24 January 2024
Only him.
We heard that a lot over the years with Joe Mauer, this son of St. Paul, now a first ballot Baseball Hall of Famer.
A catcher winning three batting titles? Only him. A home run on his first swing in 2009, his MVP year, after missing all of spring training injured? Same. Moving almost seamlessly to first base after a concussion ended his catching career? Yep. All with same low-key approach and personality, start to finish.
This might be the most Joe Mauer thing ever: While his family and friends sweated out the hours before the voting results were announced Tuesday, Mauer spent part of the day in the basement of his suburban St. Paul home, playing wiffle ball with his five-year-old son, Chip. To those with long memories, it recalled that classic Twins television commercial where Mauer batted against Joe Nathan in his parents’ basement, wrecking the joint until mom Teresa ordered the two knuckleheads to “take it outside.”
“It’s been a lot of fun, a whirlwind of emotion,” Mauer said on a Zoom call with reporters from the basement office. “I was anxious and excited to hear the results. I was so thankful to receive that call.”
Mauer received 293 votes from members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), four more than the 75% threshold (289) required for election. BBWAA members with 10 consecutive seasons covering Major League Baseball are eligible to vote. Mauer joined Rod Carew and Kirby Puckett as the only Twins to be elected on the first ballot.
Mauer also became the fourth Hall of Famer from St. Paul, joining Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor (his last manager) and Jack Morris. All four grew up within a two-mile radius and played in some of the same parks at different times.
Catchers are vastly underrepresented in the Hall; Mauer is only the 20th to be inducted, fewer than any position except third base (19, with Adrian Beltre this year). Among catchers, only Johnny Bench and Pudge Rodriguez were first-ballot selections before Mauer. Insane but true: It took three-time MVPs Yogi Berra two tries and Roy Campanella seven to get in.
“It’s been a crazy couple of months,” Mauer said. “I’m glad I don’t have to do that next year or the year after that.”
Mauer usually picks up his kids from school, but skipped that chore Tuesday to avoid drawing attention, another classic Mauer thing. As the day went along, his basement filled up with more family – his wife Maddie, 10-year-old twin daughters Emily and Maren, brothers Jake and Billy, and of course Teresa. Mauer’s father, Jake Jr., passed away last year – exactly one year and seven days before the announcement, by Mauer’s count – and his grandfather Jake Sr. in 2020.
“Too bad his dad Jake wasn’t around to see this,” said Terry Ryan, the general manager when the Twins drafted Mauer first overall in 2001.
Ryan recalled the process that led to Mauer’s selection. Most Twins fans know the story: At the time, the Twins considered Mauer, pitcher Mark Prior and first basemen Mark Teixeira for the top pick. Teixeira broke his right ankle in February of that year, leaving Prior and Mauer, the three-sport star at Cretin-Durham Hall who had an offer to play quarterback at Florida State University.
“Mike Radcliff had seen (Mauer) a number of times before his eligibility year,” said Ryan, name-checking the late Twins scouting director. “Living so close to the Metrodome and so forth, we had an opportunity to see about every game.
“It came down to Prior and Mauer. But Mauer being a local guy and a left-handed hitting catcher, the bat that he possessed, those skills are hard to find in the amateur world and even in the pro world. It came down to the final day, and Mike said he’d like to take Joe Mauer. I always let the scouting director make the pick, because they’ve got the most information and the most feel, and we ended up taking him.
“The good thing about it was, he wanted to be a Twin. It wasn’t like we had to beg him to sign. We were going through a tough time in that area. We also had a very good left-handed hitting catcher in (A.J.) Pierzynski. People wondered why we didn’t take Prior because we were in desperate need of pitching as well. We still liked the fact that Joe was the local guy and we had a lot of makeup on him. His ability was through the moon. His makeup was through the moon.”
Mauer hurt his left knee in his second big-league game, sliding to try and catch a foul ball in the Metrodome. He had surgery to remove damaged cartilage, and the knee remained problematic his entire career. Still, in 10 seasons as a catcher, Mauer made six All-Star teams, won five Silver Slugger Awards and three Gold Gloves in addition to his three AL batting championships.
Like George Brett, another left-handed hitter with a sweet swing, Mauer liked to wait on pitches and spread the ball from the left-field line across to right-center. Mauer drew more walks and had the highest batting average on balls in play (.341) of any catcher since 1901 with at least 5,000 at-bats at the position. His 2009 MVP season was extraordinary, leading the American League in batting (.365), on-base percentage (.444), slugging (.587) and OPS (1.031) while posting career highs of 28 homers and 96 RBI. His batting average set a major-league record for catchers.
Again, only him.
Two foul balls off his mask in a 2013 game here against the New York Mets changed his career course. Except for a one-pitch cameo in his final game in 2018, Mauer never caught again. Post-concussion vision issues affected his timing at the plate. Moving to first base, he batted over .300 only once after topping that mark seven times catching. He finished with a .306 career average, .328 as a catcher.
The Twins also did Mauer no favors in the move to Target Field in 2010. When it became apparent balls didn’t carry as well to left-center as they did at the Metrodome, turning potential Mauer home runs into warning track outs, the Twins never adjusted the outfield distances to compensate. (This would have involved moving home plate farther from the field boxes, reducing the park’s intimate feel – an issue with certain Twins officials.)
But Mauer never complained, just kept showing up every day. The eight-year, $184 million contract Mauer signed in the spring of 2010 to avoid free agency made him an easy target for fans frustrated with the Twins’ repeated postseason failures; the club never won a playoff game with Mauer on the roster. The “bi-lateral leg weakness” fiasco in 2011, when the Twins tried to finesse Mauer’s slow recovery from off-season knee surgery instead of being straightforward, didn’t help.
None of that mattered to Hall of Fame voters outside Minnesota, who rewarded Mauer for what he was – one of the best catchers of his era, and a person of high character. Mauer continued his charity work with Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul and the Highland Friendship Club for people with developmental disabilities into retirement. The Hall is a better place with Mauer in it.
“He fits right in,” Ryan said. “Anyone who criticized Joe just didn’t know him, in my opinion. He was just a quality human being, a quality player, a quality teammate.”