Decisions, Decisions: Awarding Fingers

The 1981 season was kinda screwy.

There was the players’ strike, of course, the first one in the middle of a season that erased so many games they couldn’t be made up. That led to the silly decision to have first half champions and second half champions, which added a layer of playoffs and hurt consistently good teams like the Reds. They had the best overall record in baseball but somehow didn’t make the playoffs.

It also meant that there wouldn’t be normal season-length standards for measuring players. No one was going to hit 30 homers* or drive in 100 runs or win 20 games when a third of the season was wiped out. The folks who had the task of figuring out the best players to recognize at the end of that screwy year had a difficult task. There were going to be some screwy results.

(*Note: Non-Mike Schmidt Division.)

In the National League, the voters did a pretty good job. FernandoValenzuela certainly deserved the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year honors, and Mike Schmidt was the right choice for the MVP. There were some quibbles along the lines of Steve Carlton maybe deserving the Cy Young instead, but nothing major, certainly not in the year of Fernandomania.

But over in the American League, chaos reigned in the form of veteran reliever Rollie Fingers.