On this day in 1987, the Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award was renamed to the Jackie Robinson Award. This was also 40 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. The award was established in 1940 by the Chicago chapter of the BBWAA, which selected an annual winner from 1940 through 1946. The award became national in 1947, the same year Jackie Robinson became the very first player to win the award. One award was presented for both leagues in 1947 and 1948; since 1949, the honor has been given to one player each in the National and American League. Originally, the award was known as the J. Louis Comiskey Memorial Award, named after the Chicago White Sox owner of the 1930s. Of the 128 players named Rookie of the Year, 14 have been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame—Jackie Robinson, five American League players, and eight others from the National League. Also out of the 14 that have been elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, eight former Rookie of the Year winners are African Americans (Jackie Robinson, Eddie Murray, Willie Mays, Andre Dawson, Rod Carew, Frank Robinson, Billy Williams, and Willie McCovey). The award has been shared twice: once by Butch Metzger and Pat Zachry of the National League in 1976; and once by John Castino and Alfredo Griffin of the American League in 1979. Members of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers have won the most awards of any franchise (with 16), twice the total of the New York Yankees (eight), who have produced the most in the American League. Fred Lynn and Ichiro Suzuki are the only two players who have been named Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player in the same year, and Fernando Valenzuela is the only player to have won Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young Award in the same year. Sam Jethroe is the oldest player to have won the award, at age 32, 33 days older than 2000 winner Kazuhiro Sasaki (also 32). Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals are the most recent winners. New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter is the next former Jackie Robinson Award winner to become a Hall of Famer whenever he retires. When will that be? Only time will tell!
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 03:42:27 +0000
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