This is a good time to be Joe Mauer.
Well, OK, pretty much anytime is a good time to be Joe Mauer. How many 26-year-olds make millions starring in the game they love in their hometown while women of all ages offer to swap chest protectors with them?
Now is a particularly good time to be Joe Mauer, though, because right now his agent is negotiating a contract with the Twins, and Mauer has more leverage than Pat Williams on a teeter-totter.
Ron Shapiro, Mauer's agent, has the easiest job this side of Brett Favre's razor. Never before has a Minnesota athlete, by virtue of talent, geography, popularity and timing, held this kind of negotiating advantage while seeking a record-breaking contract.
The Twins know they have to sign Mauer. Mauer knows the Twins know they have to sign him. Shapiro knows the Twins know if they don't sign Mauer, fans will fill Target Field -- with pitchforks and torches.
Mauer's not just One of Us, he represents the best of us -- a lifelong Minnesotan who blends Bud Grant's stoicism with Kent Hrbek's fire.
Paul Molitor, Jack Morris and Dave Winfield grew up in St. Paul and returned home at the end of their careers, but they were not available to the Twins in their prime.
Mauer never left. As perhaps the best football player and baseball player in the country while at Cretin-Derham Hall, Mauer became the first pick in a deep draft that included Mark Teixeira and Mark Prior. Given a choice between playing for Florida State or in the Florida State League, he chose bus rides with the franchise he grew up watching.