Santana takes this round

After the young rookie Francisco Liriano won in the head-to-head playoff matchup, Johan Santana will have to console himself with the Ben McDonald Pitcher of the Year trophy. And it was a mighty close vote. The closest, in fact since Santana himself won it back in 2005. Is it the closest vote in DMBL history? Nope, a quick scan of the past winners will clearly show that's not true. In 1999, voters were torn between Arkansas' two aces and Kevin Brown and Pedro Martinez split the prize. It doesn't get any closer than a tie, folks.

A lone second place vote for Philly's Erik Bedard probably cost Liriano at least a tie for the award, but it's far from the most egregious award-voting sin. Way, way back in 1991 when the award still didn't have it's catchy moniker, there were three top candidates for the award - Ben McDonald of Arkansas, Dennis Martinez of Newark (that would be the Newark Crimewave, not the Sugar Bears of today), and Dennis Eckersley of Vancouver. While history shows that Eck probably had the best season of all three, being a reliever, he wasn't going to win this thing. One voter, who shall remain nameless, wanted to ensure that Ben Mac would secure the award (and unbeknownst to him grace the name of the trophy that would be awarded in the future). So the voter jotted down McDonald's name first and Martinez's name sixth, which sealed the fate of El Presidente. The two Denni were denied and McDonald won what some considered a tainted victory. McDonald didn't enjoy much of a career in the DMBL, despite being much younger than Martinez - in fact he only had one other winning season in 1997, while Martinez had a stellar run from 1991-1994. But if not for that single ballot, perhaps we'd have been awarding the Dennis Martinez Pitcher of the Year trophy?