[14] Rodriguez and Andre Dawson are the only players to win the award while on a last-place team, the 2003 Texas Rangers and 1987 Chicago Cubs, respectively.
The award's only tie occurred in the National League in 1979, when Keith Hernandez and Willie Stargell received an equal number of points.
The award has never been presented to a member of the following three teams: Arizona Diamondbacks, New York Mets, and Tampa Bay Rays.
[20] Since the creation of the Cy Young Award in 1956, he is the only pitcher to win an MVP award without winning a Cy Young in the same year (Don Newcombe, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, Willie Hernández, Roger Clemens, Dennis Eckersley, Justin Verlander, and Clayton Kershaw all won a Cy Young award in their MVP seasons).
Ironically, there was no award given by either league in 1930, which meant that one of the single greatest performances ever went unheralded when Hack Wilson of the Chicago Cubs set the (still standing) MLB record for RBI with 191.
The 1910 race for best average in the American League was between the Detroit Tigers' widely disliked[3][23][24] Ty Cobb and Nap Lajoie of the Cleveland Indians.
On the last day of the season, Lajoie overtook Cobb's batting average with seven bunt hits against the St. Louis Browns.
[25] American League President Ban Johnson said a recalculation showed that Cobb had won the race anyway, and Chalmers ended up awarding cars to both players.
In 1922, the American League created a new award to honor "the baseball player who is of the greatest all-around service to his club".
[30] Winners, voted on by a committee of eight baseball writers chaired by James Crusinberry,[31] received a bronze medal and a cash prize.