Joseph Patrick Mauer (born April 19, 1983) is an American former professional baseball catcher and first baseman, who spent his entire 15-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the Minnesota Twins. A six-time All-Star, Mauer is the only catcher in MLB history to win three batting titles, and the only catcher to ever win a batting title in the American League (AL). He also won three consecutive Gold Glove Awards (2008–2010), five Silver Slugger Awards (including three in a row) and the 2009 AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award. , he is the most recent catcher to win (or even place in the top three in the voting) the MVP award in the American League. Mauer was selected by the Twins as the first overall pick of the 2001 Major League Baseball draft and was a fan-favorite during his career as he was a Minnesota native. High school career Mauer played football, basketball, and baseball for St. Paul's Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders. In his senior year he became the only athlete ever to be selected as the USA Today High School Player of the Year in two sports (football in 2000 as a quarterback and baseball in 2001 as a catcher). In December 2009, Sports Illustrated magazine included Mauer in its article on ten "signature" moments in U.S. high-school sports in the 2000–2009 decade, referring to his selection by the Minnesota Twins as the first pick in the 2001 amateur draft. Baseball Mauer attended the same high school as Baseball Hall of Famer and former Milwaukee Brewer Paul Molitor who later became his major league manager with the Twins. Molitor has said that Mauer "has the best swing he had ever seen". Jim O'Neill, Mauer's baseball coach at Cretin-Derham Hall, said his former student "has been groomed for this job since he was a little boy. Mauer's dad, Jake, created a contraption for Joe he later named the 'Quickswing.' The device dropped balls down a tube from eye level and released them at waist level." Mauer had been asked to leave his T-ball league at the age of four, because he was hitting the ball too hard for the other players. "Another guy that came from Cretin-Derham Hall, Paul Molitor, was very similar, [and] had a good short swing," O'Neill said. "And they're both able to wait on the ball so long because they don't have the big swing. Like anything,