Mauer near-unanimous pick as American League Most Valuable Player

NEW YORK (AP) — Joe Mauer sat behind a table on a podium in a conference room at the Metrodome when Justin Morneau shouted out the last question of the day.

“Are you finally going to buy dinner now?” Morneau said to his teammate from the audience, one MVP to another.

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. 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 Morneau in 2006. Morneau gave Mauer a bottle of champagne.

“Hopefully we can pop that open here a little later,” Mauer said.

Born in St. Paul, the 26-year-old 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.”

He enjoys playing in front of his family and friends and his preference is to stay with the Twins.

“Can we win here? Yes. Definitely. I think so,” he said. “And that’s ultimately what I would like to do.”

For now, Twins general manager Bill Smith didn’t want to address the business side.

“All that contract stuff, that’s for another day,” he said. “I’ll just say one thing: If you think if he finished second that the price is going to come down ... No.”

Morneau, signed at $14 million for each of the next four seasons, usually picks up checks as the highest-paid member of the Twins. He might be losing that status to Mauer sometime soon.

“We’re going to do everything we can to keep him here as a Minnesota Twin,” Morneau said. “The biggest thing now isn’t the money. It’s going to be whether or not he feels like we can win every day.”

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.

Mauer set career bests with 28 homers and 96 RBIs. He had more walks (76) than strikeouts (63) and batted .378 from Sept. 13 on after Morneau’s season-ending back injury, helping the Twins overtake Detroit for the AL Central title. He was voted to his third All-Star team and won his second straight AL Gold Glove.