Baseball Awards

Baseball is unique among team sports in that each game is essentially made up of a series of solo individual performances. Unlike football or basketball, where one player's actions are directly affected by what is going on around him, in baseball there are many moments when everyone else is essentially standing around waiting to see what you are going to do. Because this is the nature of the game of baseball, it is a sport that celebrates individual accomplishment like no other.

Baseball Awards Define Greatness

Every major sport has a Most Valuable Player award, and usually a few other awards given out to certain statistical leaders. No sport, however, has as many major individual awards as baseball. At the close of every season, any baseball fan will be able to tell you who won all the major awards--it's an integral part of enjoying the sport.

Most baseball leagues actually have the same awards as Major League Baseball, whether they're professional leagues or not. The major awards are: MVP, batting champ, gold glove, and best pitcher (called the Cy Young award in Major League Baseball). These awards are sometimes given out in each of the major divisions or leagues.

Baseball awards are great because they give you a nice way of quantifying what was accomplished during any particular season. In Major League Baseball, for instance, the last few years have given us some offensive award winners with mind-blowing numbers. In many ways, the different eras of baseball can be divided up by simply looking at who won the major awards for each season.