A View on the News

The article I chose was on WCCO.com, an AP article titled "Twins Sign Mauer For 4 More Years." The headline basically tells it all! Joe Mauer, from the Minnesota Twins, agreed today to sign a four-year contract of $33 million. Because the Twins is the first professional team he has played for, some believe that Mauer may be heading toward the Hall of Fame, seeing as he is following in the footsteps Minnesota's Kirby Puckett, who spend his whole life with the same team.

This article is written in the Inverted Pyramid Style. The lead is very straightforward, a "summary lead" giving the facts that need to be stated right up front. Then, the article continues with facts about Mauer, like his batting average, his records, or anything else that should be noted about him as a baseball player. A quote from his agent concerning this decision followed. For the next few paragraphs, the article has background material, discussing Mauer's rookie season in 2004 with a knee injury and a few quotes from his general manager. The last paragraph is a secondary theme:

**Twins pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to spring training in Fort Myers, Fla., by next Sunday. Ryan has one more player left in arbitration, right fielder and cleanup hitter Michael Cuddyer.**

These statements are not necessarily important to the real story at hand; however, it is related to the twins as a team. It's an update on what the team is doing now, which people may be interested in knowing.

This article can be found here: http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_042123905.html

The second article is from Minnesota Public Radio, by Anne Baxter. It is titled, "Twins sign Mauer through 2010." This article is also written in the Inverted Pyramid style. It starts off with a "summary lead," however this article is a little different in what they consider the most important thing. It talks about what the "arbitration deal" is. This is an interesting aspect to the story and explains it well for those who don't know what it is. The article then gives some explanation, giving Mauer's history with the twins and a quote directly from him. Background material and supporting points are given, with a quote from Mauer about him playing for the Twins and a statement from the general manager. At the end, there are two secondary themes discussed (the opening of the new ballpark in 2010 and spring training). This article seems to cater to those who may not follow baseball real closely, while the other one seems to assume that people know a lot of things already. It makes a huge difference that the second article had direct quotations from Joe Mauer in it, while the other didn't because he "did not respond to calls immediately."

This second article can be found here: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/02/11/mauer_signs/

In my opinion, I think the second article is a bit easier to understand and more interesting with the facts it presents. I follow the Twins during the season and a lot of the things in the first article I didn't understand completely because it wasn't explained fully. I thought the second one did a good job of pointing out things people are going to be intriuged by and giving good quotations from Mauer himself.