Who will win the A.L. MVP? Alex Rodriguez or (gasp) Shannon Stewart? Jorge Posada, David Ortiz or Carlos Delgado? Which one of these guys will take home the hardware? The results will be announced later today and one thing is for sure: the race is wide open. According to a report in The Daily News:

Anything is possible, because 10 players received first-place votes from the 28 voters, said Jack O'Connell, the secretary of the Baseball Writers Association of America, which presents the award. It's only the third time in history that the number of players receiving first-place votes has reached double-digits - 1977 (11, AL) and 1947 (10, NL) being the other years.

"I've never seen anything like it," O'Connell said. "Sometimes, when you're going through the ballots before actually counting, you know who's going to win. I saw Roy Halladay's name so many times, I knew he was going to win the AL Cy Young. But I have no idea who is going to win this until I count up everything."

O'Connell added, laughing, "I'm just hoping it's not a two-way or three-way tie. Those trophies are expensive."

Steve Goldman, who pens "The Pinstriped Bible" for YES, offers a history of the MVP award over at mlb.com. Like most everything Goldman writes, this article is well worth your time.