Joe Mauer will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame next Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y. The Pioneer Press, from the Hall of Fame Reference Library, has obtained comments from reports by several major league scouts on Mauer from May 2001, when they watched him as an 18-year-old senior catcher at Cretin-Derham Hall.

Cretin-Derham Hall catcher Joe Mauer keeps his eye on the ball during practice Monday, June 4, 2001 in St. Paul as he prepares for Cretin-Derham Hall’s Section 3AAA title game Tuesday – after the major league draft, where he is expected to go high. Mauer, considered one of the best athletes to come out of the Twin Cities in the last 30 years, could forgo baseball to play quarterback at Florida State. (Joe Rossi / Pioneer Press)

A month later, Mauer was selected No. 1 overall by the Twins in the major league amateur draft.
Among comments from scouts (other than those of the Twins) in their reports after observing the 6-foot-4, 210-pound Mauer: “Long, slender frame, narrow top half, rounded shoulders, big hands, plenty of room for physical development, potential excellent major leaguer, excellent hitting approach, balanced at plate, no known injuries, signed football tender with Florida State as QB, outstanding make-up and poise.”

Other comments: “Easy overall actions, pure stroke to all fields, stays inside ball, good at-bat as I’ve seen, exceptional arm, very fluid, proper mechanics.”
As for weaknesses, “Not many flaws, only speed and quickness; game will be enriched on both sides of the plate with time and experience.”

In summary, “Premium player ability, needs added strength for durability and demands of catching, potential to be a big run producer, one of the top position prospects in the country.”

In the “habits” scouting category, comments were rated “excellent,” as well as his “dedication, aptitude and emotional maturing.” Agility and physical maturity were rated “good.”

Now, 23 years later, Mauer, 41, has earned more than $220 million over 15 years in the major leagues with the Twins.

— If you’re a high school senior baseball player, your chances of making a college baseball roster are fewer than three in 50, roughly 5.6 percent. From college to the minor leagues, about 11 in 100 players (10.5 percent) get drafted.

From the minors to the major leagues? Fewer than one if five make it to the big leagues.

— In the 121-year history of major league baseball, just 20,623 players have made it to the majors. Among those, only 273 have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. And among those, just 60 have been elected in their first year of eligibility.

It’s 1,162 miles from St. Paul to Cooperstown. For Paul Molitor, Dave Winfield, Jack Morris and now Mauer, it has been a remarkable journey.

Molitor, Winfield and Mauer are among those 60 players elected on the first ballot. The trio, and Morris, who was elected by a veterans committee, grew up within a four-mile radius in St. Paul.

They will be with Mauer on hallowed ground when he’s inducted into their shrine in Cooperstown. That is extraordinary.

— Among treasured artifacts fans attending Mauer’s induction weekend can see is the actual bat that a frail Babe Ruth, age 53 and dying of throat cancer, used as a cane for support during his final public appearance at Yankee Stadium in 1948.

The bat, the hall points out, belonged to Bob Feller and was grabbed by Ruth for support en route to hobbling to home plate at the retirement of his iconic No. 3 jersey, as seen in the Pulitzer Prize photo by Nathaniel Fein.

— Next Saturday in Cooperstown, Mauer will partake in a 75-minute Parade of Legends beginning at 6 p.m. and streamed live at mlb.com. The July 21 hall induction ceremony will be at 12:30 p.m. CDT and televised nationally on MLB Network, with satellite radio coverage on Sirius XM.

— Some 40,000 spectators could attend Sunday’s inductions on the grounds of the Clark Sports Center, which is one mile south of the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum. Mauer’s plaque will be revealed just before his induction speech.

— On May 13 at his Mancini’s St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame induction speech, Mauer gave a glimpse of the speech he’ll give next Sunday in Cooperstown. He’ll thank his parents, brothers and former coaches among others.

“One of the lessons our parents instilled in us (his brothers) is that it’s OK to compete,” he said. “Competition is a good thing — don’t shy away from it. I’m proud to be from St. Paul.”

— The 2024 major league amateur draft is Sunday evening through Tuesday. Gophers with the best chances for selection are Connor Wietgrefe, Will Semb and Brady Counsell, son of Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell. Counsell is transferring to Kansas for his senior season.

— Highest projected Gopher for the 20-round draft is left-handed pitcher Wietgrefe, who could go near the 10th round. Highest projected Minnesota prep is Mounds View pitcher Tyler Guerin, who has committed to Iowa. He also could be in the 10th-round range, depending on his signing bonus demand.

The challenge now for major league organizations signing players to minor league contracts is that colleges can offer, in some cases through NIL, similar deals.

