1910 Chalmers Award

The 1910 Chalmers Award was an event in the history of Major League Baseball, marking one of the first attempts to honor the sport's top players.

The award became the center of a major controversy involving Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers and Napoleon Lajoie of the Cleveland Naps, both future Hall of Famers.

The competition for the title was intense, culminating in a scandalous final day of the season where tactics employed by the St. Louis Browns, playing against Lajoie, were questioned for their fairness.

[2] Under baseball rules, when a player reaches base on a fielding error, it is treated as a hitless at-bat, thus lowering his batting average.

The issue was brought to American League president Ban Johnson, who declared all batting averages official, and Cobb the champion (.385069 to .384095).

[1] O'Connor and coach Harry Howell, who tried to bribe the official scorer to change the error to a hit, were banned from baseball for their role in the affair.