St. Louis Cardinals award winners and league leaders completed decade since the League Award was given except in the 1950s. MLB baseball introduced this award in 1999 to recognize the top hitter in each league. The World Series Most Valuable Player has been awarded since 1955. Starting in 1977, MLB created the NLCS Most Valuable Player Award to recognize the top player of that season's NLCS. Introduced in 2011 by Rawlings, the Platinum Glove is fan-voted award conferred annually to single out the top-fielding player from all Gold Glove winners in each league." Hillerich & Bradsby, the manufacturer of Louisville Slugger baseball bats, first awarded the Silver Slugger
Hillerich & Bradsby moved across the Ohio River, to Jeffersonville, Indiana, to take advantage of the railroad line there. In the 1990s, the company returned south to Louisville. Most of Hillerich and Bradsby's wood bats are made from Northern white ash grown in proprietary forests on the New York–Pennsylvania border. Ash trees in the United States are now under attack from the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect species native to Asia and first detected in Michigan in 2002. While H&B's forests are not yet infested by the beetle, the area being destroyed is growing and moving closer to them. The company is