Much of Minnesota had its eyes on Target Field Saturday night as Joe Mauer became the 38th member of the Twins’ Hall of Fame.
Years ago, not long before the former No. 1 overall draft pick was going to be brought up to the majors, Blaise Jacobsen had a chance to have a long visit during an event in St. Paul.
Here’s the story, according to Blaise:
“I was with Dan Buss from Lake Crystal, who was my town ball manager at the time. He started selling baseball equipment and called it ‘Bussports.’ You can see the banner we are in front of us (in the picture above).
I made his logo and website for him, and he asked if I wanted to go along. We had no idea Joe was gonna be there with his two brothers and his uncle selling their ‘Quickswing’ hitting device there at the Ramkota in St. Paul.
It was an early spring baseball expo set up in a big conference hall in January or February. Joe was just about to get moved up to the big leagues but was still a minor leaguer in this picture.
He just signed a pretty big contract, and I asked him what he’s gonna do with all that money? He said I’m gonna get me a new Chevy Tahoe. I was like seriously?! Not very baller. He laughed and said yeah, I know, but you never know how long I’ll be doing this.
We talked for at least 45 minutes about baseball and stuff. I was making wood bats at the time at my grandpa’s farm, and he gave me his address that I still have it on a business card so I could send him a bat that he could try out. He liked the Rawlings bats, so he wanted one with those type dimensions. It was a really cool time. I never did make him that bat.
His brothers were really nice too. Jake was playing at St. Thomas at the time and Bill didn’t say much just smiled with those big teeth of his.
Funny enough my friend Dan that brought me along to the expo was married to a girl whose sister ended up being Justin Morneau’s wife. And Joe and Justin were roommates at the time. Pretty wild.
This happened because of course it did. Because he’s Blaise and as has been discussed here before, he’s the Most Interesting Man in Jackson County. And that’s even though he was from Blue Earth County at the time.