— George Klassen, 22, the former Gophers pitcher with a 99-mph fastball, who was a sixth-round draft pick by Philadelphia last year, this season has 84 strikeouts in 55 innings with a 1.95 earned-run average for two Class A minor league teams. He signed for a $297,500 bonus.

— Scouting remains an imperfect science. Some Baseball Hall of Famers and the rounds in which they were drafted: Mike Piazza, 62nd round; John Smoltz, 22nd; Ryan Sandberg, 20th; Jim Thome, 13th; Nolan Ryan, 12th; Andre Dawson, 11th and Trevor Hoffman, 11th.

— In baseball’s 2012 draft, the Houston Astros, with the No. 1 overall pick, took shortstop Carlos Correa. The Twins, with the No. 2 pick, took center fielder Byron Buxton. Now they’re on the same Twins team.

Correa, 29, has a career .275 batting average. Buxton’s career average is .244. Correa is making $33 million a season; Buxton, 30, is making $15 million a season.

— Hall of Fame former Twin Tony Oliva will turn 86 on Saturday.

— Ex-Gophers guard Cam Christie, who doesn’t turn 19 until July 24, hit three field goals and finished with eight points during 27 minutes in his professional debut for the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday against Denver in the Las Vegas summer league.

The Clippers gave the second-round draft pick a $7.9 million, four- year contract, with $3.1 million guaranteed. When Christie declared for the NCAA portal last May, there was buzz that some other college programs were willing to pay $750,000 a year via NIL. Christie will wear jersey No. 12, the same number brother Max, 21, wears with the Los Angeles Lakers.

— Deephaven’s Tim Herron, 54, a four-time PGA Tour winner, was in Akron, Ohio, playing in the Champions Tour tournament at Firestone when son Carson, 21, won the Minnesota State Open at Rush Creek.

“I’m a very proud dad that he had self belief to do that,” Tim said.

Carson, a junior at his father’s alma mater New Mexico, is 6-4, 200 pounds and flies his drives some 50 yards past Tim, who is a long hitter. During a practice round the other day at Wayzata Country Club, Carson hit driver, then flew over the 526-yard No. 2 hole with a 9-iron. Last week at Wayzata CC, Carson was repeatedly flying 5-irons 230 yards.

Because he’s an amateur, Carson couldn’t accept the $13,500 first prize. That went to low professional Caleb VanArragon. Herron will play in this week’s Minnesota Amateur tournament at Minnesota Valley.

— Former officials Kenny Mauer (NBA), Tim Tschida (MLB) and Fred Bryan (NFL) headline a discussion panel at a Capital Club breakfast on Wednesday at Mendakota Country Club.
Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell speaks at a Dunkers breakfast on Thursday at Interlachen Country Club.

— Brittany Viola, a 2012 Olympic diver and daughter of former Twins Cy Young Award winner Frank, has developed a delightful eating disorder card game tool, Ferret Flush on Kickstarter, for parents, coaches, teachers and others to deal with mental health communication.

— Murray Rudisill, 61, the sports marketing promotional whiz from North Oaks Country Club, will realize a major bucket list wish this week when he caddies a couple of British Open practice rounds at Royal Troon in Scotland for friend Todd Hamilton, the 2004 Open champion.

“Walking down the Open championship fairways — a dream come true for me,” said Rudisill, a 4.5 handicapper.

— Janel McCarville, the former Gophers basketball star, last season coached her alma mater Stevens Point Area Senior High to the Wisconsin Valley Conference championship and was named the league’s coach of the year.

Don’t print that

— It wouldn’t be surprising if the NBA, in an effort to avoid an arbitration hearing over Timberwolves-Lynx ownership with Glen Taylor, offers the Alex Rodriguez-Mark Lore tandem that initially agreed to buy the teams for $1.5 billion, first chance at an expansion team in Seattle, where Rodriguez was a popular player with the Mariners.

In any deal, it would expected that Taylor buys out Rodriguez-Lore’s 40 percent investment at nearly double what the pair initially paid because of the dramatically increased value of the franchises the past three years, especially after the NBA’s new media deal last week, apparently worth $76 billion (that’s billion, not million) over 11 years.

The reason the value of NBA teams has exploded is because basketball has become a popular international sport. More than a fifth of the league’s recent first-round draft picks were international players; the same for the second round.

— Vikings training camp begins in two weeks. The way it looks now, it will be a redshirt year for rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy, with Sam Darnold the starter and Nick Mullens the backup. It appears the transition plan will be to turn the starting job over to McCarthy in 2025.

