The best reliever in the National League will receive a shiny new award named after the Padres legend.
Rolaids Relief Award. Delivery Man of the Year. These are awards you might have heard of. They're also awards you just don't care about. Do you even know what they're for? Yeah, that's what I thought. That's why Bud Selig is poised to announce a new award for the best reliever in the National League named after the legendary Trevor Hoffman. There's also going to be one for the Arena League named after some Mariano Rivera guy. I've never heard of him; was he any good?
In an even more interesting twist, this award won't be voted on by the BBWAA (thank WG), but instead will be voted on by a panel of relievers, including Hoffman and Rivera. Part of that panel? Former Padres Goose Gossage and Rollie Fingers. Here's the entire list of voters if you care about people who played for other, lesser teams.
The voters: Rivera, Hoffman, Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Rich "Goose" Gossage, Bruce Sutter, Lee Smith, John Franco and Billy Wagner.
— MLB (@MLB) April 9, 2014All in all, it's a wonderful tribute to the greatest reliever to ever walk out of the Padres bullpen. I hope they play Hell's Bells during the awards ceremony.