Last spring, I was sitting in the TV lounge in the Davies Center. I overheard a Brewers fan talking to his friend about a friend of theirs who was a Twins fan. 

The Brewers fan was complaining that the Twins fan wouldn’t stop talking about Joe Mauer, and he couldn’t see what was so great about Mauer. 

I got so riled up listening to this guy bash Mauer, and I wanted to explain to him why we Twins fans love Mauer so much. 

Here’s my explanation to that fan, and to any other Brewers fans that can’t figure it out.

We don’t love him for his career .327 batting average through 836 games, or his .365 batting average in his 2009 MVP season, the highest ever for a catcher. 

If you use 5,000 minimum plate appearances as the cutoff, which Mauer will pass in 3 years, he ranks in the top five all time among catchers in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. 

We don’t love him because he’ll go down as the best offensive catcher of all-time when he retires, or because he can play solid defense to boot. 

We don’t love him because he’s the only catcher ever to win three batting titles, and he could probably go for a few more before he’s done. 

We don’t love him because his 2009 MVP gave the Twins their second MVP in four years, Justin Morneau in 2006 being the other.

We love Mauer because he’s one of us.  Mauer is a born and bred Minnesotan, a kid who grew up in St. Paul rooting for the local teams just like the rest of us. 

We love him because he re-wrote record books in high school at Cretin-Derham Hall. He’s still the only athlete to be named USA Today’s high school Player of the Year in two sports, as a football quarterback and a baseball catcher. 

I once asked a friend from Marshfield, Wis., if he knew where Ryan Braun was from.  He responded, “California, I think?” 

I told him I knew exactly where Mauer was from and grew up.  I could even get a Joe Mauer Double Play Burger at the Nook, a restaurant across the street from Cretin-Derham Hall, until a fire in December shut it down. 

We love him because he realized something LeBron James didn’t.  You win a title somewhere, good for you.  You win a title for your hometown, they never forget it, and they name stuff after you. 

Just ask Kent Hrbek, who grew up and went to high school in Bloomington, Minn., and played his whole career for the Twins.  He won two World Series, in 1987 and 1991, and had Little League fields in Bloomington named after him. 

To Brewers fans who can’t figure out why all Twins fans can’t seem to get enough of that smooth-hitting lefty with the picture-perfect sideburns, hopefully this explains why. 

Hopefully now you’ll understand the Twins fan that gets in your face when they overhear you talking bad about their golden boy.