The 25-year-old worked five scoreless innings and allowed only two hits on just two days rest in the Giants' 3-2, championship-clinching victory over the Kansas City Royals in Game 7 of the World Series. Bumgarner went 2-0 with a save and a 0.43 ERA to win the World Series MVP. John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports
San Francisco Giants left-hander Madison Bumgarner, who had a legendary postseason performance that led to his third World Series, was named Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated on Monday.
The 25-year-old worked five scoreless innings and allowed only two hits on just two days rest in the Giants’ 3-2, championship-clinching victory over the Kansas City Royals in Game 7 of the World Series. Bumgarner went 2-0 with a save and a 0.43 ERA to win the World Series MVP.
Bumgarner allowed just six runs and posted a 1.03 ERA in 52 2/3 innings in the playoffs. He struck out 45 batters in his seven appearances, walking only six and giving up 28 hits. He pitched 21 of the Giants’ 61 innings in the seven games, and San Francisco’s other starting pitchers posted a combined 9.92 ERA.
“It’s easy to mythologize the small-town sports hero. Baseball, especially, is full of them,” Sports Illustrated managing editor Chris Stone said. “Madison Bumgarner isn’t the Sportsman of the Year because he’s from a tiny town, but that town goes a long way toward defining who he is and it gives his story a different texture from past Sportsmen. And while he’s been an outstanding pitcher for the last five years, his Sportsman candidacy was so sudden and seemingly out of nowhere that it makes him the most unique Sportsman in recent memory.”
The 6-foot-5 Bumgarner is from Hickory, N.C.
“The legend of Madison Bumgarner fits neatly in the space where we keep our idea of the archetypal outdoorsy, countrified man, where also reside the embellished, fictionalized Boone (North Carolina) and Mayberry’s Sheriff Andy Taylor. It’s just that in Bumgarner’s case, the stories are true,” SI’s Tom Verducci wrote.
Bumgarner is the first San Francisco Giant and the seventh major league pitcher — Johnny Podres (1955), Sandy Koufax (1965), Tom Seaver (1969), Orel Hershiser (1988), Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson (2001) — to win the award. In all, there have been 15 baseball selections — 14 players and the 2004 Boston Red Sox. The most recent was Derek Jeter in 2009.
Recent winners of the SI award include Peyton Manning, LeBron James, Mike Krzyzewski, Pat Summit and Drew Brees.
