In the National league, Morgan took home his second consecutive MVP with another incredible season that saw him hit .320 with 27 homers and 111 runs batted in, those last two numbers being career highs for the future Hall of Fame member.
As if that wasn’t already enough, he also stole 60 bases while scoring 113 runs for the “Big Red Machine”, who went on to win their second straight World Series, this time against the New York Yankees and THEIR MVP, catcher Thurman Munson.
For Munson, who also won the A.L. Rookie of the Year in 1970, he had what anyone would consider a “typical” Munson year, as he once again hit over .300 (.302), with a career-high 105 runs batted in and 17 homers while collecting 186 hits and scoring 79 runs.
Surprisingly, he also swiped 14 bases while only striking out 38 times over 616 at-bats while getting named to his fifth all-star team.
Of course, we know hat tragically, just less than three years later, Munson would die in a plane crash August of 1979, leaving many to wonder if he would have made the Hall of Fame like his 1976 MVP mate Joe Morgan.
