A year ago, Belegond Lucier was a throw-in.
The 25-year-old third baseman arrived at Old Forest on June 26, 2051, packaged with pitcher Xu-gang Sharmistha in a deal that sent Polébio the Seer, Hildibrand Zooty, and Ecaeris Belondir to Dol Guldur. He’d hit 11 home runs in his Tolkien career. He hit 4 more the rest of that summer.
Then he hit 48.
Lucier was named the Shire Conference’s Aragorn Award winner Wednesday after a season in which he led the league in home runs (48), RBI (123), and hits (206), batted .338 with a 1.033 OPS, and scored 113 runs. He walked (73) more than he struck out (64) — a rarity for a hitter with that kind of power — and posted 9.5 WAR, second in the league only to Dead Marshes’ Ugak the Masher.
He did it on a winner, too. The Merry Fellows went 92-70 and took the Elf Division, with Lucier hitting alongside four-time MVP Alrond Hubbard Jr., who added 37 homers of his own. For the first time in a while, Hubbard wasn’t the best hitter in his own lineup.
The Merry Fellows’ side of that June trade looked like a depth move at the time. It now looks like the best day in franchise history.