The Willie, Mickey and the Duke Award is presented annually by the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America to a group of players, or a specific team, who are linked together by a single event or common attribute in baseball history.
The award is named after and in honor of the inaugural winners who made up the iconic centerfield trio for each of the New York baseball teams in the 1950s: Willie Mays (New York Giants), Mickey Mantle (New York Yankees), and Duke Snider (Brooklyn Dodgers).
The award was created in 1995 by Claire Smith, then a sportswriter for The New York Times, in part due to worries that attendance at the annual Baseball Writers' Association of America dinner would be curtailed due to the ongoing baseball strike and in part to honor baseball people in baseball who were linked by a common attribute or an event.
The inaugural winners of the award were its namesakes: Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider, centerfielders of the Major League teams of New York City in the 1950s â the New York Giants, the New York Yankees, and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The award has since been given annually to groups of players, managers, or coaches as well as iconic teams who are in some way linked together in baseball history.