Guest blogger: Justin Morneau
Posted on June 5th, 2009 – 11:01 AMBy La Velle
Note from La Velle:
First of all, how about that photo —————>
Quick primer. On May 10, Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer hit back-to-back homers for the second straight game. In my game story , I called the Mauer-Morneau friendship, “one of baseball’s best bromances.” Little did I know that Morneau’s wife, Krista, has used that term to describe them for several months now. The rest of the team knew it, and let the M&M men have it the next day. Morneau vowed to get back at me, somehow. That’s why you’ll see the word bromance in his post.
Without further delay, here’s the former MVP. Have a good weekend. Joe C. is with the club on the west coast swing. If you see me at Grand Old Day on Sunday, what happens there, stays there. I’ll jump back in Monday with draft stuff.
JUSTIN MORNEAU. FROM THE BATTERS BOX
I’m not really sure what a blog is supposed to be as I have never read one. I don’t have facebook or myspace or any of those things where people can track your every move. With that said this is my attempt at blogging.
The reason that I am writing this is because I lost a bet to La Velle when my Canucks lost to his Blackhawks about a month ago. It was a huge disappointment for me as I thought they had a great bro-mance going there in Vancouver! Apparently it wasn’t as strong of a bro-mance that they had in Chicago.
Our season is two months old now and we need to start playing better on the road. We are not really sure what the difference is on the road, but hopefully we will figure it out soon.
I believe we are a playoff caliber team and should be in the fight for the division the rest of the way. We go on a 10-day road trip soon (starting tonight in Seattle) and I am looking forward to most of it as we go to Seattle and I get to see a lot of family and friends there. After that is Oakland.
The last part of the trip is the part I am most looking forward to. We get to play in Wrigley field against the Cubs. It will be my first time there and I’m looking forward to it.
Time to go to work.
89 Responses to "Guest blogger: Justin Morneau"
don’t quit your day job, mr. morneau.
Easy to see that Morneau’s work is better done with the bat than with the pen.
very cool, Justin and La Velle.
Interesting that Justin is looking forward to Wrigley Field even more than Seattle, where he gets to play in front of his friends and family. Either way, 33 is by far my favorite Twin.
Well, it was a good first try. I was hoping to hear something that we didn’t already know though!
I will say the Morneau couple’s Graves|601 ad on this site is somewhat amusing though.
I wonder were Justin and Joe like to go on their man-date’s, OR where they had their first man-date.
Justin,
Thanks for the insight into the team, best of luck on the upcoming road trip. Your Bromantic Life-partner used to be my favorite Twin… until you threw me a ball heading off the field June 25th at the end of the 5th inning. That ball means as much to me as my signed Hank Aaron rookie card! Best of luck this season, hopefully catch you when you come to LA in late July. MVP MVP MVP… unless your Bro wins, which i guess would be ok too.
Jimmy John’s, wasn’t it?
Sorry about the Canucks, Justin…try again next year. (BTW, if you get a chance to respond…any thoughts on the Stanley Cup playoffs?)
Keep smacking that ball around, and good luck with the King tonight.
Er..That should say Stanley Cup Finals
Too funny that this “bromance” has come up now. My friend and I have been questioning that for awhile now. And just the other day at the game we had a great view of the Twins dugout. Every time Justin came back to the bench he would sit next to Joe. If there was someone sitting right next to Joe, they would move over, even if there clearly wasn’t enough room for Justin. Next time you’re at a game…take a look.
Too bad we didn’t trade for McLouth. They could’ve had a threesome: The 3M Guys!
Good stuff, Thank you!!
And LaVelle, I think you mean, “The former and future MVP”, right?
It would be great if Justin continued with a blog (with a little more info) every once in a while - perhaps every two weeks or so.
Keep up the great work Justin and Go Twins!
Love the photo! La Velle, maybe you should have given Morneau a minimum word count.
Wow, if the Strib wasn’t in bankruptcy, I’d think this guy would already have a job offer in hand…
Regardless of Morneau’s blogging abilities (or inabilities), I’m looking forward to watching him and Mauer crush some over the ivy wall in Wrigley!
