They announced the winners Thursday night of the American League and National League Most Valuable Player honors, Shohei Otani and Ronald Acuña Jr., respectively.
The annual MVP announcements are always an opportunity for one last glimpse back at the season, one last line to be added to the story of 2023. In a week full of awards announcements by the Baseball Writers Association of America, the MVPs are the grand finale and are considered to be the most important.
For fans, that moment of seeing a hometown hero honored can be the icing on the cake of a great year, or, in some cases, a frustrating reminder of missed opportunities.
Either way, it’s not the kind of moment that Washington area fans — especially baseball fans — have a lot of familiarity with.
There was 2015, when Washington Nationals fans got to puff out their chests over Bryce Harper, who at the age of 23, became the youngest player to unanimously win the award. Harper that season had scored 118 times, hit 42 homers, driven in 99 runs and batted .330 on his way to becoming the first player to win MVP in Nationals/Expos franchise history.
The award came after a disappointing season in which the Nationals finished 83-79 and out of the playoffs. Manager Matt Williams was fired.
Before that? Well, for baseball fans here in town, it was the early 20th century. And it wasn’t the MVP awards as we now know it. It was called the Chalmers Awards when it started in 1910. Hugh Chalmers of Chalmers Automobile said he would award a new automobile to the player with the highest batting average. The following season he expanded the Chalmers Award for the player “most important and useful to the club and the league.”
Senators Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson won the American League 1913 Chalmers Award after going 36-7 with a 1.14 ERA. The award was discontinued after 2014. The American League started a new award in 1922 to honor the player “who is of the greatest all-around service to his club.” The National League started its award in 1924. Johnson won the award in 1924, posting a 23-7 record with a 2.72 ERA.
That award lasted until 1929. Two years later, the baseball writers created the MVP award that exists to this day.
For the next eight decades, until Harper in 2015, Washington had some great players, but those stars weren’t really part of the conversation when it came to baseball’s annual MVP.
Washington’s football team has done a little better.
In the National Football League, from 1938 to 1946 there was the Joe F. Carr Award, given to the league’s top player. There have been other MVP-type awards given out by The Sporting News and United Press International and years later the Pro Football Writers Association. But the NFL MVP award — the Associated Press honor — began as we know it today began in 1957.
Fifteen years later, the great Larry Brown won the honor after leading the then-Redskins to the Super Bowl and rushing for 1,216 yards in 12 regular-season games — a 101.3 yards-per-game average.
Then came the glory years, when placekicker Mark Moseley and quarterback Joe Theismann won MVP honors back-to-back in 1982 and 1983. Moseley is the only kicker to ever win the award, hitting 20 of 21 field goals for 92% and leading the team to its first Super Bowl title. The following year, Theismann threw 29 touchdowns and 3,714 yards while taking Washington back to the Super Bowl.
Nothing since.
But the gold standard in Washington has to be the Capitals and Alex Ovechkin. The Russian legend who is trying to chase down Wayne Gretzky’s career goal mark of 874, won the National Hockey League’s version of the MVP, the Hart Memorial Trophy – named in honor of Canadian Dr. David Hart, the father of Cecil Hart, a former Montreal Canadiens coach and general manager — in 2008, 2009 and 2013.
Basketball? An empty trophy case for the Washington Wizards.
The National Basketball Association MVP award started in the 1955-1956 season. Since the 2022-2023 season, it’s been called the Michael Jordan Trophy. He has five of them.
Wes Unseld, in a remarkable rookie season in 1968, won both the NBA Rookie of the Year and the MVP award, averaging 13.8 points and 18.2 rebounds per game. But that was for the Baltimore Bullets, not Washington. You can’t lay claim to that MVP any more than the Minnesota Twins try to celebrate Walter Johnson’s accomplishments as part of their history. The franchise can call it theirs, but for Washington sports fans, it was meaningless.
What does the future hold? Are there any MVP candidates in the making now in Washington? Commanders quarterback Sam Howell? Wizards rookie forward Bilal Coulibaly? Nationals 2023 first-round draft choice Dylan Crews?
The trophy case has plenty of room.
You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
