It’s been years since Joe Mauer didn’t have to work on July 4th. Now that he’s retired, the Twins legend found himself with the entire day off to enjoy America’s birthday. In a Twins Daily exclusive, the St. Paul native tells us how he celebrated.It was always fun to go to the park and watch the fireworks shows when I was a kid, or when Uncle Ken came over with his special fireworks from South Dakota and Mom would yell at him. Now that I’m home with the kids, I wanted to make sure they got to experience a real 4^th of July celebration.

 

Here’s what I found out: They have fireworks at Target now. Did you know about this? At first I thought it was a set-up, like when (former Twin Justin) Morneau told me I had to grow sideburns or Ron Gardenhire wouldn’t let me on the team plane for road trips. I didn’t know he was kidding me about that until 2016. Pretty funny deal, but I wish he’d told me sooner. I don’t even like sideburns, but I sure as heck didn’t want to drive to Tampa all the time.

 

Anyway, I go to Target, and there’s this big shelf of fireworks right out in the open by the birthday cards. I look around, and I don’t see any hidden cameras or police officers. I pick up a couple roman candles and take them to the register. I even asked the clerk if it was ok for me to buy these, because Mom would get pretty steamed if I was on the news for breaking the law. The clerk looked at me kinda funny, but said sure. And I walked out of Target with a bag of fireworks. It was a pretty neat deal.

 

I took out my flip phone and sent a text to (former Twin Glen) Perkins and asked him if he knew that you could get fireworks in Minnesota now. He said yeah, they changed the law a couple years ago, but the good s-word was still in Wisconsin. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to Hudson to buy some bottle rockets and then get held up in fireworks customs at the border. Unless Morneau was kidding about that too. I should probably check on that.

 

Have a great weekend, Twins fans.

 

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True story, but he only bought the safe, low power fireworks. The ones that can't do much damage.

True story, but he only bought the safe, low power fireworks. The ones that can't do much damage.

Warning track power.

True story, but he only bought the safe, low power fireworks. The ones that can't do much damage.

Took his time trying to decide, then took only one. Left the rest for the next guy.

Edited July 5, 20197 yr by jkcarew

 

True story, but he only bought the safe, low power fireworks. The ones that can't do much damage.

 

Probably went with the 6-4-3 deal too...

Rarely lights the first one in the package though.

Joe’s never been to Wisconsin? Come on, it’s like Czechoslovakia.

Took his time trying to decide, then took only one. Left the rest for the next guy.

I heard he took the first one...

Throwing two bang snaps at a time without having a wastebasket nearby for the spent debris? I don't know if we should get that wild, girls.

Ohhhh, that Mauer. He truly earned his nickname, "Mr. Gullible." It says it right there on his b-r.com page. It's what his teammates called him. Mr. Gullible. Yep, that's what they called him. Check for yourself.

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mauerjo01.shtml

 

True story, but he only bought the safe, low power fireworks. The ones that can't do much damage.

Those are the only fireworks you can buy in Minnesota. Now, if you head over to Wisconsin... they have the real fireworks.