Remember back in 2007, when the Detroit News' Tom Gage was one of two lone writers (the Oakland Press' Jim Hawkins being the other) who gave their first-place American League Most Valuable Player vote to Magglio Ordonez instead of Alex Rodriguez?

Even Detroit Tigers fans acknowledged (perhaps grudgingly) that A-Rod had a better season than Maggs.  Yet Gage and Hawkins looked like total homers in voting for the guy they watched - by virtue of their jobs as Tigers beat writers - every day. 

"I went with what I saw," [Gage] said.  "So many times, you have to vote off the stat sheet.  I fully expected A Rod to win.  He had a great year.  But I saw an MVP year.  There were stats to back up the impression that I came away with from the regular season."

This year, Gage apparently voted off the stat sheet again.  And the stat that clearly impressed him the most was saves.  The 62 saves that Francisco Rodriguez compiled this past season for the Angels warranted a first-place MVP vote from Gage, making him the only writer to put him at the top of his ballot.  To his credit, at least he owned up to it.

Meanwhile, 16 of Gage's colleagues gave their votes to Boston's Dustin Pedroia, who actually won the AL MVP award.  Finishing second with seven first-place votes was Minnesota's Justin Morneau, while Kevin Youkilis and Joe Mauer each received two votes. 

Perhaps Gage was so impressed by saves because the team he covers for a living had such incredible difficulty accumulating them.  Hey, I'm just trying to understand.  It's the first step toward helping.

By the way, the Tigers' Miguel Cabrera finished 13th overall in AL MVP voting.

EDIT (9:30 p.m.): Thanks to Mike McClary for pointing out an error.  I originally wrote that Gage's MVP vote for Magglio was in 2006.  Oops.