— Rookie Khyree Jackson’s death in a car accident last week recalls other tragic Vikings events: 1964, Terry Dillon dies in a drowning accident; 1973, Karl Kassulke becomes paralyzed from a motorcycle accident; 1978, coach Jocko Nelson dies of heart attack; 1999, coach Chip Myers dies of heart attack; 2001, Korey Stringer dies of heat stroke in training camp; 2018, coach Tony Sparano dies of heart attack.

— People who know say former Cretin-Derham Hall and University of St. Thomas star Sean Sweeney was the Pistons’ backup plan if Detroit couldn’t reach agreement with ex-Gopher J.B. Bickerstaff as head coach.

— In the history of major league baseball, only once has an umpire ejected a player from a game, then allowed him to re-enter the game. The episode belongs to Tschida.

It happened in Anaheim, the Angels against the Texas Rangers. Tschida called Orlando Palmeiro of the Angels out on strikes. Palmeiro subsequently laid his bat on home plate and started walking to the dugout.

“I said ‘come back and get that thing or you can just keep on going,’ ” Tschida told Palmeiro. “He turned his shoulder and said, ‘I’m leaving it for the next guy.’ I went, yeah, right, nice line. And I ran him.”

The next batter, Gary DiSarcina, came to home plate with no bat in his hands.

“He goes, ‘Tim, he’s telling the truth. We’re all using the same bat.’ I just looked at him and said, ‘what?’ ”

Because the Angels weren’t hitting well, they had decided to actually use the same bat once throughout the lineup in an effort to break their slump.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tschida said.

Angels manager Terry Collins and Tschida had known each other since their days working in Class A minor league ball.

“Terry looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think to tell you about this.’ I looked at (Angels hitting coach Carew) Rod and he put his hand on his heart and said, ‘that’s on me, Tim.’ ”

Tschida walked over to Rangers manager Bobby Valentine and said, ‘you’re not going to believe this.’ And he goes, ‘I already know what you’re going to do.’ ”

Tschida told Valentine he was putting Palmeiro back in the game.

“Bobby said, ‘if (Angels) they all do with that bat what Orlando just did with that bat, I’m OK with it.’ ”

— The Gophers have had several players offered at least $40,000 to leave via the NCAA transfer portal. Currently, there are 2,411 college baseball players in the transfer portal. The Gophers have eight players in the portal.

— Due to NIL, throughout college baseball there are some players paid more than their head coaches. More than a few players in the recent College World Series were said to be paid more than $1 million.

— Wally Wescott, who coached hall of famer Paul Molitor as a seventh grader at St. Luke’s grade school and has a sharp eye for talent, said Twins rookie Brooks Lee reminds him of Molitor in terms of ability and poise.

— The Angels have demoted ex-Twin Miguel Sano, who was batting .205 with two home runs and 36 strikeouts in 83 at-bats. Sano, 31, has a $1 million guaranteed contract for this season. During his nine-year career, Sano was paid $36.3 million.

— Tickets for Sunday afternoon’s Indiana Fever (Caitlin Clark) game against the Lynx at Target Center range from $26 to $1,098 on StubHub.

— If the NHL salary cap increases as expected the next two years, it could cost the Wild at least $15 million a season to retain Kirill Kaprizov, 27, who has two seasons remaining on his five-year, $45 million million contract.

— Woodbury’s Jake Guentzel, 29, received a $12 million first-year signing bonus with his recent seven-year, $63 million contract with Tampa Bay.

— If streaming Twins TV games the last two months of this season results from a July 29 Diamond Sports bankruptcy hearing, viewers can expect to pay about $19.95 a month. Platform remains unknown.

— Dennis Evans, the 7-1 center from Riverside, Calif. who initially committed to the Gophers, then left for Louisville, has transferred again, this time to Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.

Overheard

— The PGA Tour’s Lee Hodges, the reigning 3M Open champion, asked the other day in Blaine what he would consider a fair distance for a gimme putt for an amateur golfer: “I think you should give anything within the leather (length of grip on putter) — unless you don’t like the guy.”

Minnesota Timberwolves co-owner Glen Taylor answers questions during a news conference to introduce Tim Connelly the team’s new President of Basketball Operations at The Courts at Mayo Clinic Square in downtown Minneapolis on Tuesday, May 31, 2022. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Umpire Tim Tschida during a baseball game between the Minnesota Twins and the Toronto Blue Jays Saturday, May 12, 2012, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
BLAINE, MINNESOTA – JULY 29: (L-R) Lee Hodges of the United States and Tyler Duncan of the United States shake hands on the 18th green during the third round of the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities on July 29, 2023 in Blaine, Minnesota. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

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