| Dave Kindred
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Up there in the rugged, manly, great white north of Paul Bunyan, Bronko Nagurski and, somehow, Garrison Keillor, there is a new hometown superhero. His name is Joe Mauer.
The Twins?? catcher is hitting near .400. He??s 23 years old, 6-4, 220 pounds, a lefthanded hitter whose stroke is so pure, sure and quick that it puts his grandfather in mind of a tall, skinny kid he saw play for the Class AAA Minneapolis Millers at Nicollet Park in 1938. That one hit .366 with 43 home runs. Ted Williams.
Grandpa
Jake was 7 years old when he saw Williams. Maybe that??s why he became a
lefthanded hitter. What the old man knows for sure is that one day he
saw the infant Joe pick up a toy plastic bat righthanded. ?®No, no,?∆
Jake said, stopping that foolishness, and forever after he has said
that the first time he saw Joe swing, in diapers, he knew Joe had it.
?®Ho-leee cow, what a cut!?∆ is what he remembers saying. As Tiger Woods,
with a golf club in his hands and a diaper on his bottom, had it, so
did Joe.
?®Yep, diapers,
true story,?∆ says Bill Mauer, one of Joe??s two older brothers and a
repository of Mauer lore. Amazing thing is, most Joe Mauer stories are
true.
A T-ball
prodigy? ?®Hittin?? it clear to other fields,?∆ Bill says. They sneaked
him into regular little league games, disguised in a baggy big kid??s
uniform.
Best high school
quarterback in the country? ?®Florida State wanted him so bad that Bobby
Bowden said he??d hold the scholarship 12 years until Joe finished
baseball,?∆ says Jim Souhan, veteran sportswriter at the Minneapolis
Star Tribune.
Quiet, humble,
unassuming, could own the Twin Cities but doesn??t want to, prefers to
talk baseball? ?®The ultimate teammate,?∆ says Kelly Thesier, who covers
the Twins for MLB.com.
Dates Miss USA
2005? Her name??s Chelsea Cooley. If you saw her on David Letterman??s
show, you remember her. If not, Google her. You??ll thank me.
Late this June,
when the wonder boy had gone 46 for his last 95, which comes to .484,
the Twins voluble center fielder Torii Hunter said, ?®What Joe Mauer??s
doing is sick... He??s 23 years old. What??s he going to do when he
gets man muscles??∆
Until then,
we??ll be happy with the Joseph Patrick Mauer we have. He is yet one
more in a long line of fresh-faced, sweet-swinging curatives major
league baseball keeps discovering in its times of travail, more proof
of the wisdom in Bill Terry??s line that ?®baseball must be a great game
to survive the fools who run it.?∆
Keep your steroids fools.
Give us Joe Mauers.
Mauer is the
latest and greatest athlete in a family prominent in Minneapolis-St.
Paul sports history. Grandpa Jake??s father managed boxers. Jake had
three brothers who played professional baseball. Jake??s son, Jake Jr.,
was a three-sport high school athlete who married a three-sport
athlete, Teresa. Their three sons signed with the Twins. (Arm injuries
ended the pro careers of Jake III and Bill.)
Grandpa Jake, a
delight who??ll share his opinions loudly, says, ?®I was a better athlete
than any of my brothers.?∆ Could have really been something, he says,
except for detours into booze and women. ?®I was 6-1, 204, big for my
day.?∆ A laugh here. ?®And that??s why the dollies liked me.?∆
No surprises in
his grandson??s work, as the dollies?? favorite hunk told a television
station when Joe signed with the Twins in 2001: ?®I said he??d be the
next .400 hitter.?∆ Last season, Mauer??s first full year in the big
leagues, he hit .294. He was brilliant behind the plate and remains so.
?®I??m just
feeling pretty comfortable right now,?∆ Mauer said after successive
late-June nights of 4-for-5 and 5-for-5 against the Dodgers raised his
average to .389. Not exactly a Torii Hunter quote machine, eh? But
that??s OK; Hunter doesn??t have The Sideburns working for him.
Mauer trims his
old-school sideburns into neat rectangles. Such is Mauer Mania that
Twin Citians now buy fake sideburns to slap onto their heads. In a
Twins commercial ?? a takeoff of the spot in which Mean Joe Greene gives
a boy his jersey ?? Mauer applies the sideburns to a young fan.
?®You use this stick stuff,?∆ the happy boy later told the Star Tribune, ?®and they stay on for hours.?∆
Imagine. All
over Minnesota, there must be boys taking batting practice, lefthanded,
all with sideburns, all wondering when Miss USA will arrive. No wonder
baseball survives.
?ÿ
David Kindred is
the lead columnist for The Sporting News. In a career spanning more
than 30 years, he previously worked as a columnist for the Louisville
Courier-Journal, The Washington Post, The National and the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. He was named the National Sportswriter of the
Year by the National Association of Sportswriters and Sportscasters
in1998. Kindred has written six sports books, including ?®Around the
World in Eighteen Holes.?∆
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