 Maurer says having fellow St. Paul natives Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, and Jack Morris was a positive influence. How lucky and unique it was to have three big leaguers and future role models hail from my same city. Watching them as a kid was my first glimpse of hope that maybe I could make it in baseball as well. It'll never be lost on me that the same guys I pretended to be in my yard are men I grew up to know personally, and I even had one of them become my manager.