Moving right along with this MLB Monday miniseries, and it’s time for the 1966 season again. Everything’s cyclical, especially in the sports world. As we have moved through 120 years of baseball history once before, we are making our way through it a second time. Unlike the NBA (1950), the NFL (1950), and the NHL (1968), the starting point for MLB review was in the far distant past (1903). We’re past the halfway point, though.

1966 World Series MVP: Frank Robinson, RF, Baltimore (original, confirmed)

In a surprising sweep, the Baltimore Orioles won their first-ever World Series title over the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers. This was the first October for the Orioles organization since 1944, when it was still in St. Louis—and this was just the second American League pennant ever for the franchise. So, yes, it was quite a surprise to see the Orioles outscore the Dodgers 13-2 in a four-game sweep that was shocking.

Baltimore right fielder Frank Robinson (1.232 OPS) was named the MVP; he only had four hits in the Series, though. We’re not sure that is good enough to win this award, even if three of the hits were for extra bases. We’re more impressed with the Orioles pitching staff, in truth. They used only four pitchers: three starters and one reliever. Each of those four guys won a game, yet no pitcher tossed even 12 innings overall.

That leaves us with a dilemma. There are underwhelming choices here for the MVP, since Robinson hit just .286 in the matchup. The three starters each threw a complete game shutout; after the Orioles won Game 1 in Los Angeles by a 5-2 score, the Game 2 shutout thrown by Baltimore SP Jim Palmer was huge as the Dodgers really needed a win before hitting the road. They didn’t get it, and that may have been the Series.

Palmer allowed 7 baserunners while striking out 6 batters; we’ve seen more dominant performances in the World Series, and the problem again is that this was his only start. Can the MVP really just appear in one game? No. So, none of the pitchers really can take this award away from Robinson. We will confirm his vote win simply by default; circumstances sometimes dictate these award wins more so than actual statistics.

1966 AL MOTY: Hank Bauer, Baltimore

Orioles Manager Hank Bauer (plus-1 PPP) win this by default, too, as his team won the pennant by 9 games, and the closest competitor was led by a manager in the negative PPP. This makes three straight nods from us for Bauer, which puts him in impressive company: no AL manager has pulled this off since Connie Mack did it in 1931. Prior to that, Miller Huggins did it twice, and Bill Carrigan did it once, as well.

1966 NL MOTY: Herman Franks, San Francisco

The Dodgers won the pennant by 1.5 games over San Francisco, despite Manager Walter Alston (minus-2 PPP), who had an off season after winning seven of these trophies from us previously. His counterpart, Giants Manager Herman Franks (plus-7 PPP) did an outstanding job with an undermanned roster to make this a pennant race that never should have been. For that, we award him his first MOTY hardware. Yowza!