In 1970, Williams batted .322 with 42 homers and 129 RBI and finished second in National League Most Valuable Player voting; surprisingly, despite batting .319 with 26 HR and 80 RBI at the All-Star break, he was left off the All-Star team. Williams set a National League record for consecutive games played with 1,117 from 1963 to 1970 (this record was later eclipsed by Steve Garvey with 1,207 games played from 1975 to 1983). As his consecutive games streak began to accumulate, he was dubbed "Iron Man" by some writers. He co-authored a 1970 book called "Iron Man".[https://openlibrary.org/b/OL5077239M/Iron_man] In 1972, he was the National League batting champion and named the Major League Player of the Year by "The Sporting News". He paced the league in batting average with a .333 mark, and posted a .606 slugging percentage with 37 home runs and 122 runs batted in (RBI). In August, he won his second and final NL Player of the Month Award (.438 average, 9 HR, 29 RBI). For the second time, he was the NL MVP runner-up to Johnny Bench of the Cincinnati Reds; Williams never won the award.