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2005 LOUISVILLE SLUGGER® SILVER SLUGGER™ TEAMS ANNOUNCED
Changing of the guard in NL, familiar winners in AL

LOUISVILLE, KY - The first thing baseball fans will notice when they compare this year’s Louisville Slugger® Silver Slugger™ Award winners to past years is all the first time winners in the National League. That and the fact that 12 time Silver Slugger winner Barry Bonds isn’t on the list after missing most of the 2005 season. NL Batting Champion Derrek Lee of the Chicago Cubs leads a list of eight first time winners in the senior circuit. Jason Varitek of the Red Sox is the only first time winner in the American League, while teammate Manny Ramirez hit his way to an eighth Silver Slugger. Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees also earned his eighth award after missing out on the honor last season.

Louisville Slugger’s Silver Slugger award winners were determined by Major League Baseball® coaches and managers. They voted for the players they felt were the best offensive producers at each position in both the American and National Leagues in 2005. Selections were based on a combination of offensive statistics including batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, as well as the coaches’ and managers’ general impressions of a player’s overall offensive value. Managers and coaches were not allowed to vote for players on their own team.

The 2005 Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger team, with each winner’s total number of Silver Sluggers won in their career in parentheses:

2005 Silver Slugger Winners
American League

National League

The specially designed Silver Slugger Award will be presented to each player by a representative of the Hillerich & Bradsby Co., makers of Louisville Slugger, the Official Bat of Major League Baseball, in a ceremony early in the 2006 season. The trophy is three-feet tall and bears the engraved name of the winner and his Silver Slugger teammates in his respective league. The Silver Slugger Award was instituted by H&B in 1980 as a natural extension of the Silver Bat Award which is, as its name indicates, a silver-plated bat presented by Louisville Slugger to the batting champions in the AL and NL. This year’s Silver Bat Award winners are Derrek Lee of the Chicago Cubs and Michael Young of the Texas Rangers. Lee hit .335 to win the NL batting title, and Young hit .331 to claim the AL honor. Both will receive their Silver Bat Awards in an on-field presentation early in the 2006 season.

SEE PAST SILVER SLUGGER WINNERS

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