In Major League Baseball, the Ted Williams Award refers to two awards. Yes two, the geniuses running the MLB decided to call two completely seperate awards by the same title. I think that was just pretty stupid, but hey who the hell am I. Anyways, back to the matter at hand. The original Ted Williams Award is awarded annually to the most productive hitter in each league. Some very complicated formula is used in order to find out who is the most productive but since I really don't understand the formuala myself, I am not going to try to explain it. Maybe someone else can elaborate and explain it. The reason it is named after Ted Williams is because he is the last hitter to hit above .400 in a season* (which he did multiple times, the last time in 1941 hitting .406). The Ted Williams Award was first awarded in 1997. In 1999, a rookie version of the award was awarded. Below is a listing of the 10 hitters who have received the Ted Williams Award.
American League
Year Player
1997 Frank Thomas
1998 Albert Belle
1999 Manny Ramirez
2000 Jason Giambi
2001 Jason Giambi
National League
Year Player
1997 Mike Piazza
1998 Mark McGwire
1999 Mark McGwire
2000 Barry Bonds
2001 Barry Bonds
In 2002, sadly Ted Williams life came to an end. The death came about a week prior to the 2002 MLB All-Star Game. The execs in the MLB decided in honor of Ted Williams to rename the All-Star MVP Award to the Ted Williams Award. The game just happened to turn out in a tie, and no MVP was awarded. Therefore, there has been no recipients of the Ted Williams Award.
* I am sure that the award wasn't named solely because he was the last player to hit .400 in a season, but he was just a great hitter, perhaps the greatest hitter ever to play the game.