Everyone forgets....Joe Mauer never wanted to be a Gopher either

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Art Vandelay

Art Vandelay

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Committed to Florida State IIRC, but that sure didn't hurt his popularity around here. I know he's a star player in another sport but still.

Why no hate for the Baby Jesus? What if SH plays for the Vikings some day?

This board is hilarious! Keep up the good work.
 

If Seantrel lives up to the hype...he'll be a Lion...not a Viking....if he doesn't, he'll be no more popular than Matt Birk if he ever ends up a Viking

Do you honestly think if Joe chose football, went to Florida State won the Heisman and was great, he would have wound up in Minnesota? He would have been a top 4 pick, the Vikes have never had a top 4 pick.
If he wasn't that good, the Vikings fans would hate him cause Viking fans hate every QB that isn't an all time great
 

I have no hate for Seantrel. I honestly hope he has a terrific game against everyone except for the Gophers, and that is an all american and future 1st round NFL draft pick. I personally don't even think he made a "bad decision" either.

Good luck Seantrel!!
 

Joe didn't live on the campus mooching free tickets and food either. Nor did he have a dad mugging his son for some of the spotlight. The only reason they kept the U in the picture was to keep the freebies coming and the local media interested. Mauer and family didn't play it like that.
 

Art Vandelay said:
Committed to Florida State IIRC, but that sure didn't hurt his popularity around here. I know he's a star player in another sport but still.

Why no hate for the Baby Jesus? What if SH plays for the Vikings some day?

This board is hilarious! Keep up the good work.
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Simply put, College baseball is no where near as popular as College football. Many people just don't care as much. Does anyone follow the college baseball recruitment process as closely as the football recruitment process?

And I don't hate SH, but that doesn't meant that it wouldn't be extremely satisfying to beat SH and his new team at The Bank.
 



Art, what is your point? Yes, I am sure this town would embrace Seantrel 4-6 years from now if he was to play for the Vikes, but who cares, that is neither here nor there. This is a Gopher Football forum.

You love to point out how entertaining this forum is for you; thankgoodness, we can all sleep easier at night.
 

GVTTW said:
Simply put, College baseball is no where near as popular as College football. Many people just don't care as much. Does anyone follow the college baseball recruitment process as closely as the football recruitment process?

And I don't hate SH, but that doesn't meant that it wouldn't be extremely satisfying to beat SH and his new team at The Bank.
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FYI GVTTW - Mauer was a top rated QB who was recruited to play football at FSU, not baseball.
 

akgopher said:
Joe didn't live on the campus mooching free tickets and food either. Nor did he have a dad mugging his son for some of the spotlight. The only reason they kept the U in the picture was to keep the freebies coming and the local media interested. Mauer and family didn't play it like that.
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+1. That's the only thing I have a problem with. No hate for Seantrel whatsoever; I just wish the Henderson family had been more upfront about their apparent lack of interest so the recruiting resources could have been saved for guys with whom we actually had a shot.
 



GVTTW said:
Simply put, College baseball is no where near as popular as College football. Many people just don't care as much. Does anyone follow the college baseball recruitment process as closely as the football recruitment process?

And I don't hate SH, but that doesn't meant that it wouldn't be extremely satisfying to beat SH and his new team at The Bank.
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Joe Mauer's primary sport at FSU would have been football, he was the #1 player in the nation coming out of high school (for both baseball and football)
 

akgopher said:
Joe didn't live on the campus mooching free tickets and food either. Nor did he have a dad mugging his son for some of the spotlight. The only reason they kept the U in the picture was to keep the freebies coming and the local media interested. Mauer and family didn't play it like that.
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Yeah, Joe's dad doesn't yuck it up in the spotlight. The second Joe became famous his dad started trying to sell a peice a pipe at a 90 degree angle dubbed the QuickSwing.

Just a few weeks ago people were excited that we were even in the running for Henderson and saying that it was a positive sign we weren't initially written off. I think there was still an outside chance that Seantrel picked MN, but I never thought the chance was very high.
 

If Seantrel never ends up playing for USC and ends up as a league MVP for the Twins I bet he will be really popular. I am not holding my breath though
 

I asked Joe once at TwinsFest if he got sick of baseball if he would consider going back to college football and quarterbacking the Gophers. He seemed open to the idea.
 



Chadypu said:
Joe Mauer's primary sport at FSU would have been football, he was the #1 player in the nation coming out of high school (for both baseball and football)
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Ah, I always forget that he was a great football player as well. I did know that, but when I hear Joe Mauer then I automatically think of baseball for obvious reasons.

And I apparently missed the Florida St. part at the beginning of Art's post....
 

MBAGuy said:
+1. That's the only thing I have a problem with. No hate for Seantrel whatsoever; I just wish the Henderson family had been more upfront about their apparent lack of interest so the recruiting resources could have been saved for guys with whom we actually had a shot.
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He was trying to do the hometeam a favor by keeping them among the finalists. Everybody knew he wasn't signing with the Gophers and can you blame him for not wanting to play on a second rate team when he had the choice of any program in the country.
 

We certainly hope for, expect and welcome players from other states here and don't view them as traitors because they chose Minnesota over staying home in Texas, California, Ohio or whatever. I think that leaves us awfully short on capital to hold Henderson's feet to the fire for doing the same thing.
 

