This is an excerpt. Please read the full article on Zone Coverage here.

Last week prior to the beginning of Twins Fest at Target Field, former Twins first baseman Justin Morneau formally announced his retirement. Morneau, who didn’t play anywhere in 2017, said it’s kind of funny, but the game oftentimes tells you when it’s time to be finished.

And ironically, he took his final at-bat in a Chicago White Sox uniform at Target Field on Oct. 2, 2016. Now, he’s back in the Twins family, as he not only announced his retirement, but that he was joining the Twins a special assistant in the baseball operations department.

Morneau will be involved with the power trio of Michael Cuddyer, Torii Hunter and LaTroy Hawkins in spring training, instructional programs and visiting minor-league affiliates and will also help develop the culture within the organization moving forward. He will also be a part of the amateur draft process and also be a resource for player acquisition.

“I think I can speak for the Morneau family as well as the Twins family that we also appreciate the opportunity to celebrate a glorious playing career,” said team president Dave St. Peter. “But in addition to that, we’re celebrating a return for Justin, (his wife) Krista and the entire family back into the Twins family as we move forward.

“Justin Morneau is one of the most significant players in the history of this franchise,” St. Peter concluded.

Morneau began his remarks by saying that when he was at Joe Nathan’s retirement presser last summer, he told himself he was never ever going to do that. “I’m never going to go sit up there and talk about myself,” he said. “It’s just something I don’t want to do.” Yet there Morneau was, in the Kirby Puckett atrium in the Legend’s Club bidding baseball adieu and re-introducing himself to the Twins.

Morneau spoke for about a half hour, and for the most part was his typical stoic self. He appeared a bit emotional at times — especially when talking about what the game meant to him, and his family and also about his return from the concussion that waylaid his career in 2010 — but he also kept it light by recounting a story where he brought his daughter to school that morning.

“I was driving my daughter to school this morning and I said “You know, can you tell me any of the lessons I’ve taught you?”” he said. “One of the important things to me is being humble. You need to be humble. It’s very important. People don’t want to listen to you talk about yourself. If you’re good, people will notice. If you’re doing things the right way, people will notice.”

“And I looked in the mirror,” he continued, “and I could see her sitting in the middle of the back seat. I said, “Do you understand what I’m saying?””

“I wasn’t listening to you,” his daughter said, which elicited some chuckles from the assembled media, friends and family in attendance.

Another hearty laugh was emitted by the crowd when team owner Jim Pohlad took the opportunity to ask Justin a question. Earlier in the press conference, Morneau recounted how he’d learned to hit by playing baseball in the yard, with a deck and trees used as natural barriers for homers, ground-rule doubles and that sort of thing.

“Justin, congratulations. I know I said that and I know you take it as a mixed message, but I think you for your words and I know it came from the heart,” Pohlad said. “And I want to thank you and Krista for making such a commitment to Minnesota, beyond just the Minnesota Twins. I know your home is here and you’ve meant a lot to the community. I did, however, learn one interesting thing, and I have a question about that.

“What I was interested to learn was that during your wiffleball days was that you learned how to hit with green trees as your backdrop….” Pohlad said as the room busted up with laughter over the reported story that Morneau, among others, wanted the trees removed from the center field berm at Target Field after 2010 because it made for a bad batter’s eye view. “I’ll accept the deferral to Joe (Mauer) on that one, if you want,” Pohlad said with a light-hearted laugh.

“I don’t know what to say about that,” Morneau deadpanned as the room cracked up. “We won 98 games that year too, or something like that?” “Best record and home record in the American League,” St. Peter chimed in.

“There’s just some things you can’t get away from,” Morneau said with a smile.

Also in attendance for the conference were former Wild player Mark Parrish, former teammate Joe Mauer and former teammate and fellow countryman Corey Koskie, who took the microphone near the end of the question-and-answer period and dropped some interesting tidbits about Morneau.

“I want to make sure everyone hears this,” Koskie said as the attention shifted to the right side of the room. “I knew Justin when he got drafted. Justin came across as a skinny little Canadian kid when he came out from British Columbia. Like I say, he was a wanna-be hockey player that ended up falling upon baseball. But when Justin talked about his character, I saw Justin evolve as a human being through the course of his time with the Twins.