Most Valuable Player Award

Cal is the only Oriole to ever win two AL BBWAA Most Valuable Player Awards (1983 and 1991). He is one of 23 in ML history to win multi-MVP awards, one of 11 in AL history to do it. Only three other active major leaguers have done it: Robin Yount (1982 and 1989), Barry Bonds (1990, 1992, and 1993), and Frank Thomas (1993 and 1994).

The other multi-MVP award winners: Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks, Johnny Bench, Mike Schmidt, Yogi Berra, Roger Maris, Roy Campanella, Hank Greenberg, Jimmie Foxx, Hal Newhouser, Carl Hubbell, Dale Murphy, Joe Morgan, and Frank Thomas.

In 1991, Cal became the only player in AL history to win the MVP on a sub-.500 team and the third player in major league history, joining a pair of Chicago Cubs, Ernie Banks (1958 and 1959) and Andre Dawson (1987)...The Baseball Writers Association of America MVP Award has been awarded for 63 years, beginning in 1931...Cal became the first MVP to play on a team with more than 85 losses...The O's were 67-95.

Cal's span of seven seasons between awards is the second longest between MVPs in ML history. Only Willie Mays, who went 10 seasons (1954 - 1965), has gone longer between MVP awards.

In 1991, Cal finished with 318 points, 32 more than runner-up Cecil Fielder of Detroit...In 1983, he won by the same margin over teammate Eddie Murray, 322 to 290, as Orioles finished 1-2 in balloting for the first time since 1966, when Frank, Brooks, and Boog were 1-2-3 (and Luis Aparicio was 9th). Cal & Eddie were the only players listed on every 1983 ballot.

Became the first to win Rookie and MVP honors in back-to-back years...Fred Lynn, of course, captured both awards in 1975 for Boston.

Was third in 1989 in BBWAA balloting with 216 votes behind Robin Yount (256) and Ruben Sierra (228).

About the Award

The Most Valuable Player Award has been given each year since 1931 to the best player from each league, as voted by selected members of the Base Ball Writers Association of America (BBWAA). Predecessors using quite similar voting structures existed intermittently before 1931.

In 1910 the Chalmers auto company had promised one of their cars to the major leaguer with the highest batting average that season. After a scandal in which Napoleon Lajoie was allowed to go 8 for 8 on the last day of the season to overtake the unpopular Ty Cobb in the batting race, the Chalmers people awarded both players cars. To avoid such problems in the future, they decided not to base subsequent awards on raw statistics (which, at the time, were of dubious accuracy anyway). Instead, they set up a panel of respected sportswriters, one from each major league city. Using a weighted ballot on which first place was worth eight points, second was worth seven points, and so on through eight places, one writer per team in each league voted on that league’s best player. Upon winning the car, a player was no longer eligible in later years.

The Chalmers award lasted only four years, 1911-14, but when the American League revived the idea in 1922, they used the same voting system, and many of the same writers. This was the first award to use the title "Most Valuable Player"; rather than awarding a car, they planned to build a monument on which winners’ names would be carved. The National League joined in two years later, awarding a trophy and a $1,000 bond, with these changes: There would be ten places on the ballot, and there could be repeat winners. Rogers Hornsby was the first to repeat, winning in 1925 and 1929. The AL discontinued their award after 1928, and the NL dropped the idea after 1929.

In 1931 the BBWAA took over, using the voting structure the NL had used. In 1938 they switched to three voters per team and a more heavily weighted ballot on which first place counted for 14 points. This basic structure has lasted to the present day.