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The Twins were in Chicago for a series against the Cubs in 2009. Joe Mauer awoke the morning of June 12 in his room at the Westin, dressed and shuffled to the lobby, uncertain of his next move.
“I remember leaving the hotel that morning and I was like, ‘Am I going on the bus to go to Wrigley or am I going to the hospital?’ ” he said. “That’s how bad I physically felt.”
The Twins’ road trip consisted of stops in Seattle and Oakland before finishing with three games at historic Wrigley Field. Mauer knew that many Twins fans were in town; he knew his teammates were counting on him.
About 90 minutes before the first pitch, a reporter walked down the tunnel leading to the visiting dugout and heard someone coughing and hacking around a corner. A pale Mauer was by the bat rack.
“Man, you sound bad,” I said.
“I think I picked up a bug while we were in California,” Mauer said.
“Are you going to be able to play?”
“I have to. My mother is here with 150 people.”
When the 2009 schedule was released, Teresa Mauer began making arrangements for a group trip that included about 20 members of the Mauer family. The traveling party was not disappointed.
The most Joe Mauer thing happened. After singling in his first at-bat, in his second at-bat he sent a Randy Wells pitch over the left field wall for a two-run homer.
Teresa Mauer remembered that day with a laugh, for Joe never told her he was sick.
“It was a really hot day,” she said. “We could barely stand sitting next to each other [in the stands].”
Honors and memories
Homering on a hot day when nauseous was another memorable moment for the best season of Joe Mauer’s 15-year major league career.
The Twins flirted with contention all season before winning five October games — including a one-game playoff against the Tigers to claim the American League Central. Mauer not only won his third batting title (he hit .365!) but also led the AL in on-base and slugging percentage, the modern Triple Crown. He established career highs with 28 home runs and 96 RBI. He started behind the plate at the All-Star Game, won his third Silver Slugger Award and second Gold Glove. And he won AL MVP honors in a landslide.
We knew what Mauer was. He was a swinging savant, arguably the best contact hitter at his position ever. He smacked opposite-field liners with ease. He was composed when trailing in the count. He was a defensive force behind the plate. He made sideburns look good.
We didn’t realize then that his 2009 season was when Mauer entered the jet stream that has brought him to Cooperstown and induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
In his first six seasons, he hit .327 with a .892 on base-plus-slugging percentage, 368 walks and only 296 strikeouts. He spent four more seasons behind the plate until concussions forced him to move to first base for his final five years.
In 2009, everything Mauer did was elite. An auspicious start, defensive excellence, unforeseen power, the flu game, driving the Twins to the postseason and stuffing his trophy case. The only thing that went wrong was another first-round loss to the Yankees in the playoffs that included umpire Phil Cuzzi ruling foul a liner by Mauer that actually dropped in fair territory and could have ignited a rally (well, Twins fans will tell you that anyway).
The year began with Mauer ailing. After a grueling 2008 season that ended with a Game 163 loss to the White Sox, Mauer had surgery at the Mayo Clinic to address a kidney obstruction that dated to childhood. He already knew he was going to be behind teammates preparing for 2009, but alarms went off in mid-March when he was still unable to play. Doctors discovered an inflamed sacroiliac joint, which connects the spine to the pelvis. The pain in Mauer’s rear required injections and cost him the first month of the regular season.
Mauer homered on his first swing of the season on May 1, off the Royals’ Sidney Ponson. He had four hits the next day. And he never stopped hitting.
“You just never know how long it takes someone, no matter how many rehab games you play, to come back and face major league pitching and what they are going to look like,” longtime teammate Justin Morneau said recently. “When he came out swinging from the first at-bat, as a group we were like, ‘OK, he’s back,’ and the ball is flying into the seats.”
Ending with Phil Cuzzi
Mauer hit .414 in May with an amazing 11 home runs. He never hit more than 11 homers in a season the rest of his career.
“The extra core work he was doing, the extra strengthening exercises he had to do to come back, I think played into it,” Morneau said. “I just wonder if the amount of games he caught and played in, even the days he didn’t catch he was in the lineup as a DH. There were a lot of miles that were starting to accumulate. So you wonder if he was just fresher when that season started for him and he was able to jump in and feel strong.”.
In mid-May, the Twins were in New York to face the Yankees. In the ninth inning of a May 17 game, Mauer pounced on a ball hit in front of the mound with the speedy Brett Gardner on second base. Mauer turned and faked a throw to first as Gardner roared around third and headed home. Mauer turned to eyeball Gardner, scrambled home, dived and tagged him out. Perhaps Mauer’s best defensive play.
Mauer was batting .392 on July 1. The .400 dream ended when he hit “just” .286 the rest of the month. But he had 40 or more hits in three separate months that season. The Twins got to a Game 163 playoff again, and won this time, before a three-game sweep in the Division Series against the Yankees. Game 2 went into extra innings. Mauer led off the 11th with the line drive that was clearly fair, but Cuzzi missed the call and denied the Twins a leadoff double. The Yankees won it in the bottom of the inning.
Before his 27th birthday, Mauer had three batting titles and two Gold Glove awards. He was the best at the most demanding position on the field.
Awards season
Around midday on Nov. 23, Mauer sent a message to his father, Jake.
“Press conference at the Dome at 3 p.m.,” it read. “And I’m wearing a suit.”
Dad replied: “I will be there. And I will NOT wear a hat.”
Mauer was announced as the AL MVP, beating out the Yankees’ Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter. That landed Mauer an eight-year, $184 million contract extension the following March as the Twins prepared for the move to Target Field.
The 2009 season — certainly one of the best for a catcher in major league history — would never be forgotten by Hall of Fame voters.
“It started off on a low and you deal with things that might not be great,” Mauer said of 2009. “But what do you do moving forward and how do you respond to that adversity?
“It was a teaching moment, not only for myself, but as a leader being able to relate that to the younger players as well.”
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