Art Vandelay said:
Committed to Florida State IIRC, but that sure didn't hurt his popularity around here. I know he's a star player in another sport but still.

Why no hate for the Baby Jesus? What if SH plays for the Vikings some day?

This board is hilarious! Keep up the good work.
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Mauer wasn't always Mr. Popular in the Twin Cities. If you'll recall, several media types had it in for the guy from day one because the Twins penny-pinched and saw Prior as unsignable. Mauer's earned the clout he's built up with Twins fans.
 

Art Vandelay said:
Committed to Florida State IIRC, but that sure didn't hurt his popularity around here. I know he's a star player in another sport but still.

Why no hate for the Baby Jesus? What if SH plays for the Vikings some day?

This board is hilarious! Keep up the good work.
Click to expand...

Art, do you behave like this at work, too?
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
Mauer wasn't always Mr. Popular in the Twin Cities. If you'll recall, several media types had it in for the guy from day one because the Twins penny-pinched and saw Prior as unsignable.
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Reusse has admitted mea culpa on that but not surprisingly, Barriero is still tight-lipped.
 

GVTTW said:
Ah, I always forget that he was a great football player as well. I did know that, but when I hear Joe Mauer then I automatically think of baseball for obvious reasons.

And I apparently missed the Florida St. part at the beginning of Art's post....
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Mauer was also an All-State basketball player.
 


MNCH said:
Reusse has admitted mea culpa on that but not surprisingly, Barriero is still tight-lipped.
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IIRC Barriero still won't flat out say that he was wrong about it. His take is that the Twins made the wrong selection but that they got lucky and it turned out better for them in the end. If you can't admit you were wrong about wanting Prior over Mauer than I'm pretty sure you would never admit you were wrong about anything.
 


Mr. Popular??? No thanks. Why anyone would want all that attention while going out to buy a loaf of bread or take in a movie is beyond me. And then some Dad sends his 3 year old up to get an autograph!!

Those hoping SH would be a Gopher thinking he would get the keys to the city are living in la-la land. He would just be another football player.
 


Art Vandelay said:
Committed to Florida State IIRC, but that sure didn't hurt his popularity around here. I know he's a star player in another sport but still.

Why no hate for the Baby Jesus? What if SH plays for the Vikings some day?

This board is hilarious! Keep up the good work.
Click to expand...

Lord, what a stupid post.

Please name me all the non-Minnesota colleges for which Joe Mauer played football.

Thanks in advance!
 

Mauer was going to play Baseball for FSU too, and for reasons that are mostly geographical (weather) the Big Ten is basically a Mid-Major Conference in College Baseball. Beside, usually if guys are relatively equal prospects in Baseball and Football, they almost always choose Baseball.

But no one should hate Seantrel. An 18 year old should be allowed to go to school where he chooses. There are some villains here though. First, his dad seems like he's squeezing every little bit of attention he can get out his son's talent. Second, its pretty Hilarious that that McKinnie couldn't make it to Pro Bowl practice because he was too busy convincing Henderson to leave his home state at some Miami Club. That's pretty disrespectful to a lot of Minnesotans and Vikings Fans since obviously there is some cross over on the fan bases. Also, what the hell is a high school kid doing in a Miami club? I know this stuff always happens, but usually their parents are stupid enough to talk about it. Maybe a Gopher Beat Writer could take a little vacation to Miami and investigate.

But I think there is a bigger question here, why does virtually every high rated prospect from Cretin Durham end up going somewhere else? Mauer, Floyd, Henderson, etc. First they steal the best high school kids from other schools, then they convince them to leave the state for college. CDH has a great football program, but they certainly aren't helping the overall state of football in Minnesota.
 

Yeah sure, I would love to see all of Minnesota's top sport prospects stay and play for the Gophers but in all realization put yourself in their shoes. I would much rather go to a top program that has a great tradition. Minnesota gophers great sport tradition is gone and past in both football and basketball. We'd hardly been mediocre lately. You can't blame these kids for wanting to play at a big time school.
 

baseball_stud said:
Yeah sure, I would love to see all of Minnesota's top sport prospects stay and play for the Gophers but in all realization put yourself in their shoes. I would much rather go to a top program that has a great tradition. Minnesota gophers great sport tradition is gone and past in both football and basketball. We'd hardly been mediocre lately. You can't blame these kids for wanting to play at a big time school.
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Not this guy...I would rather be a hero for my homestate school than be one of many at another school...You can't tell me a kid growing up in Minnesota was ever a USC fan when he was a child, he hears about the gophers and will like the gophers, unless he likes the yankees and those losers would like USC...

You stay home, you are remembered for a long time as the kid who could've went anywhere but stayed at his home school. I bet people at USC forget about him in a month since they have 20 players equal to or better than him coming out of high school.
 

Mauer was also never going to play College Football.

Like most highly drafted baseball players, Mauer used signing a nation letter of intent with FSU to play football as leverage to have a timeline against the Twins in signing bonus and contract negotiations to play baseball. If he was motivated to play college football he would have went to FSU but you could alway's tell with Joe that even though he was really good at football, he was such a talented baseball player that he would have played for any MLB team and for a long time no matter who drafted him. Can't say that Mauer was ever really a Gopher fan as most Cretin guy's have not traditionally been Gopher fans.
 

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