Bonds, Ramirez named Aaron Award winners

ST. LOUIS (Ticker) -- Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants and Manny Ramirez of the Boston Red Sox were honored Wednesday with the Hank Aaron Award, which goes to the top offensive player in each league.

The 40-year-old Bonds, who captured the award for the third time in four years, had another record-breaking offensive season. He batted .362 with 45 homers and 101 RBI in 373 at-bats. He walked a major league-record 232 times -- including 120 intentional passes.

Bonds hit his 700th career home run during a season in which he struck out just 41 times and passed Rickey Henderson for the all-time lead in walks.

The 32-year-old Ramirez, who carried a 16-game postseason hitting streak into Wednesday's Game Four of the World Series, also won this award in 1999 - its first year of existence.

Ramirez had another monster season, hitting .308 with 43 homers and 130 RBI in 152 games. In addition to winning his first home run title, Ramirez led the American League in on-base and slugging percentage.

In 1999, winners were selected by assigning a predetermined number of points for each hit, home run and RBI. From 2000-2002, play-by-play broadcasters and color analysts from club radio and television rightsholders voted for the winners. Last season, it was combination of fan and broadcaster voting.

This year, fans voted for one player from each team to determine the 30 finalists. A baseball panel whittled the field to 12 -- six in each league -- and the fans voted again over the season's final three weeks.

Nearly 600,000 votes were cast nationwide.

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