Rookie of the Year

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The word rookie is no newcomer to the English language. The term is recorded as early as the 1860s for a “new recruit” to the military or a police force. Some think it was the very word recruit that was shortened into rookie. Others see influence in an old verb rook, “to cheat” someone, supposedly alluding to how old-timers can easily trick gullible noobs.

Whatever its exact origins, rookie took the field in the early 1900s, when the term referred to “new members of a sports teams,” particularly professionals. (It’s around this same time rookie started naming any “beginner.”) Early in its career, rookie saw especial use in baseball, America’s great pastime and apparent progenitor of Rookie of the Year as phrase and praise.

A 1921 feature in the sports pages of Florida’s The Pensacola Journal christened Riggs Stephenson—a 23-year-old in his first year playing second base for Cleveland Indians—as a “most remarkable rookie of the year.” Baseball wouldn’t formally honor any sluggers as Rookie  of the Year until the 1940s though.

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That year, the Chicago chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) presented its own Rookie of the Year prize and did so until 1947, when it ceded to the BBWAA’s national award, officially recognized by Major League Baseball (MLB). Its first honoree was Brooklyn Dodgers’ #42, Jackie Robinson, a legend inside the ballpark and out for breaking baseball’s color barrier. The MLB named its Rookie of the Year award the Jackie Robinson Award in his honor in 1987.

Basketball wasn’t far behind … courtside sportswriters named a pro basketball player Rookie of the Year starting in the 1947–1948 season before the National Basketball Association (NBA) inaugurated its official award in 1952–53 season. Called the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy (whose namesake was the rookie coach for the Philadelphia Warriors, now playing in the Golden State), the NBA Rookie of the Year has crowned some of the giants of the game, including Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James.

The title has not been without contention, though. In the 2017–18 NBA season, the two leading nominees, the Philadelphia 76ers’ Ben Simmons and Utah Jazz’s Donovan “Spida” Mitchell, jawed over the very definition of rookie. Mitchell playfully trash-talked Simmons by claiming his competitor was not a true rookie, as an injury benched Simmons during what was technically his first season in 2016. Spida, ever the acrobat on the hardwood, showed off his reference skills when he sported an Adidas hoodie boasting our Dictionary.com definition of rookie. The experts countered that, while 2017–18 was technically the second season for Simmons, he still qualified as a rookie because he didn’t play a single second of the shot clock that year.

Donovan Mitchell’s hoodie though lmao 👀 pic.twitter.com/VFbeugz77i

— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) April 10, 2018

Rookie of the Year has also captured the popular imagination, such as in the 1993 feel-good film Rookie of the Year, following a Little Leaguer’s (Thomas Ian Nicholas) freak foray into the big leagues, based on the 1952 Roogie’s Bump. North Carolina-based indie rockers took Rookie of the Year as their band-name when they formed in 2002.

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Other sports variously award Rookie of the Year awards including Major League Soccer, NASCAR, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, and Women’s Professional Soccer. In many cases, including for the MLB and NBA, a Rookie of the Year is chosen based on total points as awarded by sportswriters and sportscasters who cover the sport.

Different fields also give out Rookie of the Year awards, notably including the Korean Music Awards, whose Rookie of the Year has been lauding best new arists in South Korea since 2004. Since 2011, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has named a first-time swimsuit model Rookie of the Year, with Ashley Graham making news as the magazine’s first plus-size model to appear in the scantily clad pages as its 2016 Rookie of the Year.