How the h**l did Deivi Cruz get votes in the 1997 MVP balloting?

Question

He had a .577 OPS (51 adjusted OPS), and was 3 for 9 in steal attempts. He was pretty good in the field; but, he didn't even win the gold glove. He was nowhere near as good as Rey Ordonez who didn't recieve any votes. He also got 9% of the ROY votes. Am I missing something about his 1997 season or was this just some kind of a joke played by a writer?

Answer 1

Yes, that is a very odd one. I enjoy looking at the voting to see some of the dumb votes that were cast. One of the worst I have seen is Johnny Evers winning the 1914 MVP, batting .279 with 1 HR.