Arizona Diamondbacks’ Corbin Carroll Can Join Rare Rookie Royalty

Corbin Carroll of the Arizona Diamondbacks is favored to win 2023 National League Rookie of the Year honors. A win will make Carroll the 24th winner of the award to also go to the World Series that same year.

Translation: Good young ballplayers DO make a major impact!

Others to do the first-year double-double include the first three rookies of the year: Jackie Robinson (1947), Alvin Dark (1948) and Don Newcombe (1949); Hall of Famers Willie Mays (1951) and Derek Jeter (1996); Fred Lynn (1976) and a guy back in the World Series for the first time since winning the award in 2008, Evan Longoria.

Carroll hit .285 with 25 homers, 76 RBI, 54 steals in 59 tries and scored 116 runs this year along with playing fine outfield defense to be the frontrunner for the NL award. Cincinnati’s Spencer Steer (.271, 86 RBI, 15 steals) and others will get votes, too.

In the AL, Josh Jung batted .266 with 23 homers, 70 RBI and 75 runs to help the Texas Rangers to the World Series. A broken left thumb sidelined the third baseman nearly six weeks, otherwise his season likely would have approached that of probable AL Rookie of the Year Gunnar Henderson of Baltimore (28 homers, 82 RBI, 100 runs in 28 more games).

What did some of those past rookies of the year do in The Fall Classic in their magical first seasons?

· Robinson hit .259 with 3 RBI as his Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the New York Yankees in seven games. He went to five more Series and is in the Hall of Fame.

· Dark hit .167 as his Boston Braves lost to the Cleveland Indians in six games. He hit over .400 in two other World Series and went 1-1 in two more as a manager.

· Newcombe was 0-2 for the Dodgers in a five-game Series loss to the Yankees.

· The great Mays batted just .182 in the Giants’ six-game loss to the Yankees.

· Lynn hit .280 with a homer and 5 RBI for Boston in a seven-game loss to Cincinnati. In a 17-year career, he never made it back.

· Jeter hit .250 as the Yanks bested the Braves in six games. He hit .321 in 38 games and seven Series overall.

· Longoria went only 1-for-20 for Tampa Bay in a five-game loss to Philadelphia.

Other rookies of the year fared well in the Series:

· Jim Gilliam hit .296 with 2 homers, 3 doubles and 4 RBI in 1953, though his Dodgers fell to the Yankees in seven.

· Tony Kubek batted .286 with 2 homers, 4 RBI, though his Yankees lost in seven games to the Milwaukee Braves in 1957.

· Tom Tresh hit .321 with 1 homer, 4 RBI and 5 runs as the Yankees edged the Giants in seven games in 1962.

· In 1981, winners from both leagues squared off in Game 3. Dodgers’ phenom Fernando Valenzuela somehow pitched a complete game to beat the Yankees’ Dave Righetti, 5-4. Valenzuela yielded 9 hits, 7 walks, 4 runs and made 147 pitches.

· In 2017, Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez batted .412 with a homer and two RBI in a seven-game loss to the Washington Nationals.

Arozarena Arises

Everything about Tampa Bay star Randy Arozarena’s career is delightfully unconventional. How else can you explain that he hit .364 in the World Series before he was AL Rookie of the Year, and played in the NL playoffs a year before that!

Arozarena had 20 at-bats for St. Louis in 2019, went 0-for-4 in the NL playoffs and was dealt to the Rays. He had only 63 at-bats for Tampa Bay in the Covid-shortened 2020 season, but crushed seven homers to earn a spot on the post-season roster. He hit .382 with 7 homers, 10 RBI and 14 runs in the AL playoffs and stayed hot in the Series: .364, 3 homers, 5 runs, 4 RBI in the six-game loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He was still a rookie in 2021, however, as post-season play does not count in regards to rookie regular-season eligibility. He hit .274 with 20 homers, 20 steals to win the award. He has been in the playoffs five straight years.

Can Evan Carter replicate it for Texas? The 21-year-old hit .306 with 5 homers in 62 at-bats after being called up. Technically, he’ll be a rookie in 2024. In 12 post-season games, he has hit .308 with a homer and 5 RBI and has the potential to be a major force against Arizona.

The World Series’ First Rookie Hit

The first World Series hit by a rookie came in the top of the first inning of the first game on Oct. 1, 1903 – against one of the greatest names in baseball history.

Jimmy Sebring, a 21-year-old who had hit .325 in 19 games the previous year but was still technically a rookie, batted .277 with 13 triples and 64 RBI for the NL champion Pittsburgh Pirates in 1903. His first time up in the brand-new World Series, he poked a two-run single to left off legendary Cy Young of the Boston Americans (Red Sox).

Sebring added an RBI single in the third, then hit the first World Series homer, an inside-the-park drive to center off Young that made it 7-0.

The First World Series Hit

The first hit in World Series history is unlikely to be matched. You never say never, even in a Never-Never Land post-season such as 2023. But this one is pretty close.

That’s because after Pittsburgh made two feeble outs against Young, veteran Tommy Leach belted a three-bagger to right field to become the first baserunner in World Series history. The hit was particularly unusual: a ground-rule triple!

Before the series, both clubs were permitted to sell more tickets than their home fields could hold. Added fans would sit in the outfield, behind a rope. Any ball hit into the crowd – such as Leach’s liner – would be ruled a ground-rule triple. Later in the series, Boston hit five of them in one game in Pittsburgh.

Overall, the Americans totaled 16 triples; the Pirates 9. The teams combined for only three homers and 11 doubles in the eight games, won by Boston, 5 games to 3.

That First Inning!

It was truly a bizarre start. The Pirates scored four unearned runs off Young before Boston got a chance to bat. Hall of Famer Honus Wagner singled home Leach with the first run, then stole second – the first of three steals in the inning. Rookie catcher Lou Criger made two of the Americans’ three errors in the inning.

Despite all that, the game was over in one hour, 55 minutes. And without a pitch clock!