Major League Baseball announced Friday it is renaming the World Series Most Valuable Player Award after Willie Mays, beginning with the 2017 World Series.
The award will now be called the Willie Mays World Series Most Valuable Player, NBC Sports reported. The announcement took place on the 63rd anniversary of “The Catch” famously made by Mays in the 1954 World Series, which propelled the Giants to victory over the Cleveland Indians in the series.
There was no MVP Award for the World Series until the year after Mays’ catch, just the Baseball Writers Association of America's Babe Ruth Award, which comes weeks after the World Series ends and finds most baseball watchers in offseason mode.
NBC pointed out Mays was not very impressive overall in the four World Series in which he played, with his teams losing three out of four times. “The Catch” was so memorable, however, that it overshadows the statistics and has earned Mays the honor of representing the Word Series MVP going forward.
Chevrolet will continue its long-time sponsorship of the award, MLB.com reported.
Mays, now 86, is regarded as one of the four greatest living players and was honored along with Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, and Sandy Koufax at the 2015 All-Star Game along with receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama that year.
Not everyone on Twitter agreed with naming the MVP award after Mays, but many did support the MLB’s action.
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