We-e-e-elll.. la-de-freakin’-da! We’ve got ourselves a writer here! [ jumps across the room ] Hey, Dad, I can’t see real good.. [ lifts his glasses off and on his face ] ..is that Bill Shakespeare over there?
What will the next bet be?
I like this concept, and would be curious to see if maybe the Strib can turn it into a weekly or monthly feature coming from different players.
Great picture!
Personally, I can forgive Justin for being brief and a bit awkward with a blog entry. I’d much rather he spend his time focused on the batters box than the blog.
Former and 2009 MVP he meant to say.
Good start to your blogging career Morneau! There’s one thing I wish you’d have answered though…and that is what it’s like watching a ball you hit go 400+ feet into the upper deck at the dome. 
“Former and 2009 MVP he meant to say.”
That might be tough. I know it’s very early in the season, but I don’t think anyone can beat Joe Mauer in the MVP race at this point.
Great stuff. Good to see Morneau live up to his end of the bet. What would Lavelle had to of done if he lost?
Really random thought…but as I watch baseball games, I think a Major League 1st basemen should write a book of all the random conversations that are held at first base when a runner is on. I could’ve sworn that Morneau and Franciso (from Cleveland) the other night were mocking Swarzak’s weak pickoff move to first…I could be wrong, but that was my interpretation of their expressions.
UpNorthNut:”Too bad we didn’t trade for McLouth. They could’ve had a threesome: The 3M Guys!”
Man, If I were going to bring someone to the team with last name M it would have to be Nick Markakis to put into left field… heck maybe as our 5 starter.
I was hopping for some juicy clubhouse gossip 
Justin, watch out for those clubhouse rats at Wrigley… They should condemn that place
That is an awesome photo of you, Justin!
I find your post very informative.
My adivce for your team to win on the road is to score more runs than the other team. See if that works out.
Is it possible to have a “bromance” between tiwn brothers? That must be why the Sedin’s always want to play with each other!
Who in Chi-town is involved in the bro-mance there? Could it be between Toews and Sharp?
Enquiring minds want to know…
Len III, see you at Dixie’s!
LaValle - Tell Justin Morneau that I love his “Song” - “TNT” by ACDC that plays for him before every at bat at home. Tell him however he needs to talk to Metrodome staff about editing it a little better hitting the big riffs and the lyrics, “I’m TNT… I’m DYNAMITE!!! TNT… and I’ll Win the FIGHT!!!! I’m the Powerload… TNT WATCH ME EXPLODE!!!!!!!!” Seriously that has to scare opposing pitchers a lil hearing that.
JUSTY:
A blog is simply a place where you can be anonymous and make up a fake nick name and smart off.
Lavelle, I’ll be looking for you at Grand Old Day. Probably be in the beer gardens at Billy’s or Wild Onion. Hopefully the rains stays away…
Thanks for the Morneau blog. You should get more of the Twins to do it more often.
Wobble and Mornie, enjoy all the hits, cyber and the 4 bag variety.
I like the random 1st base stories idea.
Gotta rest, my back is sore from carrying the Canucks all season.
Say hi to SpanMan, Joey, Kubes, Cuddy, Nicky, RedDog, Frankie, Gogo, Lexi, Joey, Blacky, Jessie, Slowey, Matty, Gardy, Andy, Scottie and Delmozie.
Wasn’t that neat?
Good Job Justin
Justin,
You will have my son and I (originally from New Ulm) at Wrigley on Friday afternoon. The 2 biggest TWINS fans in Northern Illinois!! I have been calling up the Sox radio guys for almost 10 years now talking up the Twins. The Sox got us in 2005 and a little last year. But we’ll get them again in 2009. We saw you play the 4 games at Yankee Stadium. Not a good outcome, but great games!! Keep up the good work, MVP.
Steve and Nate
That’s a pretty good La Velle impersonation in the photo, Justin. The word “jolly” comes to mind.
Thrylos -
Rats at Wrigley!?!?!!!? CONDEMN THAT PLACE??!!??!?? Sacrilege!!!!
And if there are rats in Wrigley, they are the holiest rats of the highest order.
