This second MLB Monday miniseries continues moving forward through time as we enter the Expansion Era of professional baseball in America. This would be a decade of change in the sport … just like it was a decade of change in the United States—as baseball goes, so goes the nation, right? Not much else to say as we get going with today’s column on the World Series MVP and the two Manager of the Year awards. Go!

1961 World Series MVP: Whitey Ford, SP, New York (original, confirmed)

When the Cincinnati Reds won Game 2 of the Fall Classic in New York against the Yankees, hope was in the air. Alas, it was crushed very quickly as the Bronx Bombers won the next three games in Cincinnati to take the series in five games. The combined score of those three games? 23-7, in favor of New York, of course. Yankees starting pitcher Whitey Ford (2-0, 0.00 ERA) was named the MVP by the media vote at the time.

Ford won Game 1 with a complete-game shutout, but he went just 5-plus innings in his Game 4 victory, which the Yankees won in a 7-0 rout, due to an apparent ankle injury. Writers clearly gave him the MVP nod for his 32-inning scoreless streak in the postseason, which broke a Babe Ruth record from the 1910s. But what about the N.Y. hitters? It was a team effort, with six different batters hitting home runs in the Series.

The thing is none of them were particularly dominant throughout the five-game matchup, in terms of overwhelming anyone else with their statistics. We’re not impressive by Ford’s efforts, as he struck out just 7 batters in his 14 innings pitched, but there seems to be no one else to give the award to—unless we give it to outfielder Héctor López, who topped the Yankees with 7 RBI while hitting .333 and posting a 1.343 OPS.

On the surface, those look like great numbers—until you realize he had just 3 hits in 4 games played. First baseman Bill Skowron was the best hitter who played in all 5 games, with a .353 average, a .979 OPS, 1 HR, and 5 RBI. And it was utility player Johnny Blanchard who had the biggest hit of the whole thing: a game-tying HR in the top of the eighth in Game 3 on the road, when the Reds were on the verge of winning.

Blanchard hit .400 with a 1.600 OPS, 2 HRs, and 3 RBI for the Series—but he only had 4 hits in 4 games. See what we mean about the hitting prowess being spread around? For that reason, and after this very long-winded analysis of sorts, we will confirm Ford’s MVP vote … almost by default.

1961 AL MOTY: Ralph Houk, New York

The Yankees won the pennant by 8 games over the 101-win Detroit Tigers, and New York Manager Ralph Houk posted the best PPP mark (plus-6) in the league. He needed every one of those extra victories, too, to fend off a great Tigers team. With 10 teams now in the AL after expansion, there was more left to chance in a pennant race, and Houk’s double double clinches this piece of hardware, as is the tradition in this space.

1961 NL MOTY: Fred Hutchinson, Cincinnati

The Reds outlasted the Los Angeles Dodgers in a crazy battle of managerial excellence: Cincy Manager Fred Hutchinson (plus-10 PPP) outdid L.A. Manager Walter Alston (plus-8 PPP) in one of the nuttiest situations we’ve seen. The Reds beat the Dodgers by 4 games and the San Francisco Giants by 8 games, with Giants Manager Al Dark (minus-4 PPP) probably losing the pennant for his team, sadly for Willie Mays.