The Sophomore of the Year Award?

I came across this short-lived award when I was doing some research on the bizarre vote for the 1957 Rookie of the Year Award.  Let's look at two players that contended for the vote:

PLAYER A: .292/.323/.457, 15 home runs, 103 RBIs, 185 hits, 31 doubles, 82 runs, Gold Glove
PLAYER B: .297/.335/.381, 3 home runs, 39 RBIs, 128 hits, 21 doubles, 56 runs

So who would you vote for for Rookie of the Year?  I would think most people would take Player A.  That was Frank Malzone of the Red Sox.  Player B was Tony Kubek of the Yankees who won the Rookie of the Year.  Why?  Well I did some checking and it appears that the definition of a rookie changed during the season, and there is some evidence that the Yankees pushed for the change to disqualify Malzone.  Malzone had 136 plate appearances in the Majors prior to 1957, whereas Kubek had none.  It is important to note that under the current system, Malzone did not lose rookie status until the 1957 season.  So we had a bizarre situation in which the clearly superior choice was disqualified.

Well, in searching for information about this weird result, I found information about the Sophomore of the Year Award.  This award lasted from 1953-1962 and was given out by the Baseball Writers Association of America to honor the best second-year players.

Malzone did end up winning this award with his terrific 1957 season.  Jimmy Piersall also won the award in the first year it was given.  This was the season after he had the nervous breakdown that was the primary topic of his book Fear Strikes Out.  Piersall hit .272/.329/.354 with three home runs, 52 RBIs, and stole 11 bases while playing terrific defense.  Those were the only Red Sox to win the award.  Five future Hall of Famers won it (Al Kaline, Eddie Mathews, Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Orlando Cepeda). 

The award was discontinued in 1963, probably because it was mostly unnecessary.  There is not much reason to give out so many awards, and making the distinction between rookies and second-year players, and pitchers, and overall players got to be a little too much.  It is just an interesting footnote that such an award once existed.

Forgotten Stars Pt 3: Frank Malzone

When a team that has as long a history as the Red Sox it is natural to have players who have been largely forgotten.  These are some players who simply do not get mentioned anymore or are largely forgotten.

The Red Sox of the 1950's were fairly forgettable to be honest.  There were not a lot of great players beyond Ted Williams and the teams by and large struggled.  A lot of the players that did play in Boston were largely overshadowed because their teams were so bad.  Such was the case with third-baseman Frank Malzone.

Malzone's career started a little late.  He missed the 1952 and 1953 seasons due to military service or he would have started a few years earlier.  Malzone made his Major League debut in 1955 at the age of 25.  He did not start playing regularly though until 1957, but that year he emerged as a very good player.  Malzone made the All Star game in his first full season as well as winning the Gold Glove, which had just started that season.  Malzone hit .292/.323/.427 with 15 home runs and 103 RBIs, finishing second in the Rookie of the Year voting in an awful vote.  Tony Kubek of the Yankees won it despite playing 26 fewer games while hitting .297/.335/.381 with three home runs and 39 RBIs.  Malzone really should have won it.

Malzone made it into six All Star games and won three Gold Gloves in his career.  He regularly hit 15-20 home runs per season and was a leading run producer for the team.  Malzone finished his career with a line of .274/.315/.399 with 133 home runs and 728 RBIs.  Not exceptional numbers, but fairly impressive for the time period, especially at third base.

Had it not been for his relatively short career, Malzone may have received some Hall of Fame consideration.  However he only played nine full seasons and was basically washed up at the age of 36.  But given the dearth of third basemen in Cooperstown, he may have been able to get some votes had he played a few years longer.