Baseball doesn’t have a Most Dominant Player Award. Or a Best Player Award. Instead, we are left debating the relative value of the game’s top players each fall.
Not in the fall of 2018. There was no debate that Mookie Betts was the game’s most valuable (and most dominant, and best) player in the league.
It was a rare feat. Betts became just the 12th player in Red Sox history to win the MVP Award, and just the third Sox player in the last 30 years. What’s more, he’s the second player in the 118-year history of the franchise to win the MVP Award and the World Series in the same year. Tris Speaker did it back in 1912 (the award was known as the Chalmers Award back then.)
You would think that would happen more often. One would expect the team with the game’s best player to win the championship somewhat frequently. Yet the postseason, in any sport, is such a crapshoot it rarely works out that way. At least not in Boston.
Larry Bird was the last to do it in these parts, back in 1986. He also did it in 1984. Bill Russell did it four times in the 1960s and Bob Cousy did it in 1957. For the Bruins, Bobby Orr won the Hart Trophy as league MVP in the championship seasons of 1970 and 1972. Bill Cowley did it in 1941.
That’s it. Seven times for the Celtics, three for the Bruins, and now two Red Sox players have pulled it off. Hard to believe no Patriots player has done it. Tom Brady is a three-time NFL MVP, but didn’t win it in any of the five Super Bowl-winning seasons.
One of the great hypothetical sports debates is whether you’d want a championship or an MVP award. Betts gets both. And he made it clear which comes first on the list of accomplishments.
“I think the most important thing is that World Series,” Betts said in a conference call after it he was named the AL MVP. “That’s what kind of sticks in my head first and foremost about the season.”
Betts accepted the honor surrounded by family with his new baby daughter on his lap. He’s arguably the face of the game, and remains as unassuming as when he entered the game as an infielder projected to hit 15-20 home runs.
Most superstars love to tell you about their greatness. Betts would rather spend more time asking questions about how he can improve. He is always trying to improve, whether it’s learning new training techniques from J.D. Martinez or picking the brain of Hall of Famer Jim Rice.
Rice won the award in 1978 playing for one of the best teams in franchise history. That team won 99 games but fell short of the postseason when Bucky Dent homered to lift the Yankees past the Sox in Game 163.
The 2018 Red Sox won a franchise-record 108 games. More importantly, they followed up that historic run with a relentless march through the playoffs. As we turn the page to 2019 there’s no doubting Betts’ place in the game.
The bigger question is his place in this team’s future. He is two years away from free agency and is the cornerstone of this roster. Red Sox President Dave Dombrowski faces many challenging contract situations over the next two years, but none as daunting as trying to lock up Betts.
Betts is a rare talent. And his accomplishments in 2018 were rare indeed.
Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.
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