MVP
It’s kind of funny how today’s big story tends to become tomorrow’s forgotten trivia. Sometimes life feels like a big game of Jeopardy!, where the things you one thought would matter turn into trivia that only the true geeks even bother to learn.
The bit of trivia here is Roy Campanella winning the 1955 National League MVP award over Duke Snider.
As The Boston Globe describes above, the voting here was extremely close. One voter inexplicably left Snider off the ballot in what was undoubtedly one of the most bizarre snubs in Most Valuable Player voting history.
The thing is that you don’t need to look at advanced statistics to see the controversy. Looking at the raw statistics is more than enough to see that Snider likely should have received the award.
Here’s Snider’s statistics, courtesy of 1956 Topps:
Isn’t that card back beautiful? Can somebody please tell me why in the world Topps got rid of these multicolored backs with interesting illustrations?
Anyway, this is what Campy’s card looked like:
The Duke was more valuable because:
He played in more games, 149 to 123 (but Campy was a catcher - 123 games is plenty for a catcher, of course)
He hit more home runs - 40 to 32
He hit more doubles - 39 to 20
He hit more triples - 10 to 1
He scored more runs - 120 to 81
He drove in more runs - 130 to 107
He hit for a higher batting average - .341 to .318
Campanella apparently was a good leader, though you’ve got to figure out a way to deal with the fact that both men were playing on the same team. And Campanella apparently had political appeal, telling everybody who would listen that he was going to be the MVP in 1955.
If you’re curious, WAR sees Campy as having a good year, with a 5.2. Snider, meanwhile, gets an 8.6, which leads the club. Willie Mays, meanwhile, led the National League with 9.2 WAR, for what it’s worth.
And it turns out that there was a lot more to the voting than meets the eye. As Duke Snider explains in his 1988 book The Duke of Flatbush, one writer who was sick in the hospital put Campanella down twice on his ballot without any explanation:
So what in the world does this have to do with the Game 3 of the 1955 World Series, you ask?
Brooklyn was down 2-0 in games and needed something to jolt its offense into life. After Jim Gilliam flew out harmlessly to center field, Pee Wee Reese walked. And that brought up the Duke of Flatbush.
And the Duke struck out.
Next up was Campanella, with two men out. Campy was in the middle of a slump, but he didn’t let that get to him.
Campanella smashed a home run to center field, putting the Dodgers up 2-0 and helping turn the World Series around.
In fact, Campanella had a great game in Game 3, securing 3 hits and driving in 3 altogether.
Snider had the last laugh, of course. He wound up with 4 World series home runs and 7 RBIs, hitting .320. Campanella hit “only” 2 home runs, drove in 4, and hit .259.
But, when it mattered in Game 2, Campanella looked like the true MVP.