The Dodgers’ Rookie of the Year tradition traces all the way back to Brooklyn, and it started with Jackie Robinson.
On Nov. 9, 1947, Robinson was announced as the first Rookie of the Year winner.
At the time, MLB handed out only one award for 1947 and 1948 before splitting it into one recipient per league beginning in 1949. Four decades later, in 1987, the honor was renamed the Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Award in both leagues to mark the 40th anniversary of that first selection.
Robinson’s debut season was the kind that made the award feel inevitable. After breaking MLB’s color barrier on April 15, 1947, he hit .297/.383/.427 with 31 doubles, 12 home runs, 48 RBI and 29 stolen bases across 151 games.
The Dodgers would add another Rookie of the Year winner much later, when Hideo Nomo was named the National League’s top rookie for 1995. His selection gave Los Angeles a fourth straight Rookie of the Year, matching a franchise mark.
That run was later topped when Todd Hollandsworth won the 1996 Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Award. Before that, the Dodgers had also strung together four straight winners from 1979-82: Rick Sutcliffe, Steve Howe, Fernando Valenzuela and Steve Sax.
Nomo’s win came with 118 total points and 18 first-place votes. Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves finished second with 104 points and 10 first-place votes, while Quilvi Veras of the then-Florida Marlins finished third with 14 points and no first-place votes.
Among the finalists, Nomo also led in WAR at 4.1, with Veras at 2.8 and Jones at 2.7. Jones, of course, still played a key role in the Braves’ World Series title that year.
Nomo’s rookie year was a showcase from start to finish. He went 13-6 with a 2.54 ERA and 1.06 WHIP, struck out 236 to lead the NL and held opponents to a .182 batting average, the best mark in the majors.
He was only the second Japanese player to reach the majors, and he had already won Rookie of the Year in Japan’s Pacific League in 1990. For the Dodgers, he became the first pitcher to win the award since Fernando Valenzuela in 1981.
Nomo later added another line to his place in baseball history. Nearly two months before that Rookie of the Year announcement, on Sept. 17, 1996, he threw a no-hitter against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field.
It was one of two no-hitters in his 12-year career. The other came in 2001 with the Boston Red Sox, when he threw the first no-hitter in Camden Yards history.
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