The great debate about the National League's MVP race came to an end Tuesday with the announcement of Cardinals 1B Albert Pujols as the winner, edging Andruw Jones and Derrek Lee. While this was a great three-horse race to the finish, I cannot help but wonder if the award should have gone to someone else. Someone else not running in the three-horse race. As seems to be the case every year, the meaning of the Most Valuable Player award comes under fire, as it has again this season. In both leagues, the award went to the best player (Alex Rodriguez and Pujols are widely recognized as the 2 best players in the game today), but that is not what the award is called. It is called the Most VALUABLE Player. Was David Ortiz more valuable to the success of the Red Sox than Rodriguez was to the Yankees? Conceivably. With that concept in mind, I submit my case for the true MVP of the National League: Barry Bonds. The Giants had not had a losing season in 8 years, but finished 12 games under .500 the year Bonds missed all but 14 games. In his 14 games, Bonds hit .286 with 5 home runs and 10 runs batted in, in addition to posting a .404 on base percentage and a .667 slugging percentage. And that was without the benefit of spring training, simulated games, rehab assignments, or anything else. But the most important statistic of all: in the 14 games he played, the Giants went 9-5. Obviously, the idea of giving the Most Valuable Player award to someone who appeared in only 14 games does not seem to make much sense on the surface, but looking at it from a strictly logical sense, it makes as much sense as giving it to Pujols or Rodriguez. There is no question that both of this season's MVP Award winners are valuable to the success of their respective teams. But would the Yankees have struggled and finished with only 75 wins had Rodriguez appeared in merely a handful of games? With a lineup featuring Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, and Hideki Matsui, it seems unlikely to me. Likewise with the Cardinals; would they have languished in the middle of the pack in the NL Central if Pujols were removed from the lineup for all but 14 games? I doubt it. With the National League's Cy Young Award winner anchoring a stellar pitching staff and the likes of Jim Edmonds, Larry Walker, and Reggie Sanders in the lineup, it seems to me that they likely would have remained in contention, even for a Wild Card spot. Had Bonds played a full season, his stats presumably would looked somewhat like they have for the past 4 years, which is to say historically significant. Additionally, the Giants would have likely run away with the miserable National League West. A repeat vote of the last several campaigns for MVP would have been the likely outcome, with Bonds edging out Pujols. But even if the idea of projecting a players statistics defies the perceived logic of the MVP Award, looking at the results of the season, both good and bad, seems like a possible and reasonable measure for the value of a player, and in turn determining if he carries the most value of any player in his league. With apologies to the 3 tremendously gifted players who were in the running for the National League's Most Valuable Player Award, the real MVP still makes his name in San Francisco.