Sideburns, Bowling and Mauer Power
So this week i got an assignment from a national magazine (NWA Traveler, the one you see on all the NWA flights) to do a piece on Joe Mauer. The story won’t run until spring 2007, but I went down to the Dome this week anyway to get some interviewing done while all the Twins are still in town. I decided on a whim to take along a handful of The King’s Game with me just in case I got the chance to pass them out to some of the players or coaches.
And sure enough, several players took me up on the offer of free copies. The coolest part of all was that Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire asked me to sign his copy of The King’s Game! How crazy is that? I was honored. It reminds me again that Gardy is such a great guy – just a regular Joe with no trace of ego about him. He spends his winters here in the Twin Cities and bowls in the same league with the same group of buddies every week. (He recently threw a 300 game in fact!) Can you see Joe Torre heading down to the local lanes to toss back a few brews and throw the ol’ bowling ball around for a couple of hours each week?
Speaking of bowling, that got me going on Mauer, i.e. The Natural. The guy literally is good at everything he tries. He never took a golf lesson and started playing when he was in the minor leagues. Of course he has a perfect swing with a golf club too and hits it like 300 yards. He took up bowling for fun this year at spring training and in his third game threw a 265. As Nick Punto said at the time, “How very Mauer of him.”
I asked Joe to name something he stinks at, and he just shook his head, laughed at me and didn’t offer anything up. (Though I know he never played hockey despite growing up in Minnesota … perhaps he can’t skate?)
Since this magazine isn’t a sports-centered one, they didn’t just want, as one editor put it, pure “jock talk.” Lucky for me Mauer – despite his best attempts to keep a low profile and just fit into the background – has plenty of off-field stuff: Dating the 2005 Miss USA, for instance. But the really exciting talk is about those sideburns.
The Twins had a “Joe Mauer Sideburns” giveaway event back in August and it was a huge hit. Even Mauer’s teammates (see Justin Morneau in the photo below) are sporting them now!
For his part, Mauer said the whole sideburns thing is out of control. He said he’s had them for a few years now and it’s only in 2006 that people seem to be making such a big deal out of it.
In case you’re waiting to hear the “dirt” on Mr. American Idol (as Sports Illustrated tabbed him on its recent cover story) there just isn’t any when it comes to Mauer. He really is as genuine and humble and nice as advertised. Many of the Twins players talked about that – you’ll see players get portrayed or try to portray themselves in the media and advertisements a certain way, but in reality they might be a complete jerk. But to a man all of Mauer’s teammates said what you see is what you get – he’s the most humble All-Star catcher hitting .350 and dating Miss America you’ll ever meet.
Mauer is now officially a rock star in Minnesota (he grew up in St. Paul) and basically said he has to really pick his spots now to go out in public. Not that he goes out anyway – he’s a homebody by his own admission. Anyway I’ll save the rest for the story that comes out in April 2007 issue I think.
I can honestly say too that the Twins are as good a group of players and coaches as there is in all of MLB. To a man they are good guys, humble and funny, very loose and no trace of ego in that clubhouse. Nobody has a recliner in one corner with his own personal big screen TV and a posse watching the area to make sure nobody invades his air space like certain superstars. Everybody is approachable and easy to deal with. You don’t always see that with MLB players or pro athletes in general. From my limited experience if you ranked “easiest” pro athletes to work with from a media standpoint, the NHL guys are at the very top, then MLB, then there is a real drop. The NBA guys can be mostly OK, but some jerks abound. Egos are HUGE in that league. I once saw Sam Cassel spend 20 minutes giving a monologue on how the Timberwolves were completely disrespecting him by not renegotiating his contract. His entire basis for complaining was that other point guards who were not as good as him had signed better deals, and it was an insult to his manhood and a slap in the face to have to play for the $5 million or whatever it was he was going to make that year. That same season Latrell Sprewell also complained about his contract, explaining that he “had a family to feed” and just how was he supposed to do that on $14.6 million per season? (I’m not making this up, by the way. Google Sprewell and “Family to feed” and you’ll see I’m sure.)
After the NBA I’d say comes (in way, way last) the NFL. That is one locker room you don’t want to be in after a brutal loss. Those guys get ANGRY. More than that some players are simply unapproachable or impossible to track down, and even worse are these new control freak coaches like Nick Saban and Brad Childress who literally try to monitor and manipulate every square inch of the team and player existence. Childress for instance instituted a pocliy that the media had to ask HIS permission before talking to any player or even an assistant coach. Huh? Too bad all that controlling still can’t keep Vikings players from acting like, well, Vikings players. DUIs (Koren Robinson), incdecent behavior in a public stairwell (Dwight Smith), on and on.
Anyway time to end one rambler of a post!
The King's Game 