Named after the great Maine and Waikiki outfielder, the Mitchell Award rewards the player who is the top hitter in the league.

This year's award goes to....

Chipper Jones, Newark

For the second straight year, a Newark Sugar Bear has captured the Mitch. And with the year that the Sugar Bears had offensively, how could it be any different? The Sugar Bears set all sorts of offensive records en route to their fourth straight World Series championship. Voting was all over the place this year, but it was pretty clear that Jones deserved the prize.

Jones finished second in the league with a .373 batting average, fourth in on-base percentage (.445), third in slugging (.683), fourth in runs scored (147), fifth in RBIs (140), ninth in homers (44), third in runs created/27 (12.7), second in runs created (174.7), and third in OPS (1.128). Not too shabby. Jones set career highs in average, on-base percentage, OPS, slugging and tied his career-best home run mark. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the Sugar Bears played Jones mostly at the DH slot, but whatever it was, it worked.

Jones was selected by the Sugar Bears in the fifth round of the 1996 draft (46 overall) and has played his entire DMBL career with the Sugar Bears. In his career, he has compiled a .301 average, .916 OPS, 341 homers, and 1273 RBIs.

Chipper Jones only garnered two of the six first-place votes. Four others received one first-place vote. Finishing second was Philadelphia's Albert Pujols, followed by a tie between Hillsborough's Ryan Howard and Newark's Carlos Guillen. The final first-place vote went to last year's Mitchell winner, Nick Johnson of Newark.

Points are scored as follows: 10 points for a first place vote, 7 for second, 5 for third, 3 for fourth, 2 for fifth and 1 for sixth.

The all-time winners of the Mitchell Award: