Slugger Carlos Lee became the highest paid player in Astros history when he signed a six-year, $100 million deal on this day in béisbol, November 24, 2006. Lee, an outfielder-first baseman, spent his first five years with the White Sox, where he averaged more than 25 home runs a year. The Panama native remained a consistent middle-of-the-order force over his five-and-a-half seasons with Houston, averaging 25 homers and 100 RBI. He retired after spending the 2012 season with the Miami Marlins with 358 career dingers and 1,363 RBI. Also on this day: Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols won the 2009

The Minnesota Twins were coming off a disappointing second-place finish in 1966, a year after winning the American League pennant, when the team turned to another young player with Latin American roots to juice up the lineup. Rod Carew, born in Panama and raised in upper Manhattan since he was a teen, won Rookie of the Year honors on this day in béisbol, November 22, 1967. The second baseman had a .292 average after joining such young Twins stars as hit machine Tony Oliva and 1965 AL MVP Zoilo Versalles, both from Cuba, plus speedy Venezuelan outfielder Cesar Tovar. Carew

Mike Lowell turned a solid season capped by a World Series MVP award into a $37.5 million three-year contract with the Red Sox on this day in béisbol, November 20, 2007. The Gold Glove third baseman turned down several better offers to remain in Boston, where he hit 21 homers, drove in 120 runs and batted a career-high .324 for the Sox, helping lead the team to its second championship in two years with a 4-0 sweep of the Colorado Rockies. Lowell was named MVP of the Series after hitting .400. Lowell, who was born in Puerto Rico to Cuban

Sammy Sosa may have lost the single-season home run record race to Mark McGwire in 1998, but on this day in béisbol, November 19, the Chicago Cubs slugger beat the Cardinals first baseman for National League MVP. Sosa slammed 66 homers to McGwire’s MLB-best 70 in a thrilling competition that captivated the nation and was widely credited for bringing disgruntled fans back to the game after the strike-shortened 1994 season that canceled the World Series for the first time ever. Both players shattered Yankees outfielder Roger Maris’s record of 61 homers in 1961. But Sosa — who hit more than

Blue Jays slugger George Bell was named the American League MVP on this day in béisbol, November 17, 1987 after what turned out to be his peak season in Toronto. The 27-year-old left fielder swatted 47 home runs with a .308 average, and led the AL in RBI (134) and totals bases (389) though the second-place Jays failed to win the AL East despite 96 wins and a power-packed lineup that included outfielders Lloyd Moseby, Jesse Barfield, and 23-year-old DH/first basemen Fred McGriff and Cecil Fielder. Bell was one of a handful of Dominican Republic-born young stars who were among

After a second injury-shortened season in a row sapped Andres Galarraga of his power, the free agent joined the Colorado Rockies on this day in béisbol, November 16, 1992 — and then wound up winning the 1993 NL batting title. After seven solid years with the Montreal Expos, the popular Venezuelan first baseman was traded to the Cardinals before the 1992 season but missed nearly 70 games due to a hit-by-pitch wrist injury after just three games with his new team. He hit only 10 home runs with a .243 average. But Galarraga, a three-time Gold Glove winner nicknamed “The

The recent great debate over who deserved the 2025 American League MVP Award more — Aaron Judge or Cal Raleigh — was nothing compared to how the baseball universe wrangled over whether the first Triple Crown winner in nearly five decades had a better year than a flashy five-tool rookie with dominant sabermetric statistics. On this day in béisbol, November 15, 2012, tradition won out over the growing use of advanced metrics to measure a player’s overall performance when veteran Miguel Cabrera was named the AL’s Most Valuable Player over Mike Trout, that season’s sensational Rookie of the Year Award