Fielder earns Sporting News nod for comeback year

ARLINGTON -- Rangers designated hitter Prince Fielder has picked up his first Comeback Player of the Year Award, this one coming from the Sporting News.

The Sporting News Comeback Player of the Year Awards are selected annually by the players in each league. Fielder received 112 of the 156 votes cast by a panel of AL players.

Fielder was limited to just 42 games in 2014 because of a herniated disk in his neck. He came back this past season to hit .305 with 23 home runs, 98 RBIs and a .463 slugging percentage. He was third in the AL with 187 hits and fourth with a .378 on-base percentage. He was also selected to play in the All-Star Game for the sixth time in his career.

Fielder becomes the seventh Ranger all-time to capture this award, joining Ferguson Jenkins (1974), Jose Guzman (1991), Jose Canseco (1994), Kevin Elster (1996), Ruben Sierra (2001) and Vladimir Guerrero (2010). The Sporting News began presenting the awards in 1965.