Monday afternoon, the Phillies unfurled a 57-foot-high, 35-foot-wide banner and hung it outside Citizens Bank Park. A giant exclamation point to a giant season, it read: “Philadelphia congratulates 2006 NL MVP Ryan Howard.”
Just a year after being named rookie of the year, the Phillies first baseman bashed his way to an even bigger prize. Howard hit .313 and led the major leagues with 58 home runs and 149 RBIs. His home run total was a team record and the most hit in the major leagues since San Francisco’s Barry Bonds bashed the record, 73, in 2001.
Like Bonds, Howard hit prodigious shots, such as the one against the New York Yankees on June 20 that landed in the upper deck at Citizens Bank Park. The seat the ball hit is marked with a white “H” to signify the only ball hit there in the stadium’s three-year history. In that game, Howard belted three homers.
Howard edged St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols, receiving 20 first-place votes and 12 seconds for 388 points in balloting by a panel from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Pujols had 12 first-place votes and 347 total points.
Pujols, who led the Cardinals to a World Series championship, had the credentials to match Howard’s, hitting .331 with 49 homers and 137 RBIs. Howard tipped his cap to Pujols.
“To be able to be in that kind of company and just being able to compete with a guy like Albert is, I guess, a feat in itself and it’s an honor because what he’s done,” Howard, who turned 27 on Sunday, said during conference call Monday.
Howard became just the second player to be named rookie of the year and MVP in consecutive years, matching Baltimore’s Cal Ripken Jr., who did it in 1982 and 1983. Boston’s Fred Lynn (1975) and Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki (2001) won rookie of the year and MVP in the same season.
Howard probably won the MVP vote when he put the struggling Phillies on his back and nearly carried them to the postseason. He hit .355 with 30 homers and 78 RBIs in second half as the Phillies fell three victories short of a wild-card berth. He hit 14 homers in August when Philadelphia won 18 games to get back in the race.
“People were talking about the trades that were made, how we were kind of written off,” Howard said. “But we nearly made it. We just fell short.”
Patrick Saunders can be reached at 303-954-1428 or psaunders@denverpost.com.
