Mauer near-unanimous pick as American League MVP

Joe Mauer became only the second catcher in 33 years to win the American League Most Valuable Player Award, finishing first in a near-unanimous vote. The Minnesota Twins star received 27 of 28 first-place votes and 387 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Yankees teammates Mark Teixeira (225 points) and Derek Jeter (193) followed. Detroit's Miguel Cabrera drew the other first-place vote and was fourth with 171 points. Mauer became the second Twins player to win in four years, following Justin Morneau in 2006. Mauer set a major league record for highest batting average by a catcher and won his third batting title, becoming the first repeat batting champion since Nomar Garciaparra in 1999-00. "I love catching. I love the demands that are put on me and the responsibilities that I have, although it might beat you up a little bit physically and mentally," Mauer said. "I like being back there making those decisions, you know, for my team." After missing April with a back injury, Mauer homered on his first swing of the season and went on to lead the AL in batting average (.365), on-base percentage (.444) and slugging percentage (.587), the first AL player to top all three categories in the same season since George Brett in 1980. Ivan Rodriguez in 1999 had been the only catcher since Thurman Munson in 1976 to win the AL MVP. The other catchers to win in the AL were Mickey Cochrane (1934), Yogi Berra (1951 and 1954-55) and Elston Howard (1963). NL catchers to win were Gabby Hartnett (1935), Ernie Lombardi (1938), Roy Campanella (1951, 1953 and 1955) and Johnny Bench (1970 and 1972). Mauer receives a $100,000 bonus for winning the award, and Cabrera gets $200,000 for finishing fourth. Cabrera's first-place vote came from Keizo Konishi of Kyodo News, a member of the Seattle chapter. The NL MVP is to be announced Tuesday, and Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals is favored to repeat. The 26-year-old Mauer can leave the Twins and become a free agent after the 2010 season, when he is to make $12.5 million. Minnesota is expected to try to sign him to a new deal. "I've always said it will happen when it needs to happen and I truly believe that," he said. "I'm not the kind of guy that, you know, says by this date we need to have something done."