The Delivery Man of the Year Award

When I was a kid in the 1970s and still collecting baseball cards, the role of the closer, or fireman, or relief ace, was still evolving. The save had become an official statistic in 1969, and though some pitchers had been used as relief specialists for many years, they suddenly had an official stat just for them. Prestige started being attached to the role. It became glamorous.

In 1976, the marketing folks at both Major League Baseball and a company called Warner-Lambert saw an opportunity for some cross promotion. The Warner-Lambert folks were the manufacturers of Rolaids, the popular antacid. They had some corny advertisements running all over television at the time, pumping out the catchphrase “Rolaids spells relief.”

So here’s a famous product known for “relief,” and here’s this growing role in baseball bullpens for relief specialists. MLB and Warner-Lambert put two and two together and developed the Rolaids Relief Man Award, which would be handed out each year to the best relief pitcher in each league. And by “best” they meant the guy who scored the highest in a random formula they developed just for the award.