Print

Mail

wiki links

Bonds caps another miracle year

Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants greets the press before Game 3 of the Japan-US baseball series in Osaka, Japan yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Barry Bonds became baseball's first five-time Most Valuable Player, winning the NL award unanimously on Monday.

Bonds received all 32 first-place votes and 448 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. None of his previous MVP wins was unanimous.

St. Louis outfielder Albert Pujols was second with 26 second-place votes and 276 points, followed by Houston outfielder Lance Berkman (181) and Montreal outfielder Vladimir Guerrero (168).

Bonds also won the MVP award for Pittsburgh in 1990 and 1992 and for the Giants in 1993 and 2001, and is the first player to twice win the honor in consecutive seasons.

No other player has won an MVP award more than three times and only 10 others have won it in consecutive seasons.

Last year, Bonds received 30 of 32 first-place votes, with two Chicago writers casting their ballots for Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa. Bonds finished second to Atlanta's Terry Pendleton in 1991 and to teammate Jeff Kent in 2000.

Bonds became the 14th unanimous winner, and just the fifth in the NL, joining Orlando Cepeda (1967), Mike Schmidt (1980), Jeff Bagwell (1994) and Ken Caminiti (1996).

``The guy to me, Bonds, has been the most dominant from what I've seen in 35 years of watching major league baseball,'' said Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, the AL MVP in 1973. ``I haven't seen anybody do what Bonds has done the last two years.''

Bonds hit 46 homers, down from a record 73 the previous year, and had a team-high 110 RBIs as San Francisco won its first NL pennant since 1989.

But Bonds and the Giants lost the World Series to Anaheim in seven games after being just six outs from the title in Game 6.

``It's not going to haunt us,'' he said after the Game 7 loss two weeks ago. ``We'll go to spring training and start again.''

The outfielder, who often appears aloof and combative, said he enjoyed the World Series, even though the Giants didn't win. He claims to dislike the attention.
This story has been viewed 1650 times.