bar (which likely contributed to the ups and downs of his career). He was a good player for a long time, and had one timeless season.
Clete Boyer was the brother of Ken Boyer, the star third baseman
for the St. Louis Cardinals. Both were brilliant defensive players,
but Clete only had a couple of good years with the bat, whereas Ken
was an All-Star every year. Clete won only a single Gold Glove,
because he played at the same time as Brooks Robinson (who is
almost always considered the top defensive third baseman of the era),
but there are many who believe that Clete Boyer was the greatest defensive third baseman in baseball. His statistics support the argument; Clete's defensive stats are as good as anyone who has ever
played the position.
Bobby Richardson was runner-up in the MVP vote behind Mantle.
He wasn't my type of player (no power, no walks, average speed), but
there also wasn't much competition this season. Richardson did play for the Yankees,
missed only one game, and was considered a very good defensive
player. Richardson played for 12 years, all of them with the Yankees.
In 1960, he set a World Series record by driving in 12 runs. He was usually
a terrible hitter, but was an All-Star seven times, on the merits of his
defense, and the fact he played for the Yankees.
Neither Elston Howard nor Johnny
Romano received a single point in the MVP voting. Was there some
discrimination against hard-hitting catchers among the writers of the
time?
