Judge, Lindor could accomplish rare feat

It’s only happened a dozen times since the Baseball Writers’ Association of America began awarding a Most Valuable Player Award in each league in 1931, but it could happen this year: the MVP for both the American and National Leagues coming from the same metropolitan area.

Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge and Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor are each making a compelling case to win the award in his respective league this season, and that makes it a great time to look back at same-city MVPs since the BBWAA established their award nearly a century ago.

2019: Mike Trout (Angels) and Cody Bellinger (Dodgers)
Trout won his third career MVP Award thanks to a season in which he smashed a career-high 45 home runs while leading the Majors in on-base percentage (.438) and OPS+ (182) in just 134 games.

About 30 miles north, Bellinger was having a career season two years after winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award. He belted 47 homers with a 1.035 OPS and an NL-leading 351 total bases for the Dodgers.

2014: Mike Trout (Angels) and Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers)
Same two clubs here, with Trout doing Trout things and Kershaw putting together a campaign so dominant that he became the first pitcher to be named NL MVP since Bob Gibson in 1968.

Trout won his first MVP Award in his age-22 season, leading the AL with 115 runs scored (also led the Majors in that category), 111 RBIs and 338 total bases. He also posted a .939 OPS with 36 homers.

Kershaw, meanwhile, delivered arguably the finest season of his incredible career, going 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA, 0.86 WHIP and 31.9% strikeout rate. That performance also earned him his second straight NL Cy Young Award and his third overall.

2002: Miguel Tejada (Athletics) and Barry Bonds (Giants)
Tejada, one of the anchors of the “Moneyball” A’s teams of the early 2000s, hit .308/.354/.508 with 34 home runs and 131 RBIs in 2002, helping Oakland to 103 wins and an AL West title. One of the more iconic images of that season was his walk-off single that lifted the A’s to their 18th of 20 consecutive victories -- he also hit two homers in that game.

Across the bay, Bonds was named NL MVP for a record fifth time (he would finish with seven MVP Awards to his name). Coming off a historic campaign in 2001, when he set a single-season record with 73 home runs, the slugging left fielder was walked an incredible 198 times (68 of those were intentional free passes). Despite that significant reduction in at-bats, Bonds slugged 46 homers and drove in 110. He finished with an unheard-of 1.381 OPS.

2000: Jason Giambi (Athletics) and Jeff Kent (Giants)
Tejada and Bonds were the second Bay Area duo to win the MVP Awards in the same season over a span of three years. They were preceded by Giambi and Kent, who helped lead their respective clubs to the postseason with outstanding performances at the plate.

Following a breakout season for Oakland in 1999, Giambi took it to another level entirely in 2000, which was his first All-Star season. The slugging first baseman posted a slash line of .333/.476/.647 with 43 home runs, 137 RBIs and an MLB-leading 137 walks. With an even better season by many metrics in 2001, Giambi set himself up for a big payday, inking a seven-year, $120 million contract with the Yankees prior to the '02 campaign.

Meanwhile, Kent posted a career-best 1.021 OPS to go along with 33 home runs and 125 RBIs for the NL West champion Giants. His teammate in the heart of San Francisco’s lineup, Bonds, finished second in NL MVP voting that year.

1959: Nellie Fox (White Sox) and Ernie Banks (Cubs)
Fox, a Hall of Famer, was an excellent defensive second baseman, winning the second of three Gold Glove Awards at the keystone position in 1959. He also hit .306 at the plate for the White Sox to help them reach the World Series, which they lost to the Dodgers. He hit .375 with three doubles in that six-game Fall Classic.

On the North Side of Chicago, Banks -- the Hall of Famer affectionately known as “Mr. Cub” -- won a second consecutive NL MVP honor thanks to a prodigious campaign in which he posted a .970 OPS with 45 homers and an MLB-leading 143 RBIs. The star shortstop also broke the 10-WAR barrier, finishing the’59 campaign with a Major League-best 10.2 bWAR.

1956: Mickey Mantle (Yankees) and Don Newcombe (Dodgers)
From 1936-56, half of the instances of MVP winners coming from the same city occurred in the same city, and that city was New York, the baseball capital of the world during that era.

In the Bronx, Mantle had arguably the best season of his legendary career. He won the AL triple crown by leading the Majors with a .353 batting average, 52 home runs and 130 RBIs. He also posted an OPS of 1.169 (210 OPS+).

