Dear Joe,

I understand during our series I slid into you at home plate and you were a little bit upset about my slide. I heard you say you had left me part of the plate to slide to and you didnt understand why i slid so hard into you. Well Joe, I have never had a catcher leave me part of the plate to slide into. Knowing you and your well earned "gamer" mentality I never imagined that you would leave even an inch of the plate left unblocked. You with your "winning at all costs" attitude, I was sure you would take one for the team and block that plate....but I was wrong. I understand you got bruised by said slide. But I was postive you would be back out there ASAP to help your team win. But I heard while reading the star tribune you were running with no problems at all on tuesday....but you did not play. I am sorry....I must have hurt your feelings to! Sorry Joe, I was feeling real down about what I did to you...how dare me think of the team first and play so hard and tuff. Thats when my buddy Torii Hunter called me and said " "Some people have to play at 100 percent, and Joe may be one of those guys. I've seen it happen. Joe is a good player, and he wants to perform at 100 percent, not at 80 percent." I know bruises can be tuff....so can foul tips of the mask, general soreness, bi- lateral leg weakness...Well, I sure hope you get better Joe. I hope you get back out there soon. With Love, Rickie Weeks

Somebody please erase this...before Joe reads it and misses 3 months with hurt feelings. Also known as bilateral leg weakness

feel good about yourself for ripping on a guy for being injured? seriously, you people need to move on from this "soft Mauer" crap. You have no clue how his body feels on any given day, and I guarantee if you were slid into by someone and got hit on an unprotected part of your body you'd be missing time, too.

Did you even watch the play happen?

Don't take it so personally, iz just funnin.

Really....there are people out here you are actually not annoyed with his constant and forever (yes, his entire carreer!) missing of games for suspect injuries?.....183 million, my expectations are a gamer....he could not be farther from that!!

so where is your blog about Capps or Pavano for missing time? They just have shoulder/arm issues. Big deal. Shouldn't they be out there being "tough" and doing everything they can to help the team? Keep throwing even if it hurts. How dare they miss a few games to let an injury heal.

What bugs me is the double standards here. People get hurt and miss time, no big deal. Mauer misses a couple games, or gets a scheduled day off and people flip out. Pavano makes 9M a year and he isn't doing jack for the team on the DL. Why not call him out? Capps sucks even when he does play, but he's missing time. At least when Mauer is healthy he's a productive player. And it also blows my mind that people equate a higher salary with higher output from a player. Mauer is the same player as he was when he was making 8M a year. Paying a guy more doesn't make him any better.

Yes, it does bug most of us that capps sucks and he is hurt. But lets remember last year when he was hurt most of the year but sucked it up and played. Mauer will never get credit for that. He is flat out incapable of such manning up! As for your point that higher salary doesnt equal higher output.....are you out of your mind? think AROD doesnt have higher expectations then everyone on the Yankees? When you sign a guy who was coming off of a MVP to 183 million dollar contract, you have very high expectations. If Mauer was in New York they would destroy him for this me first non sense. He would be hated 10 times worse then AROD! People in Minnesota live in a very strange bubble...I just do not understand how Mauer continues to get away with it. Minnesota nice I guess...

Mauer is a CATCHER. Catching every day will absolutely destroy your body. He has an 8yr contract. Would you rather have him kill his body when we aren't contending and then just be dead weight when we are contending? Or would you rather have him stay healthy so he can produce for his whole contract