St. Paul native, Twins alum Joe Mauer inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — He's known as a man of few words, but on Sunday, Joe Mauer shared a life's worth of gratitude and memories as he officially became a Major League Hall of Famer.
Mauer was a high school phenom in both football and baseball in St. Paul and was named USA Today's High School Player of the Year in football in 2000 and baseball in 2001.
He was drafted by his hometown Twins with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2001 MLB Draft.
"It was truly an honor to be a (Minnesota Twin) and represent my hometown team," Mauer said.
The future six-time All-Star catcher spent just three years in the minors before spending all 15 years of his big league career with the Twins.
Mauer finished his career with one Most Valuable Player award, three batting titles and is the only catcher in history with at least 2,000 hits, a .300 batting average and a .380 on-base percentage.
Mauer noted the emotion he felt seeing all the Minnesota fans throughout the weekend.
"It's not easy to get to Cooperstown and especially with the events that have happened this last week," he said. "But to see that many Twins fans out there, I just felt the love and I was just hoping that I could deliver the speech that I wrote down."
Adrian Beltré, Jim Leyland and Todd Helton were also inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday.
Beltré led this year's class with 95.1% of the Baseball Writers' Association of America vote in his first year on the ballot. Helton followed with 79.7% of the vote in his sixth year of eligibility and Mauer received 76.1% of the BBWAA vote in his first year.
Other players included on this year's ballot who fell short of the 75% threshold were Billy Wagner (73.8%), Gary Sheffield (63.9%), Andruw Jones (61.6%), Carlos Beltrán (57.1%), Alex Rodriguez (34.8%), Manny Ramirez (32.5%), Chase Utley (28.8%), Omar Vizquel (17.7%), Bobby Abreu (14.8%), Jimmy Rollins (14.8%), Andy Pettitte (13.5%), Mark Buehrle (8.3%), Francisco Rodriguez (7.8%), Torii Hunter (7.3%), David Wright (6.2%), José Bautista (1.6%), Victor Martinez (1.6%), Bartolo Colon (1.3%), Matt Holliday (1%), Adrián González (0.8%), Brandon Phillips (0.3%), Jose Reyes (0%) and James Shields (0%).
Sheffield was on the ballot for the 10th time without reaching the 75% mark and is no longer eligible for BBWAA consideration. Bautista, Martinez, Colon, Holliday, González, Phillips, Reyes and Shields did not receive the minimum requirement of 5% of the vote and are also no longer eligible for BBWAA consideration.
Joe Castiglione and Gerry Fraley were also honored during Hall of Fame weekend. Castiglione has been the Boston Red Sox radio broadcaster for a record 42 seasons and received the Ford C. Frick Award. Fraley was posthumously honored with the BBWAA Career Excellence Award for his work as a writer. During his career, Fraley covered the Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers and worked as the national baseball writer for the Dallas Morning News.