Rangers History Today: Pudge Wins 1999 AL MVP

On this day, Iván 'Pudge' Rodríguez put the capper on his incredible season by claiming the league's biggest individual award for the first time.

On this date in Texas Rangers history, Rangers catcher Iván 'Pudge' Rodríguez was named the American League’s Most Valuable Player.

On Nov. 18, 1999, the Baseball Writers Association of America revealed its voting for the award, and Rodríguez won a close race with Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martínez for the award.

Martínez was coming off winning the 1999 Cy Young Award after going 23-4 with a 2.07 ERA and 313 strikeouts. He won the award with all 28 first-place votes, and led the American League in wins, earned run average and strikeouts.

But, Rodríguez, who helped the Rangers win the AL West for the third time in four years, claimed the award with 252 total points to Martínez’s 239. The close vote included Martínez getting one more first-place vote (eight) than Rodríguez (seven).

Rodriguez had one of the best seasons of his career, hitting .332 with 35 home runs and 113 RBI.

Catcher can be a tricky position at which to win the MVP award. In an article posted at MLB.com in 2020, a catcher had won the award just 18 times to that point. But four catchers—Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Johnny Bench and Mickey Cochrane—had won 10 of them.

Once Rodríguez won his award, only two other catchers earned enough votes to be named MVP: Minnesota’s Joe Mauer in the American League in 2009 and San Francisco’s Buster Posey in the National League in 2012.

Also on this date …

Nov. 18, 1998: Outfielder Juan González won the American League MVP for the second time in his career. He became the first Ranger and 12th American League player to win the award twice. González received 357 points to Nomar Garciappara’s 232. González also received 21 first-place votes. He led the American League with 157 RBI, while also posting a .318 average and blasted 45 home runs.

FUN FACT: González's MVP in 1998 and Pudge's in 1999 were part of a nine-year run where the league's MVP came out of the AL West (1996-2004). The next time an AL West team had an MVP was in 2010 when Josh Hamilton won the award as a member of the Rangers.

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