The MLB All-Star Game has crowned an MVP every year since 1962, and the list doubles as a tour of baseball history’s showcase moments: Willie Mays owning the Midsummer Classic, Bo Jackson’s leadoff missile, Ichiro’s inside-the-park home run, Mariano Rivera standing alone on the mound in his farewell, and, most recently, Kyle Schwarber winning the award in 2025 without recording a hit, by going a perfect 3-for-3 in the first swing-off tiebreaker in All-Star history.
The award has worn three names, the Arch Ward Memorial Award, the Commissioner’s Trophy, and since 2002 the Ted Williams Most Valuable Player Award, and carries some of the game’s best trivia: only one All-Star Game has ever ended with no MVP at all (the infamous 2002 tie, the very year they put Williams’ name on it), and only one player has ever won it back-to-back (Mike Trout, 2014-15). Next Tuesday in Philadelphia, someone joins the list.
The chart below covers everything: every winner from 2000 to today, the complete 1962-1999 list, the players who won it twice, the most famous MVP performances, and the award’s trivia file. Take a look, then we’ll break it all down.
Contents
The award: born in 1962, renamed three times
The All-Star Game had been running for nearly three decades before anyone thought to name its best player: the MVP award arrived in 1962, christened the Arch Ward Memorial Award for the Chicago Tribune sportswriter who invented the entire event as a 1933 World’s Fair spectacle. Fittingly, its first year produced two winners, Maury Wills and Leon Wagner, because from 1959 through 1962 baseball actually played two All-Star Games per summer. The trophy became the Commissioner’s Trophy in 1970, reverted to Ward’s name in 1985, and in 2002 was renamed the Ted Williams Most Valuable Player Award, honoring the man whose 1941 walk-off All-Star homer remains the event’s founding legend. The baseball gods responded to the rechristening immediately: the 2002 game in Milwaukee ended 7-7 when both teams ran out of pitchers, and the award’s inaugural Williams edition was won by no one, the only MVP-less All-Star Game ever played, and the embarrassment that triggered two decades of format tinkering ending in the swing-off era.
What the list tells you
Sixty-plus winners in, the list has a personality. It rewards single-night lightning over career greatness, which is how the roll includes Jeff Conine, Melky Cabrera, and Elias Diaz while Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds appear nowhere on it. Repeat lightning is nearly impossible: only five men have won twice, Willie Mays (the event’s signature player), Steve Garvey (whose first came as a write-in selection), Gary Carter, Cal Ripken Jr. (1991 and 2001, the widest gap ever, the second via a farewell homer at 40), and Mike Trout, whose 2014-15 remains the only back-to-back in history. The performances that stick are the theatrical ones: Bo Jackson’s 448-foot leadoff blast in 1989, Pedro Martinez striking out five of six Hall-of-Fame-caliber hitters at Fenway in 1999, Ichiro’s inside-the-park homer in 2007 (still the only one the game has seen), and Mariano Rivera taking the mound alone to a stadium-wide ovation in 2013.
Schwarber’s 2025, and the Philadelphia setup
The newest entry might be the strangest. The 2025 game ended in a tie, and under the format adopted after the 2002 fiasco’s long shadow, it went to the first swing-off in All-Star history: a derby-style shootout of three swings per designated hitter. Kyle Schwarber went a perfect 3-for-3, the National League won, and Schwarber claimed the Ted Williams Award with zero hits in the actual box score, a line that will fuel bar arguments for decades. Which loads the 2026 edition beautifully: the game is at Citizens Bank Park on July 14, meaning the reigning MVP defends the award in his home stadium, chasing the Trout-only repeat in front of his own fans, at the ballpark hosting the whole All-Star week. The list gets its next name Tuesday night; this page updates the moment it does.
Final Word
All-Star Game MVP winners by year: an award born in 1962 as the Arch Ward Memorial, renamed for Ted Williams in 2002 (the year nobody won it), collected twice by only five men, never three times by anyone, and most recently claimed by Kyle Schwarber via a hitless, three-homer swing-off, the strangest MVP line ever, with a home-park title defense coming July 14 in Philadelphia. From Mays to Bo to Mariano to a swing-off, the list is baseball’s showcase reel, updated annually one July night at a time.
How the rosters get picked is in MLB All-Star voting explained, the night before’s slugfest lives in Home Run Derby rules explained, and the week’s other Philadelphia event is covered in the MLB Draft explained.