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Charley Walters: Did Joe Mauer actually consider playing football at Florida State?

charley walters, pioneer press
·12 min read

Joe Mauer’s Baseball Hall of Fame odyssey began at his family’s home on Lexington Parkway in St. Paul. Mauer had turned 18 in April of 2001 and would soon graduate from Cretin-Derham Hall after transcendent seasons in baseball, basketball and football.

The Minnesota Twins, after a 69-93 season in 2000, had earned the No. 1 overall pick in the major league’s amateur draft.

The Twins were primarily considering two players with the prized pick: Mauer, a catcher, and Mark Prior from the University of Southern California, rated by big league scouts as the top major league-ready pitcher in the history of college baseball.

And, the Twins were desperate for pitching.

Mauer, besides being the nation’s top high school catcher, was also the nation’s top-ranked high school quarterback and in April had committed to coach Bobby Bowden of Florida State, which the year before had produced Heisman Trophy-winning QB Chris Weinke, also from Cretin-Derham Hall.

The Twins had Joel Lepel, their Upper Midwest scouting supervisor who had a relationship with the Mauer family, visit the family’s blue-collar neighborhood home. Mauer’s adviser, Baltimore-based Ron Shapiro, who had also represented the Twins’ Kirby Puckett, had played the football leverage card when the Twins were doing due diligence on Mauer.

The Twins wanted to know whether football was a serious option for Mauer. Mauer’s father, Jake, a no-pretense guy, suggested Lepel take notice of the pictures around the house. All the pictures of Joe were baseball pictures. None were football.

The Twins had their answer, thanks to Jake. Now they would have to decide between Mauer and Prior.

>> On draft day, Twins general manager Terry Ryan gave Mike Radcliff, the club’s superb player personnel director, the option to choose the guy he thought would be the better player. When the draft began, without hesitation, Radcliff chose Mauer.

People who know insist it didn’t matter that Mauer was a hometown guy — if Radcliff thought Prior was the better prospect, he had permission to choose him.
The Twins and Mauer settled on a $5.1 million signing bonus. Prior ended up going No. 2 in the draft to the Cubs, receiving a $4 million signing bonus. In five years, his pitching career was would be finished due to shoulder injuries.

>> In 2009, one season before the Twins would move from inside the Metrodome to outside at Target Field and one year before Mauer could have become a free agent, he hit .365 with 28 home runs and was named the American League’s MVP. Mauer was 26 and in his prime.

Joe couldn’t have timed it better.

The long steady careers of catchers Jason Varitek of the Red Sox and Jorge Posada of the Yankees were fading. Mauer’s inside-out swing would have knocked the green paint off Fenway Park’s famous 310-feet left-field wall with doubles, and the Yankees no doubt would have spent handsomely for Mauer.

But the Twins spent big, too, in spring of 2010 guaranteeing the local prodigy $184 million for eight years with a full no-trade clause. As lofty as was the Twins’ deal, Mauer’s market might have been some $50 million more had he opted for free agency.

Mauer, though, grew up dreaming of playing for the hometown team. The Twins had no problem agreeing to a $23 million per season deal. The only challenge was the length of the contract. Shapiro, though, held firm, and wouldn’t take fewer than eight years.

>> No doubt, before long the Twins will have a bronze statue of Mauer erected at Target Field.

>> As a batter, Mauer had a propensity to take a pitcher’s first strike. It didn’t take long for pitchers to realize they could slip a fastball down the middle to Mauer and he probably wouldn’t swing.

In the midst of his brilliant career with the Twins, I asked the .306 career hitter why he allowed pitchers that advantage. He responded quickly.
“I’m doing OK, aren’t I?”

>>Another time, retired Twins Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, who took great pride in meticulously writing his name, was watching behind the batting cage at the Metrodome as Mauer sprayed line drives to all parts of the field.

“Very good, Joe,” Harmon said. “Now work on that signature.”

>> Mauer’s Hall of Fame election makes him just the second catcher in history, behind only Johnny Bench, in first-ballot percentage (76.1) of votes.

>> Mauer, sports memorabilia collectors will tell you, has always been a willing autograph signer, but not through the mail. Now that he’s a Hall of Famer, his autograph will be in higher demand. Fellow Hall of Famer, Mike Mussina, the former Yankees-Orioles pitcher, charges $20 for his signature through the mail.
These days, Hall of Famers can spend an afternoon signing-session for a $25,000 stipend.

