Mauer near-unanimous pick as American League MVP

By RONALD BLUM
The Associated Press
Monday, November 23, 2009 3:16 PM

NEW YORK -- 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 Monday. 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, while Detroit's Miguel Cabrera drew the other first-place vote and was fourth with 171 points, one point ahead of the Angels' Kendry Morales.

Mauer became the second Twins player to win in four years, following Justin Morneau in 2006.

After missing April with a back injury, Mauer homered in his first at-bat 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.

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