Vladimir Guerrero of the Anaheim Angels won the American League MVP award on Tuesday, just the fifth time a player switched leagues and earned the honor in his first season with his new team.
The Dominican right fielder received 21 of 28 first-place votes and 354 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
PHOTO: AP
New York Yankees right fielder Gary Sheffield finished second with five first-place votes and 254 points. Boston players split the remaining two first-place votes, with left fielder Manny Ramirez finishing third with 238 points and designated hitter David Ortiz winding up fourth with 174 points.
PHOTO: AP
Guerrero was prepared for a close vote.
"I was in no way expecting it to be the way it came out," he said through a translator during a conference call from the presidential palace in the Dominican Republic.
Guerrero, 28, signed with the Angels last winter after eight seasons with the Montreal Expos. He hit .337 with 39 homers and 126 RBIs as Anaheim won the AL West, and led the league with 124 runs and 366 total bases. He batted .371 in September with 10 homers and 23 RBIs.
The only other non-rookies who became MVPs in their first AL seasons were Baltimore's Frank Robinson (1966), Chicago's Dick Allen (1972) and Detroit's Willie Hernandez (1984). In the NL, Kirk Gibson accomplished the feat with Los Angeles in 1988.
Houston's Roger Clemens won the NL Cy Young Award last week following his first season in the league. Clemens won six Cy Youngs in the AL.
Guerrero became the second Angels player to win, joining Don Baylor (1979). He is the fourth Dominican to be MVP, following Toronto's George Bell (1987), the Chicago Cubs' Sammy Sosa (1998) and Oakland's Miguel Tejada (2002).
Guerrero was especially happy that three of the top four finishers in the voting were Dominican.
"It's in our blood," he said. "We grow up with baseball."
Guerrero gets a US$500,000 bonus for winning the award and Ramirez US$100,000 for finishing third. Ortiz didn't get anything for finishing fourth -- but would get US$400,000 for finishing second through fifth in his contract that starts next season. Tejada, now with Baltimore, gets a US$300,000 bonus for finishing fifth, and Detroit's Ivan Rodriguez gets US$100,000 for winding up 10th.
Anaheim was swept by Boston in the first round of the playoffs, Guerrero's first time in the postseason, and he hopes to get back every year.
"It really left a taste in my mouth," he said.
Barry Bonds won his record seventh NL MVP on Monday, capping a season of suspicion and success to become the oldest player to win the award.
The 40-year-old San Francisco Giants left fielder received 24 first-place votes and 407 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America to earn the award for the fourth straight season.
"I don't know if one is better than the other. They're all overwhelming," Bonds said.
Los Angeles third baseman Adrian Beltre was second, getting six first-place votes and 311 points, and St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols was third with one first and 247 points. St. Louis third baseman Scott Rolen got the other first-place vote and finished fourth, followed by teammate Jim Edmonds.
Bonds is the only player with more than three MVP awards and the only one to win more than two in a row. Willie Stargell was previously the oldest to win it, sharing the 1979 NL award with Keith Hernandez at 39.
Among the four major North American professional sports, he trails only the NHL's Wayne Gretzky, who won nine MVPs. In the NBA, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar leads with six.
Bonds said the lack of a World Series title motivates him, and he intends to play two more seasons.
"I want that championship," he said. "I think that's the one thing that's eluding me from enjoying these other accomplishments."
Bonds became only the third player to hit 700 career homers, and with 703 trails only Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714). But following his grand jury testimony in a federal investigation, he repeatedly was questioned whether he used steroids.
His personal trainer has been indicted for illegal distribution of steroids, but Bonds has denied using illegal steroids. He wouldn't address an Oct. 16 report by the San Francisco Chronicle, which said it obtained from an anonymous source a recording of the trainer, Greg Anderson, on which Anderson says Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.
"I don't have answer, I really don't. I don't really care about all this stuff. I really don't," he said. "I don't owe anyone a response to anything."
Bonds' season was unparalleled statistically. He hit .362 to win his second NL batting title in three seasons and shattered the major league record with a .609 on-base percentage, topping the previous mark of .582 he set two years ago.
He walked 232 times, 34 more than the previous record he set in 2002 and more than 100 better than anyone else in baseball this season, and his 120 intentional walks obliterated the old mark of 68, also set by Bonds in 2002.
Bonds' .812 slugging percentage led the major leagues for the fourth straight season but fell short of the record he set at .863 in 2001. He hit 45 homers and matched Aaron's NL record of eight 40-homer seasons, trailing only Ruth's major league mark of 11. He also became the first player in major league history with 13 consecutive 30-homer seasons.
Bonds earned a US$500,000 bonus for winning the award, and Beltre, Edmonds, Pujols and Rolen earned bonuses of US$50,000 each.
New York Yankees slugger Gary Sheffield said Tuesday that he and his wife were the targets of a blackmailer who claimed to have embarrassing videotapes showing her having sex with a professional musician.
"I will not be blackmailed. I will not have my family dragged through the mud and filth," Sheffield said in a statement released by his agent, Rufus Williams.
In the statement, the Yankee outfielder said his wife, DeLeon, a gospel singer, "had a long-term relationship with a well known professional singer over 10 years ago," before the couple married, and that he had already known about it.
"I have not seen the alleged videotape, nor do I care to," Sheffield said in the statement. "I love my wife and I vow again to stand by her through any trial or tribulation."
"I do care that our privacy is respected and that the FBI and the legal authorities prosecute this man to the full extent of the law," Sheffield said.
Derrick Mosley, 38, a Chicago man who describes himself as a minister and has fashioned himself as a community activist, was charged Monday with operating a scheme to defraud for allegedly attempting to extort money from the athlete.
Mosley was in custody Tuesday pending a Thursday bond hearing. His attorney had no immediate comment after his arrest.
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