>> A Mauer-signed Twins game-used bat was for sale online last week for $2,499.07.

>> There have been only 60 first-ballot Baseball Hall of Famers. St. Paul has produced three of them (5%): Mauer, Paul Molitor and Dave Winfield.

>> Signed baseballs by 2018 Twins players were on sale for $30 on Saturday at TwinsFest.

>> Among Mauer artifacts on display at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is a 2014 bobblehead.

>> Mauer and Hannah Brandt will be named the Catholic Athletic Association’s outstanding athletes of the past 25 years on April 15 at the University of St. Thomas. The Mauer family will also be inducted into the CAA Hall of Fame. Also honored will be families of the CAA founders Fr. Otto Neudecker, Bob Doran and John Hajlo.

>> The Hall of Fame has partnered with Sports Travel and Tours for travel packages to Cooperstown (1-888-310-HALL).

>> Hall of Fame ex-Twin Jim Kaat will be a coach for the Memorial Day Weekend Hall of Fame East-West Classic tribute to Black Baseball at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Don’t print that

>> The buzz now is that it will take $90 million guaranteed for two years, despite that he’s still not yet fully recovered from Achilles surgery in November, to sign free agent QB Kirk Cousins. If that’s the case, he certainly won’t get that from the Vikings.

Meanwhile, if Brock Purdy falters Sunday against the Lions, Cousins’ admirer with the 49ers, coach Kyle Shanahan, could push for him.

>> It’s not far-fetched that the Vikings would consider, for financial reasons, Russell Wilson as their bridge QB next season if they draft a QB with their No. 11 pick in April. The Broncos are expected to cut Wilson, 35, who if he’s on the roster next March, his 2025 salary of $37 million becomes guaranteed. His $37 million deal for next season already is guaranteed by Denver.

But if the Vikings are interested in Wilson, his 2024 contract has a salary off-set, meaning he would cost only the NFL veteran minimum of $1.2 million with incentives. The Broncos would owe the rest.

Bottom line: The Vikings can either pay Cousins $45 million next season or Wilson $1.2 million.

>> Don’t think P.J. Fleck’s representation didn’t try to push the Gophers’ football coach for the Michigan vacancy that went to Sherrone Moore.

>> Joe Rossi, the Gophers defensive coordinator who left after last season for Michigan State for the same job, was paid $1.1 million at Minnesota. For the Spartans, he’ll make $1.5 million this year with $100,000 increases each of the following two seasons.

>> Ex-Gophers men’s basketball coach Richard Pitino, after a 13-19 start at New Mexico three years ago, this season has the Lobos 17-3 and a No. 25 ranking. Word in coaching circles is that Pitino, 41, could be in line for the Saint Louis University coaching job.

>> Former Gophers football coach Jerry Kill, 62, who resigned after a 10-5 record at New Mexico State this year, collected $90,000 in bonuses besides his $650,000 salary.

>> With 11 games left, it will probably take at least 18 victories for the Gophers men’s basketball team (12-7 entering Saturday at Penn State) to get an NIT bid. The problem for Minnesota is its soft nonconference schedule.

>> The Detroit Lions have superbly rebuilt their franchise and will be formidable for a long time, as will the Packers and the Bears in coming years, meaning the Vikings could be facing a tank season in 2024.

>> It looks like the Timberwolves’ Chris Finch is on his way to NBA coach of the year.

>> The scouting report on 6-11 Wisconsin freshman Nolan Winter, the Lakeville North grad with long-range shooting skills, is that he’ll be a first-round NBA pick within three years. His comparable is 6-9 ex-Badger Jon Leuer from Orono. Leuer, 34, spent eight seasons in the NBA, during which he was paid $44 million.

>> Before free agent Zach Parise, 39, signed with the Colorado Avalanche last Thursday, the former Wild winger, still owed $7.5 million by the Wild next year, was assisting the Edina boys hockey team.

>> Former Wayzata linebacker James Laurinaitis, 37, could soon move from grad assistant status at alma mater Ohio State to a full-time assistant.

>> That was beloved Wally “The Beerman” McNeil, 89, chatting with pals over muffins and coffee Saturday morning at his senior living cafe in Plymouth. The legendary vendor, who worked his final Twins game in 2011, will do a signing appearance on Thursday evening at Ridgedale mall.
“I’m on a seafood diet — I see food I eat it,” Wally said.

