02/21/2005 7:00 PM ET
Mauer back where he started
Catcher in good health at Twins' Spring Training
By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- As Twins pitchers and catchers emerged from the clubhouse
for their first
Spring Training workout Monday, Joe Mauer must have felt like he reached the end
of the movie,
"Groundhog Day."
Since tearing the meniscus cartilage in his left knee and having surgery nearly
10 months ago,
Mauer has spent most of those days rehabilitating and exercising on his own and
answering question
after question about his health.

On Monday, it was finally a new day.

The 21-year-old joined his teammates and worked out just like every other
catcher on the roster.
He stretched, played catch, squatted behind the plate for bullpen sessions, took
batting practice
and did his running.

"It felt good to get out there in an organized practice, doing everything,"
Mauer said.

As a 2001 overall No. 1 pick and St. Paul native, few rookie seasons were ever
more anticipated
than Mauer's in 2004. All eyes were on him and many wondered if his superb swing
and catching
skills were big league ready.

Mauer showed that they were, but only for a limited time: He was injured during
the second game of
the season. After arthroscopic surgery and a recovery with complications, he
returned to play for
a total of just 35 games. The numbers were certainly respectable, batting .308
with six homers and
17 RBIs.

By early July, he had already emerged as one of the club's best hitters and was
moved up to the
third slot in the order when Gardenhire was seeking an offensive boost. But
recurring soreness
forced Mauer to shut his season down for good after the All-Star break. He went
back to rehabbing
and endured a longer offseason than most.

"I've been looking ahead ever since I got hurt because I just wanted to get back
on the field,"
Mauer said. "I didn't have a chance to get back last year. I've been working
hard every day to try
and get back out."

Eyes are once again on the phenom, wondering this time if his knee is ready for
the big league
grind. The club was optimistic that it would be.

"Unless he tells me something's bothering him, I'm not going out there worrying
about it," Twins
manager Ron Gardenhire said.

That doesn't mean the team won't be protecting Mauer. Coaches will look for ways
to reduce his
workload in camp, giving him fewer sessions where he'll have to squat for
pitchers. The Twins also
have added extra catching depth on the roster after signing former Marlins
veteran Mike Redmond to
be the new backup.

"We're going to keep an eye on him, but we also have to get him ready," Twins
general manager
Terry Ryan said. "It's a two-prong approach here. We'll make sure we don't do
something that's not
necessary so he doesn't have any setbacks, yet get him enough at-bats and enough
time so he's
where he's supposed to be."

"We'll just see after each drill how he does and how he comes along," Gardenhire
said. "The more
squatting he does, getting back into it, we'll see how much soreness he has if
he has any.
Everybody's going to be sore. We'll see if the knee reacts. Supposedly he's
fine."

Mauer still felt like he made progress in his development.

"It definitely helped, but I would have learned a lot more if I had actually
done it," he said.
"Listening to guys like (former teammate) Henry (Blanco) and (pitching coach)
Rick Anderson and
Gardy and just being around the clubhouse learning from the guys helped a lot."

Plenty of questions:

Not everything has changed in Mauer's daily regimen. The media questions kept
coming. Most of them
were about the status of his knee. As he did all of last season, the young man
answered each one
patiently.

"I'm not too worried about it right now," Mauer said. "I have to make sure I ice
afterwards and I
don't want it to blow up on me all of sudden the next day if I didn't ice. I'm
keeping a close eye
on it and paying attention to it here in the spring and trying to get ready for
the year."

Does answering so many questions about the knee ever get annoying?

"He's always going to put up a good front," said pitcher and friend J.D. Durbin.
"But I think it's
taken its toll on him a little bit."

"I've heard the knee thing a lot today, actually the whole offseason," Mauer
admitted. "It gets
repetitive I guess."

Ryan was impressed with not only how Mauer handled working his way back but how
he's dealt with
the constant inquiries.

"Whenever you're out, whether you run into a friend, a media member, a staff
member, a teammate,
most of the time the discussion is going to revolve around how you're feeling
and how's the knee?"
Ryan said. "Most of the time, they don't ask, 'Where did you go for dinner?'
They don't ask you
what show you saw. It's usually about that injury.

"I think he's probably got about as much patience as far as dealing with
personalities of human
beings as anybody you'd come across at that age."

Long way to go:

So, that's one day down and just six weeks of Spring Training, a 162-game
regular season schedule
and maybe the playoffs left to go. Mauer plans to be on the field and squatting
behind the plate
for a majority of those games, not sitting on a training table.

If all goes well, the questions will stop being about his knee and go back to
being about his
skills.

The journey to reach that goal resumed Monday.

"I'll have to push it sometime in spring to make sure I'm ready," Mauer said.
"But this is the
first day. I'm just trying to get back in the flow of things. I'm going to be
sore even if I
didn't have an injury. That's the way Spring Training is for catchers, and for
everybody. You're
using those muscles again you haven't used in a while. I'll probably be sore
tomorrow."


Mark Sheldon is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the
approval of Major League
Baseball or its clubs.





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