There’s plenty of concern internally for Justin Morneau’s future. Now former teammate and friend Nick Punto has echoed that concern.

On Monday, Punto described a game of phone-tag he’s been having with Morneau and he sounds like he’s having some concerns that the big Canadian is not returning his calls.

From Gordon Edes’s ESPN Boston article:

Ordinarily, Punto might think nothing of it. His buddy, the Twins' first baseman and former MVP, is busy.

 

But Punto suspects there may be more at play here. Morneau has played a total of just 150 games in the past two seasons because of multiple concussions, and when he reported to camp on Friday, he sounded like a man who was wearying of the struggle to get back on the field.

 

"There comes a point you can only torture yourself so long," Morneau told reporters last Friday. "I don't think there will be a career if it's something I'm dealing with. That's the reality of the whole thing. I'm obviously not going to continue to mess around with this if it continues to be a problem."

 

Therein lies, Punto suspects, the reason for the unreturned phone calls.

 

"That's not good," he said. "He doesn't want to deal with it."

Perhaps Punto may be reading too far into the meaning behind Morneau’s non-calls.

Perhaps not.

Certainly Morneau’s comments to the media in Florida last week made everyone take a step back but so far, he’s been in practice every day – even hitting a bomb off of Francisco Liriano – and went on the record to clarify his previous comments that got everyone so riled up:

"I think there was a lot of positive things we talked about," Morneau said. "I was asked a question, I gave an honest answer and that was it. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that if the stuff continues I probably wouldn't be able to play again. It wasn't anything other than stating the obvious.

 

"I also said that I don't expect that to happen. I don't anticipate that to happen. That's something that's in the back, maybe five percent, of my mind. But you have to look at all the options and everything that's happened. You kind of look to see what you want to be besides a baseball player when you're done playing. Sometimes you have control when that is and most of the time you don't.

 

"Most of the time, guys are still trying to play and either their body doesn't let them or whatever it is or there's other guys coming along. One of those things where I was wondering what I would be if I wasn't a baseball player.”

As it has been stressed, Morneau is on a day-by-day life right now. So far, there has not been any indication of concussion symptoms in spring’s infancy however, given that his last one was received while diving for a ball, there’s no telling when the next one could occur.

I am pleasantly surprised there haven’t been 10 comments about how Punto would have played through the concussion and that Morneau is a pansy. Maybe Souhan disciples haven’t infiltrated this site yet?