Twins have 3 Mauers in the fold

Joe gets first shot at major leagues

Since arriving to Fort Myers from St. Paul, Minn., on March 1, Jake Mauer Jr., 57, and his wife Teresa have seen more baseball than most big-league baseball managers.

That’s because the Mauers have been following not just one, but three teams throughout the Minnesota Twins spring training.

The Mauers have been watching their three sons: Jake III, a 25-year-old minor league infielder, Billy, a 23-year-old minor league relief pitcher, and of course, Joe, the 20-year-old major league catcher.

Joe Mauer will start Monday when Minnesota opens the regular season against the Cleveland Indians in Minneapolis. Joe Mauer’s parents plan on being in the Metrodome’s stands.

“We pinch ourselves every morning when we wake up,” said Teresa Mauer, who returned to Minnesota with her husband Wednesday. “It’s kind of been a whirlwind or a dream.

“All three of them are in the same organization.

Hopefully, knock on wood, they’ll all be in Minnesota.”

Ironically, the youngest son will be the first to play in the big leagues.

Joe Mauer, the No. 1 overall pick the 2001 MLB draft, has since hit for a .330 batting average in three minor league seasons, including a .335 average in 62 games for the Class A Fort Myers Miracle last summer.

Jake Mauer, a 23rd round draft pick in 2001, has played alongside Joe Mauer for the past three years in the minor leagues, compiling a .248 batting average.

Their paths will divert for at least the start of this season, as Jake Mauer will start in Class Double-A New Britain, Conn.

Meanwhile, Billy Mauer, who went undrafted but signed with the Twins as a free agent last June, likely will begin with low Class A Quad City in Davenport, Iowa, where he had a 3.52 ERA last summer. He also went 3-1 with a 1.71 ERA for the Gulf Coast League Twins in Fort Myers.

Jake Mauer Jr. probably has seen enough baseball to be qualified for a scouting job with the Minnesota Twins — not that he would want one.

“If I were to scout for them, I’d never be able to see my kids play,” said Jake Jr., who has seen at least one of his three sons play over the previous 28 days. “You can kind of tell which kids can play and which kids can’t. But as far as projecting, that’s tough to do.

“The perfect example is Billy. On his high school team, he was their fifth pitcher. He had a tough time starting a game in high school. Then he went to college (Concordia, in Minnesota) and started to improve. He got a little bigger and a little stronger.”

Because of their age differences, the three brothers officially have played together just once, in the summer of 2000 on a traveling team that Jake Jr. coached.

“We won a lot of games when all three of them were there,” Jake Jr. said. “I think we were something like 20-something and two. We were pretty tough that year. Jake played a lot of shortstop and second base. Bill pitched, and Joe caught.”

Jake Jr. and Teresa each still work, but arranged to take off the month of March in order to watch spring training in Fort Myers.

“My wife and I both have pretty good bosses,” said Jake Jr., who works for Awards by Hammond, a company that designs corporate awards and trophies.

Jake Jr. also designed a device called the Quickswing, which he sells online at mauersquickswing.com. The machine helped the Mauers develop the hand-eye coordination needed for hitting a baseball.

“That’s starting to take off,” Jake Jr. said of his business.

Teresa Mauer works as an office manager for St. Patrick’s Guild, a company that sells religious supplies. The Mauers are Catholic, and their three sons attended Cretin-Durham High, a private Catholic school in St. Paul, Minn.

“We took the whole month of March off, but I’ve got to be back to work on Tuesday morning, April 6,” Jake Jr. said. “And my wife has to be back to work on Monday.”

They both will make time to attend Joe Mauer’s first official day on the job Monday. They have arranged to get about 1,000 tickets for family members and friends who want to see Joe Mauer’s big-league debut.

“We want to enjoy it, because it’s not going to last forever,” Teresa Mauer said.

The Mauers were athletes themselves. Jake Jr. played baseball, and Teresa played softball in high school.

The Mauer’s grandfather, Jake Sr., who recently returned to Minnesota, played baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization.

Teresa Mauer said she’s thrilled that baseball has become such a family affair.

“They’re each other’s biggest critics,” she said of her sons. “But they’re also their biggest fans.”