MPR's William Wilcoxen reports on The Minnesota Twins making St. Paul's Joe Mauer the first pick in Major League Baseball's 2001 draft of amateur players. Mauer is a three-sport star at Cretin-Derham Hall High School, who is ranked among the best athletes the Twin Cities have ever produced.
Mauer is the catcher on the Cretin-Derham team that will play for a spot in the state high school baseball championship tournament. He says he'll wait until his high school team is finished before he decides whether to play college football or minor league baseball next year.
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WILLIAM WILCOXEN: The Twins' winning ways of this season may make last year's dismal performance seem like a bad memory from long ago. But when big league teams line up to draft fresh talent, they determine the pecking order by turning last year's standings upside down.
So all those losses came back to help the Twins in the form of this year's first draft choice, and spending that pick on Joe Mauer, general manager Terry Ryan said the Twins' scouts had followed Mauer's progress at Cretin-Derham closely.
TERRY RYAN: We know a lot about his competitiveness. And with the track record that he's had in football and basketball, and now baseball, this is a natural fit for the Minnesota Twins and the Mauer family and everybody that's involved in baseball up here that follow the Twins. I'm not sure you could write a better script.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Ryan spoke to an audience of reporters, students, Twins officials, and Mauer family and friends who gathered in the Cretin-Derham gymnasium. Joe Mauer came into the ceremony wearing a Cretin-Derham cap atop his six-foot-two-inch frame. He then exchanged it for a Twins cap and jersey bearing his name. Afterward, Mauer reflected on his experience, starting with an afternoon phone call from the Twins.
JOE MAUER: It's kind of weird. I graduated here last week, and I looked down and see Twins there, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. It was something else. I just saw-- I looked at my mom and my dad, and we were all crying there, and it's just an unbelievable feeling.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Unbelievable has been used to describe a high school athletic career in which Mauer has been declared the nation's best high school player in both baseball and football. Mauer's two older brothers also starred at Cretin-Derham, each playing on state championship baseball teams. Their father, Jake, says it's rewarding to see his son's success on the field after all the time they put into sports growing up.
JAKE MAUER: That's all they got. I mean, if we counted how many broken windows we had from balls going through it, it'd be unbelievable. That's all they did, which was good. It kept them out of trouble, and they loved it.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Dozens of scouts have visited the Mauer home and Cretin-Derham's games this year to size up Joe's skills and talk to him about his interest in college football scholarship or a pro-baseball contract. The Twins' Ryan says Mauer has handled the pressure adeptly, which adds to his stock as a pro-athlete.
TERRY RYAN: Through the course of the football, basketball, and baseball season, I can't tell you how much attention this young man has gotten just because of his skills. And he's held up, and that's one of the factors. This young man has got a lot of things going for him, and he's been able to hold up on the mental part, the physical part. He's been durable and healthy. There's something to be said for all that.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Joe selected Florida State from among many football offers. If the Twins' contract offer is not to his liking, Mauer could enroll at Tallahassee in the fall and play both football and baseball there. But for the time being, he says he wants to focus on the Cretin-Derham baseball team's remaining play-off games.
Mauer says his teammates have been gracious about the distraction of all the scouts and reporters drawn to the team's star catcher. He even suspects some of his teammates might miss the extra attention from the pro-scouts.
JOE MAUER: I think they started to enjoy it at the end. They'd go up there and take batting practice and show them what they can do, and maybe catch one of their eyes or something. They've been real great, and they just loved it, I guess.
WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Terry Ryan cautions that if and when the Twins signed Mauer to a contract, fans should not expect to see him in the major leagues too soon. Ryan says players coming directly out of high school generally need a few years of Minor League seasoning, and he expects that will apply to Mauer as well. I'm William Wilcoxen, Minnesota Public Radio.