>> It’ll be interesting whether Macalester College 6-2 junior guard Caleb Williams, who scored 51 points against Concordia the other day, gets transfer portal interest.

>> Park Center grad Adalia McKenzie is averaging 9.8 points as a starting guard for the Illinois women’s basketball team that hosts the Gophers on Sunday afternoon.

>> Hollis Cavner, who runs the 3M Open, also operates the big Collegiate Invitational tournament at the Floridian in Palm City and has a relationship with golf’s next big thing, Nick Dunlap. Cavner already has been recruiting Dunlap for his PGA Tour event at the TPC in Blaine in July and has offered an exemption to the 20-year-old who last week won the American Express as an amateur.

Cavner, asked whether he thinks Dunlap would consider an offer from the Saudi-backed LIV tour: “He’s got the world by the butt — he doesn’t have to go to the LIV.” Dunlap debuts as a pro this week at Pebble Beach.

By the way, Cavner has declined an offer of more than $8 million for his Royal Golf Club in Lake Elmo and is privatizing it with memberships starting at $20,000.

>> Even before the start of last week’s American Express, St. Paul’s Bob Kowalski of Kowalski’s Markets made a $5 online bet that Dunlap would win the tournament. For the victory, Kowalski won $405.

>> Former Hill-Murray hockey star Jake Guentzel, 29, is in the final year of a $30 million deal with the Pittsburgh Penguins and can become an unrestricted free agent after the season. He leads the team in assists and is second only to Sidney Crosby in points.

>> In its third season since moving from Division III to the eight-team men’s Division I Central Collegiate Hockey Association, St. Thomas is in first place.

>> That was Minnesota Golf Hall of Famer Bill Israelson, 66, making seven birdies while shooting his age the other day at Trilogy Verge River in Arizona.

>> Bennett Kotok, the 2023 St. Thomas Academy grad who was captain of the championship baseball team and an all-conference linebacker in football, plus top-five in his pre-med class at Creighton, died unexpectedly last week playing intramural basketball at Creighton.

>> Prayers are welcome for all-time good guy Tom Perrault, 78, the longtime St. Paul college and high school referee and game-clock official for the Timberwolves, Gophers, Lynx and University of St. Thomas recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and undergoing chemotherapy.

>> Chris Engler, 64, the former Stillwater, Gophers and NBA center who has been courageously battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) the last couple years, is experiencing a weakening of his hands and arms, but still “walking, talking and rocking,” he said.

>> Nick Leddy, 32, the former Gopher from Eden Prairie, last week for the St. Louis Blues against Vancouver scored his 400th career point.

>> A little birdie says Wild players celebrated goalie Marc-Andre Fleury’s recent 552nd career victory — 6-0 over the Islanders for second place on the NHL’s all-time list — at Bunny’s pub in St. Louis Park, with teammate Ryan Hartman picking up the tab.

>> The 39th consecutive sellout Mancini’s St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame banquet will be May 13 at the Char House.

>> It’s been 20 years this month since John Friedmann, who managed the St. Paul Civic Center before taking over operation of the Chiefs and Royals stadium, was murdered from a gun shot at a car wash in Kansas City. He was 71.

>> It’s yet another honor for the NHL’s peerless curator Roger Godin of the Wild — the American Hockey Coaches Association Jim Fullerton Award, which represents a love of the purity of the sport.

>> The Gophers athletic department has started a fundraising campaign offering fans to pledge at least $10 for each Gophers victory over nine games among assorted sports over a five-day span beginning Wednesday with the women’s basketball game against Penn State.

>> In 1974, cost to participate in St. Paul youth hockey programs was $20. This year, fees began at $1,220. Next Saturday, the St. Paul Capitals Hockey Association seeking support will celebrate its 50-year anniversary at DeGideo’s at 5:30 p.m.

>> Pro scouts aren’t impressed with the slinging throwing motion of Rutgers-bound QB Athan Kaliakmanis, the ex-Gopher.

Overheard

Zach Zenner, 32, the tough former Eagan running back who played 4 1/2 seasons for the Detroit Lions, on the Lions being two victories from the Super Bowl: “Hard to believe. It doesn’t compute in my brain that they’re two wins away from a Super Bowl. I’m excited for them and the city and the fans who supported me while I was there — gives me a chance to support a winning team.”

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