Biggest award mistake?

All three Rangers MVPs in the late 1990s were terrible choices. It's like no one looked around and realized that park was a bandbox.

 

By a sportswriter who had a running feud with Williams, no less.

 

Other bad MLB award picks:

Mo Vaughn over Albert Belle in '95
Giambi over Pedro in '00
Felix Hernandez over CC in '10

 

John Elway over Jerry Rice in 1987. Rice caught 22 touchdown passes in 12 games -- Randy Moss set the record of 23 in 16 games in 2007, and nobody else has ever had more than 18. Elway had 19 TD passes and 12 INTs, also in 12 games. Rice won everything but the official AP MVP award, which is why no receiver has ever won it. He split too many votes with Montana -- final tally Elway 36, Rice 30, Montana 18.

 

This times 1,000,000.

 

I agree. I would have picked Jeter in '99 but Pedro, Robbie Alomar, Manny, Nomar, and probably a half dozen other players were more deserving than Ivan Rodriguez.

 

Jethro Tull winning the Grammy in 1988 for Best Hard Rock Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental over Metallica.

 

Heisman category:

Crouch over Grossman

 

Ryan Braun over Matt Kemp for NL MVP in 2011.

 

Exactly. And Morneau is Canadian, which has to count for something.

 

Larkin over Maddux for the 1995 NL MVP.

Ivan Rodriguez over Pedro Martinez for AL MVP, I think it was 1999.

 

I didn't get too worked up about Nash winning MVP in 2006, but Kobe only finishing 4th that year was absurd. In actual voting he had second-most first-place votes but was left off of several ballots completely, punished for not leading Smush Parker, Luke Walton and Kwame Brown to 50 wins.