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Phenoms Mike Trout and Bryce Harper come full circle with ROY selections

Joined at the hip Mike Trout and Bryce Harper forever will be in their baseball careers. If you don't believe it, consider the irony in both men being recalled to make their 2012 and big-league debuts respectively on the very same day — April 28.

On Monday, irony gave way to symmetry, as both men were named Rookie of the Year in their respective leagues by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

There's no doubt Trout had the better all-around season from an individual standpoint. In fact, Trout's numbers were historical, ranking him among the greatest rookies to ever play the game. Harper himself lived up to the incredible hype at the age of 19, posting statistics that dwarfed past teenagers in comparison, but found the path to the award to be a lot more difficult.

[Also: Cabrera, Posey among Silver Slugger winners]

That was evidenced pretty clearly in the voting, which breaks down as follows:

In the National League, Bryce Harper won by a mere seven-point margin over runner-up Wade Miley. His victory was keyed by 16 first-place votes out of a possible 32. Wade Miley himself earned 12 first-place votes and led the way with 13 second-place votes. Others listed first on the ballot were Todd Frazier three times and Wilin Rosario once. Norichika Aoki (five), Yonder Alonso (one), Matt Carpenter (one) and Jordan Pacheco (one) all received third-place votes.

The American League voting was a landslide, as expected, with Mike Trout sweeping the 28 first-place votes. But it's interesting to note that Yoenis Cespedes received 19 second-place votes compared to nine for Yu Darvish. Darvish took 19 third-place votes, with Cespedes receiving six. Wei-Yin Chen (two) and Jarrod Parker (one) also received votes to round out the top five.

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