This Date in Baseball History: November 19

Considering Barry Bonds' recent indictment and A-Rod's quest for $300 million, today's anniversaries offer almost too much irony even for me.Let's start off with Barry who in 1990 was named National League MVP on this date. Eight years later another artificially enhanced slugger, Sammy Sosa, took the title beating out - you guessed it - Mark McGwire.Moving on to the over-payed player category, in 1979 the Astros signed free agent Nolan Ryan to a four-year, $4.5 million dollar deal. Today, you'd have trouble signing a grounds keeper for that amount but, at the time, it made him the highest paid player in the majors. Popular sentiment declared he was a good pitcher but nobody deserved a million bucks a year just for throwing a baseball.