Every year, tens of millions of baseball fans vociferously debate and anxiously anticipate the annual merits of MVP candidates: This fascinating and provocative book covers every era of baseball, supporting the MVP choices or trashing the winners and suggesting alternative players who should have won. Controversial, argumentative and thought provoking, Cohen, a baseball scholar, discusses the award's origin, theorizes on what attributes a Most Valuable Player should possess, and analyzes every selection that has ever been made in each league. MVP also looks closely at the merits of selecting pitchers over position players who compete on an everyday basis. It also suggests "hypothetical" winners of the award for the several seasons from the early portion of the twentieth century in which none were presented.