Joe Mauer: Baseball Hall of Famer, star quarterback ... table tennis whiz

Joe Mauer is a first-ballot Hall of Fame baseball player, an elite of the elite status cemented with voting and his election to Cooperstown this week.

Mauer was also the top college football prospect in the nation as a quarterback coming out of Cretin-Derham Hall in 2001, choosing Florida State -- but ultimately not playing there, of course -- from a long list of suitors.

His third dominant high school sport was basketball, where he helped Cretin to a state tournament appearance and as a senior averaged more than 20 points per game. Those who saw Mauer play hoops said he could have played at least at the mid-major level in college.

Mauer is one of those rare supremely gifted athletes who seems to excel at anything. A long time ago, I had heard he was also one of the best anyone had ever seen at table tennis.

This week, I had a chance to ask former Twins teammate Glen Perkins about that -- part of a longer-ranging interview about Mauer and this year’s Twins on Friday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

“We actually used to travel with a miniature ping-pong table (on Twins road trips,” Perkins said. “I would set it up in my room and he would come over on the road and we would play.”

Perkins was an All-Star pitcher in his own right, gifted with the athletic ability to throw a baseball almost 100 miles per hour. How did those games work out for him?

“You can imagine he can hit baseballs traveling 100-plus miles an hour. You can recognize spin on baseballs traveling 90-plus miles an hour,” Perkins said. “I could hang with him, but I would say if we played 100 games, he was gonna win 95.”

I’m having visions now of the tall, athletic Mauer ripping shots left and right. As someone who is decidedly average at a lot of sports -- baseball was my main competitive sport growing up, and I was good enough to at least dabble in pick-up games in plenty of other things -- it’s something else entirely to think about being the best at everything.

“He’s good at everything he does. That’s not exaggerating. There is nothing that he’s not good at,” Perkins said. But that’s what happens when you have supernatural eyesight, hand-eye coordination and athletic ability.”

Here are four more things to know today:

*Can the 49ers overcome the curse of Kirk Cousins? We’ll find out this weekend, and I’ll probably write more about a bizarre stat on Monday.

*On Friday’s podcast, Perkins spent a good chunk of time on things to like about the 2024 Twins. At the top of the list: the continued ascent of Royce Lewis and top-of-the-rotation projections for Joe Ryan.

*The Falcons hired Raheem Morris as their head coach, not Bill Belichick.

*Wolves fans have been grumbling a lot about process and style points lately, but the most important thing at this point of the season is that Minnesota keeps winning games -- ugly or not.