The Major League Baseball Comeback Player of the Year Award

The Comeback Player of the Year Award is going to be a no-brainer in both leagues for 2007. Dmitri Young of the Washington Nationals and Carlos Pena of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays should win the honor in landslide votes. Young has been battling to overcome alcoholism and depression, and given a chance by the Nationals he has rebounded from a dismal 2006 campaign with the Tigers to be in the middle of a batting title chase with a .337 average. Young is tied with the Phillies Chase Utley for the NL lead in hitting, while Pena is on his way to a superlative season with the lowly Devil Rays. Carlos already has 31 homers and 89 runs batted in, easily career highs, as he makes his bid for the AL Comeback Player of the Year Award.

The Major League Baseball version of the Comeback Player of the Year Award has only been in existence since 2005, when it was won in the NL by Ken Griffey Jr of the Reds and in the junior circuit by the Yankees' Jason Giambi. Before the year 2005, it was The Sporting News that handed out the award, which it began doing in 1965 to the players in each league that had reemerged as star quality following an off year or an injury-filled one. The first winners of the Comeback Player of the Year Award were Norm Cash of the Tigers in the AL and Vern Law of the Pirates in the National League. Cash was a curious choice statistically looking back at his numbers, as he had a season in 1965 very similar to 1964. Law's 17-9 record, as opposed to a 12-13 mark in 1964, made him the choice over in the NL.

Perhaps the easiest pick for a Comeback Player of the Year Award, and by far the most poignant, was Tony Conigliaro in 1969. The Red Sox outfielder had been hit in the head by a Jack Hamilton pitch in 1967 and had missed the entire 1968 campaign, but came back in 1969 to hit 20 homers and knock in 82 runs. He was even better in 1970 before the eye injury worsened; it was later revealed that the gallant Conigliaro had a hole in his retina and played with a "blind spot" in his field of vision. The prior year, 1968, Ken Harrelson, another Boston outfielder, won the honor when he accumulated 109 runs batted in with 35 homers after playing for a trio of teams in 1967 and having just 54 RBI.

Cash took the Comeback Player of the Year Award again in 1971 when he had 17 more homers and 38 more RBI than the previous season. Pitcher Luis Tiant of the Red Sox grabbed it in 1972 when he resurrected his career in Boston, where he would record 20 win seasons three times. In 1972 "El Tiante" went 15-6 after a horrid 1-7 year for the Red Sox in '71. Boog Powell became the first man to win the Comeback Player of the Year Award twice, but with different clubs, when his 86 runs batted in for the Indians garnered him the trophy in 1974, this after he won it in 1966 with his first of three seasons of 100-plus RBI.

Tommy John went 10-10 in 1976, nothing special until you realize that he missed the whole 1975 season due to having the surgery to his pitching arm that now bears his name, so he was also a Comeback Player of the Year, for the Dodgers. Likewise, Bo Jackson's modest 1993 that included 16 home runs came on the heels of a hip replacement, for which he received the award. Hurlers Rick Sutcliffe and Bret Saberhagen have won the Comeback Player of the Year twice, as has Andres Gallaraga. Hall of Famers Ferguson Jenkins, Willie McCovey, Willie Stargell, Joe Morgan, Lou Brock, and Dave Winfield have all been recipients of the Comeback Player of the Year Award, and so have future Cooperstown inductees Rickey Henderson and Frank Thomas. It will be interesting to see if the Mets' Pedro Martinez returns to some semblance of his old self in 2008, as he would be an ideal early favorite to win the Comeback Player of the Year next league in the National League.