Todd Brommelkamp/1600 ESPN
The Cedar Rapids Kernels can technically claim another Hall of Fame player among their long list of alumni.
Tuesday evening former Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer received the phone call every ballplayer dreams of getting. He, along with Adrian Beltre and Todd Helton, are headed to Cooperstown. Mauer received 293 votes during his first year of eligibility, good for 76.1 percent of the total ballots. The threshold for induction is 75 percent.
Mauer stopped in Cedar Rapids during his first full season of professional baseball but it was as a member of the visiting Quad City River Bandits, at the time the Twins’ Midwest League affiliate. That was during the 2002 season. In fact, if memory serves, the River Bandits were the opponent for the team’s first game in the then-new Veteran’s Memorial Stadium when Mother Nature ruined the festivities with a deluge of rain.
It wouldn’t be until 12 years later that Mauer would return to Cedar Rapids, this time wearing the home jersey of the Kernels.
Playing for his older brother Jake, himself a onetime Twins farmhand, Joe Mauer spent four games with the team while rehabbing an oblique strain. Well on his way to Cooperstown by that point in time, he collected 6 hits in 15 at bats before rejoining the big league club.
What I remember about watching Joe Mauer up close during his time here was the way he carried himself. It will certainly sound cliché but he very much acted like the big league veteran that he was. Every swing in the batting cage had a purpose and, oh, that swing. The ball sounded different coming off his bat in the cage adjacent to the home clubhouse under the first base stands.
Joe Mauer takes the field for batting practice August 5, 2014.
There’s something else I won’t forget about his time here.
After his one and only media availability, which took place in an auxiliary dressing room traditionally used for visiting entertainment acts and most recently the team’s mascot Mr. Shucks, he shook hands with each of the assembled writer and cameraman.
“Joe,” he said after each person introduced themselves.
If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Joe Mauer had just been drafted and was starting his way up the minor league system. This was a player who had a decade of MLB service time and a Most Valuable Player trophy at home, yet he was as humble and unassuming as his older brother who topped out in Double A before turning to coaching.
I still have several yellowing copies of the Minneapolis Star Tribune sports page from August 6, 2014 in my desk drawer. The paper hired me to cover his appearance in Cedar Rapids, paying me a nominal one-time fee for a story I hastily finished in the second-level press box while over 4,000 fans milled about below.
It’s not every day a former MVP comes to town, and Joe Mauer’s appearance here was big business for the Kernels, who had suffered through a wet, miserable spring that season. Dozens of No. 7 Twins jerseys filled the red seating bowl during his stint with the team.
Then he was gone.
Now, a decade later, Joe Mauer is headed to Cooperstown where he will join the likes of John J. McGraw, Lou Boudreau, Ted Simmons and Trevor Hoffman. Calling him a Cedar Rapids alum is a stretch but you won’t find anyone on Rockford Road that will disown him, especially those who were here for his brief and memorable visit.
Todd Brommelkamp is the host of “The Todd Brommelkamp Show” and can be heard weekday mornings on 1600 ESPN from 6:30-9:00 AM.
