Let’s start with Joe Mauer’s Hall of Fame plaque.

It was revealed on Sunday under the sun in Cooperstown, N.Y., and the first thing anyone who has been watching Joe Mauer from the sandlots to Cretin-Derham Hall to 15 years in the Metrodome and Target Field notices is that it doesn’t really look like him. It’s the chin, maybe? They didn’t quite get that right. I’m being generous. They got it wrong. I don’t know who that is supposed to be.

But they got some things right, like the first two words of the description.

“Lifelong Twin …”

National Baseball Hall of Famer, Joe Mauer, right, holds his plaque along with National Baseball Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch during the National Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, New York Sunday, July 21, 2024. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)

So there’s a game I play with Twins fans when I’m trying to be especially interesting — I try to shock them by asking whether the Twins made a mistake by drafting Mauer, one of the greatest catchers to ever play the game. Hear me out on this.

The 2003 Twins won 90 games and went to the American League Division Series, with a pitching staff of Johan Santana (great!), Brad Radke (solid!) and Kyle Lohse (Kyle Lohse).

If you’re still saving it on VHS, stop reading, because the Twins, after winning Game 1, dropped the next three games. Only one was a blowout.

What if the Twins had one more ace pitcher to throw at the Yankees that year? Could they have beaten them? Gone even further? Added 2003 to the 1987 and 1991 pennants hanging in Target Field?

The thing is, they could have had one. Mark Prior was 18-6 with a 2.43 ERA that year with the Cubs. He was even better that year than Santana, who was just establishing himself as an ace. Prior was credited with 7.4 wins above replacement in 2003. Do you know how many wins above replacement Mauer had that year? That’s right: Zero. He was still in the minors.

And the Twins could have drafted Prior ahead of Mauer with the No. 1 pick in the 2001 draft. (Yes, Prior was believed to want a substantial chunk of the Pohlad fortune to sign, but the point is, they could have drafted him, and paid him and still today been able to afford both Netflix and Disney-Plus every month.)

Of course, Prior had just 5.3 of those wins above replacement ahead of him in an injury-shredded career, while Mauer had 55.2 on his road to Cooperstown.

But what if having Prior in a Twins uniform in 2003 would have been the final card in the flush, the ticket to a World Series championship? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Wouldn’t that moment of triumph be worth a trade for all the later years we enjoyed seeing Joe Mauer in a Twins uniform?

It’s just a provocative question, and I ask it to get people to think about the possibility, to consider what we really love about the game.

But this weekend:

Twins jerseys and hats swamped those from other teams on the streets of Cooperstown. Twins fan after Twins fan couldn’t wait to share stories with me about meeting Mauer, or taking a selfie with him, or getting an autograph, or being inspired by him to put on catcher gear and let someone else throw balls at them.

And when asked how it felt to see all those Twins jerseys in the sea of people listening to his speech, Mauer said: “I just felt the love.”

So now you can walk through the plaque gallery at the Hall of Fame and there’s Musial, and there’s Mays, and there’s Charleston, and there’s Aaron — and now there’s Mauer. Wearing our cap. We don’t have to share him with Milwaukee, with Detroit, with San Diego or with New York.

“Lifelong Twin …”

Yeah, they drafted the right guy.

“From St. Paul to the Hall”: the Pioneer Press chronicled the careers of Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris and Joe Mauer, and we’ve compiled the best of our coverage into a new hardcover book that celebrates the legendary baseball legacy of Minnesota’s capital city. Order your copy of “From St. Paul to the Hall.”

Related Articles

‘From St. Paul to the Hall’: All eyes on high schooler Joe Mauer

Twins fans in Cooperstown: ‘We show up’ for our players

Seven memorable moments in Joe Mauer’s Hall of Fame career

‘From St. Paul to the Hall’: Good night, St. Jack!

Check out the company Joe Mauer joins in the Hall of Fame