Rick Stelmaszek had a way of needling Twins players to perform their best

Rick Stelmaszek had many assets as a bullpen coach with the Twins. One of those came from Sister Stella, a Franciscan nun at Sacred Heart Grade School on the South Side of Chicago.

“Stelly’s penmanship was second to none,” former Twins catcher Tim Laudner said. “He kept the daily schedule to the minute for spring training in a three-ring binder. And everything that was in there — his penmanship was so outstanding that anyone could read it.”

More information was required on this, so a call was made to Kathie Stelmaszek, who first met her late husband when they were in that grade school not far from the family home in which she still lives.

“Who gets the credit for Stelly’s penmanship?” she was asked.

Kathie said all the teaching nuns at Sacred Heart insisted on legible writing, but Sister Stella was particularly devoted to teaching the Palmer Method.

Stella giving a life skill to Stelly … that was a coincidence.

“Wasn’t it,” Kathie said. “And later I taught there, and now our granddaughter, Azil, is 10 and will be going into the fifth grade at Sacred Heart.”

Yes, his 32 seasons (1981-2012) are the most for a coach in Twins history, but it’s what he meant to the players he worked with that tells the true tale of “Stelly.”

LaTroy Hawkins pitched for 21 seasons and in 1,042 regular-season games for 11 teams. The big league odyssey started with the Twins in 1995 as a lanky kid from Gary, Ind., and after 2003, he departed as an in-demand bullpen arm.

He pitched in 376 games (counting 10 in postseason) for the Twins, and it would be Stelmaszek sending him toward the mound, saying: “Relax. Don’t be chasing that fire engine down Michigan Avenue.”

Hawkins laughed slightly Tuesday and said: “I’d say, ‘What’s that mean, Stelly?’ And he’d say, ‘You know what it means.’ We grew up 20 minutes apart, me in Gary, Stelly on the South Side. We both knew about fire engines. The message was, ‘Don’t rush it.’”

It wasn’t all back slaps with Stelmaszek.

Stelly said: “I’ve been watching for a week, the way you’ve worked. You have apologized.”

This is how it wound up for Stelly and the Hawk:

“I have Stelly’s obituary framed in my bathroom at home,” Hawkins said. “Every morning when I’m shaving, I look at that and thank Stelly for helping me get through those first years … because it was rough for a while.”

Eddie Guardado replaced Hawkins as the Twins’ closer during the 2001 season. LaTroy found happiness and big success as a setup man. They were buddies, and they enjoyed serenading Stelly with a revised version of Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” the baddest man from the South Side of Chicago.

Guardado’s message Tuesday: “I’m getting on a plane in California right now headed for Minnesota, but I want to say, ‘Stelmo Brown was a bad man and whole damn town better than a junkyard dog.’ I had Stelmo for my first 10 years in the big leagues, and there were some great times in the bullpen.”

“I could go on about Stelly, but he had the monumental task of organizing spring training to keep it moving like T.K. wanted it, and I was always impressed the way he pulled that off,” Bush said.

“And he and Puck [Kirby Puckett] — different areas but both South Siders. When they got digging into each other in the clubhouse … it was hilarious.”

Twins pitching great Bert Blyleven said: “Stelly was ‘Mr. Baseball’ to me. He had that little dig to everybody, but he also taught me that timing was important. You can’t be giving a guy a hot foot in the dugout if we were behind 10-0.”

Of the many memorable behind-the-scenes events surrounding Stelmaszek, this had to be up there:

Former Twins first baseman Kent Hrbek called Laudner in January 2017 with the news Stelly had pancreatic cancer. Ten minutes later, Kelly called with the same news.

“All the guys from the ’80s, we’d get a report on that from Bushie,” said Laudner, the first Twins catcher schooled by Stelly. “I called Herbie and said, ‘I’m going to drive down to see him.’ It turned out that four of us — Herbie, T.K. and Steiny [catcher Terry Steinbach] got in my truck, drove there and were in the restaurant with Bushie and Le Roy [Smith].

“Stelly walks in, sees there are six of us, and says, ‘You got to be kidding me.’”

OK, not exactly “kidding,” but there was a four-hour dinner of storytelling.

“That was one of my most memorable times ever associated with baseball,” Hrbek said. “Stelly did get back for the 30-year reunion of the ’87 World Series that summer, but that night in Chicago was our chance to let Stelly know what he meant to us, just with the laughs and stories.”

And then, after getting Stelly home and Kelly back to the hotel, the ex-Twins put in a little time in nearby Chicago saloons.