In Brooklyn, Newcombe went 27-7 with a 3.06 ERA, a 0.99 WHIP and 18 complete games (five shutouts) for the Dodgers. He was named both the NL MVP and the NL Cy Young Award winner. Newcombe’s Dodgers met Mantle’s Yankees in the World Series that fall, with the Yanks winning in seven.

1955: Yogi Berra (Yankees) and Roy Campanella (Dodgers)
Berra and Campanella are the only catchers in MLB history to win three MVP Awards, and in 1955, each won his third. The future Hall of Famers were each the stalwart backstop of a New York club that would face each other in the World Series four times from 1952-56.

With 27 home runs and 108 RBIs to go along with an .819 OPS, Berra was instrumental in the Yankees’ success in 1955, as well as throughout the decade, in which he finished among the top four in MVP voting seven times. He hit .417 with a homer in the ’55 World Series.

Campanella, meanwhile, had his final great season before a tragic accident left his legs paralyzed. In 1955, he helped lead the Dodgers to the World Series by posting a .978 OPS with 32 homers and 107 RBIs. In the Fall Classic against Berra’s Yankees, he doubled three times and belted two homers as the Dodgers won their first World Series title, finally vanquishing their Bronx rivals.

1954: Yogi Berra (Yankees) and Willie Mays (Giants)
Berra was paired this time with another New York superstar at the top of the MVP polls, but this player was from the Giants.

Mays, after missing a year while serving in the military, returned to baseball and had his first big season -- he led the Majors with a .345 batting average and a .667 slugging percentage while leading the NL with 13 triples and a 1.078 OPS. He also hit 41 homers and drove in 110 runs. That fall, he made “The Catch,” one of the most iconic plays in World Series history, during a World Series his Giants would win over Cleveland.

Berra won his second career MVP honor after hitting .307/.367/.488 with 22 home runs and a career-high 125 RBIs for the Yankees.

1951: Yogi Berra (Yankees) and Roy Campanella (Dodgers)
If this pairing looks familiar, that’s because it’s the only one on this list that appears multiple times. These two backstops were the catching kings of New York in the city’s greatest baseball era.

In his age-26 campaign, Berra won the first of three career MVP Awards in 1951. He posted an .842 OPS and hit 27 home runs before winning his fourth World Series ring.

Campanella also won the first of three MVP honors in 1951. He had a .325/.393/.590 slash line with 33 home runs and 108 RBIs for Brooklyn.

1941: Joe DiMaggio (Yankees) and Dolph Camilli (Dodgers)
The 1941 season was DiMaggio’s magnum opus, a year that is known best for his 56-game hitting streak and Ted Williams’ .406 batting average. DiMaggio hit .357/.440/.643 with 30 home runs and an MLB-best 125 RBIs to win the second of his three career MVP Awards.

In Brooklyn, Camilli wasn’t in the echelon of DiMaggio or Williams, but he was one of the best first basemen in the game. From 1936-42, he posted a .941 OPS and averaged 27 homers and 102 RBIs for the Phillies and Dodgers. In ’41, he led the NL with 34 homers and 120 RBIs to claim the league’s MVP Award.

1936: Lou Gehrig (Yankees) and Carl Hubbell (Giants)
Gehrig won his second MVP Award 10 seasons after the first. The Iron Horse tied a career-high with a Major League-best 49 home runs while also leading MLB with 167 runs scored and 130 walks in 1936. He posted a 1.174 OPS to lead the AL, also pacing the league in on-base percentage (.478) and slugging (.696).

One of the greatest pitchers of all-time, Hubbell -- famous for his five consecutive strikeouts of future Hall of Famers during the 1934 All-Star Game -- won his second NL MVP Award in four years in ’36. He led the Majors with 26 wins, a 2.31 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP.

1932 Jimmie Foxx (Philadelphia A’s) and Chuck Klein (Phillies)
Although he was overshadowed by sluggers like Gehrig and Babe Ruth, and later DiMaggio and Williams, Foxx was one of the premier sluggers of his era and one of the all-time great power hitters. In 1932, he won the first of three MVP Awards, putting together one of the greatest individual seasons in baseball history. He smashed 58 homers, drove in 169 runs and finished with a 1.218 OPS for the A’s.

Meanwhile, Klein led the Majors with 152 runs scored and 226 hits, while also leading the NL in homers (38), steals (20), slugging (.646), OPS (1.050) and total bases (420). Though this was the only MVP Award he won in his career, Klein finished among the top four in NL MVP voting each year from 1930-33.