The Sporting News Most Valuable Player Award went to Detroit Tigers third baseman Eddie Mayo; however, following a post-season vote the official AL MVP Award was given to fellow Detroit Tiger Hal Newhouser, a pitcher. Newhouser ended the season with an ERA of 1.81, a record of 25 wins and 9 losses, and 212 strikeouts. Both of them helped lead the Detroit Tigers to a World Series win, and Newhouser remarked that Eddie Mayo was the driving force behind the 1945 pennant chase and that Mayo was a "take-charge kind of guy in our field." The NL Most Valuable Player Award went to Chicago Cubs first baseman and outfielder Phil Cavarretta. He ended the season with an impressive batting average of.355 and an on-base-percentage of.455. The second-place finisher was Boston Braves player Tommy Holmes who finished the season with a batting average of.352 and an impressive slugging percentage of.577. Hal Newhouser won the pitching Triple Crown in addition to the official AL MVP Award. To win this award you have to lead the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA. There was no hitter that was awarded the Triple Crown, which entails leading the league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in. There were nine players and one manager inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during the year 1945. The players were: Jim O'Rourke, King Kelly, Hughie Jennings, Hugh Duffy, Ed Delahanty, Jimmy Collins, Fred Clarke, Dan Brouthers, and Roger Bresnahan. Wilbert Robinson was the manager that was inducted in the Hall of Fame.
On April 17, Pete Gray became the first one-armed man to ever play in the Major Leagues. He batted.218 in 77 games with the St. Louis Browns.
This would prove the last World Series appearance for the Chicago Cubs until 2016.
World Series
The World Series was between the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago Cubs, and the series went 4–3 in favor of the Tigers. Hal Newhouser, the official AL MVP of this year, pitched three of the games. He was the losing pitcher Game 1 of the Series, but was the winning pitcher in Game 5 and the pivotal Game 7. In Game 7, the Detroit Tigers gave Newhouser an early lead to work with by scoring five runs in the first inning. The Chicago Cubs would use six pitchers throughout the game while Newhouser pitched a complete game only allowing three runs, which led to a 9–3 Detroit Tigers victory thus clinching the 1945 World Series title.
