This Day in Sports History: First and Only MLB Co-MVP’s

Major League Baseball MVP awards are getting ready to be handed out and on this day 38 years ago we saw our first and only ever MLB Co-MVP Awards. They were handed out in the National League to St. Louis Cardinals first baseman, Keith Hernandez and Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman, Willie Stargell.

Hernandez was no surprise as an award winner. That year he was spectacular, he won a batting title with a batting average of .344, drove in 105 runs, scored 116, and laced 48 doubles. The offense was a brilliant compliment to his already outstanding glove work as a first baseman, he was known to save many-a-infielders errors on various occasions. The only thing held against him was that his Cardinals finished a mere third place in the division that year.

However, Stargell was a bit of a surprise MVP winner that year. Hernandez had a superior year statistically yet Willie's Pirates were in a dog fight for first place all the way to the very end of the season. They ended up beating out a very talented Montreal Expos team on the final weekend of the regular season and "Pops" (Stargell's nickname) was a huge part of their run.

Stargell's numbers were okay that season, by far not the best of his career but at age 39 hitting 32 home runs and coming up as clutch as he did for his team down the stretch to win the division was enough for voters. The two men tied with 216 vote points, Stargell only garnered four-first place votes yet was able to get enough second and third place votes to tie Hernandez in the end.

We've still never seen another tie in the MLB MVP voting, could we see one this year between Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge in the American League?

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