Thanks for setting this up La Velle. Thanks for being a good sport and holding up to your bet Justin!
La Velle, what if you lost the bet, what were you going to do?
Keep up the bets. Maybe you can get Red-Dog to post something!
JustinCB,
here about the rats:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080620&content_id=2967994&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
I don’t find anything sacred about the Cubs or that disaster of a ball park
Good to know that I am not the only guy without a facebook or myspace page. Keep on swinging Big Man. My kids like your former roommate best, but I have been fascinated by your game since Day 1 w/ the organization. Keep ‘er goin’. Jack one into the street at Wringley.
Keep up the good work Justin!
I think their first man-date was at a sporting goods store during spring training back when they were just young ‘uns and Morneau had the slight edge in experience. Apparently they ended up playing a little hockey in the aisle of the store… and the rest of the bromance is history.
And here is another reference about the sacred place:
Seriously, leave it certain idiots to admonish Morneau’s writing style. I think it’s pretty frickin’ that he posted something. I’d like to see more posts from Morneau in the future…
Good job Joe, it’s probably not easy writing something 1,000s will see when you’re out of your element.
+1 on doing it again sometime.
+1 on spilling the first base chatter. Take it a step further and get some quotes from some of the guys. Reporter Jason Morneau (21st Century guy) here, any quote for the strib Beltre?
Wow, speaking of 21st century guy…joe…I hang my head in shame…I blame all the bromance talk
Blakep: are you drunk?
Jason Morneau?
Joe?
I heard that Elton John traded autographed pictures of himself for Mauer and Morneau autographed pictures. Also he wants you to go to the Braves is that true?
I blame joe on bromance talk, and jason was reference to the 21st century guy at the hr contest handing out the trophy…
Hmmm does’nt know what a blog is, no facebook or myspace.
Don’t worry Mr. Morneau someday there will be internet access in cAnAdA.
Just joking, MVP in 09 eh!
I wouldn’t have wanted Justin’s blog post to be any other way. Nothing fancy, straight to the point, get the job done. Just like his playing style. You gotta like a guy that just wants to be left alone to play great baseball. What a life!
I’m also glad Justin’s first blog entry wasn’t contrived. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
I’ll be driving to Wrigley for the weekend and watching every swing of the bat! Long live Justin Morneau!
I’m lovin the M&M bromance. As a fan, it is impossible to chosse between the two. It is fantabulous. Please keep up the good work. As far as Seattle goes PLEASE do whatever it takes to get this team revved up. I seriously cannot survive another fiasco like last year. That was brutal and I still have not recovered emotionally. They truly have it coming. Let’s sweep.
“what a beautiful dump it is”
Thrylos, that sums it up right there.
And yeah Ozzie Guillen? He’s towing the company line with that talk. I bet he’ll take the rats over the teflon.
thrylos,
old Yanks and Fenway are dumps as well and i was just as excited to see them as i am to see wrigley next weekend.
Camden Yards would be a great place for season tickets, but for a first time experience i pick the dumps.
Mr. Morneau,
Love the indented paragraphs.
Like typical romance, bro-mance is about nuts and bolts.
So Justin, when you and Joe shared the apartment, who cleaned the toilet?
Best wishes,
romer
P.S. Thank you for not attempting to be cute and clever. It’s in-season for you. And you prove your seriousness and responsibility and your authentic MVP-ship.
Justin,
Just keep on hitting those dingers and driving the other team’s managers, pitchers and players nuts. I love it when Cleveland put the shift on you and you promptly dropped one into left field - priceless!
at least when Morneau says he has never written a blog or done facebook etc…. the rest of the post makes that statement believeable. Stay off the internet MVP, it sucks you in….. off to my facebook to play the baseball app…hehehe
we should trade Morneau and Mauer for a package of younger cheaper prospects
Shawn, the Twins will need a big pick-me-up next Friday after playing a game the day before in Oakland and then doing the day game at Wrigley Friday.
Will they get any more than 5 hours sleep? Slowey will pitch Friday.
Just keep doing what you’re doing on the field and we’ll forget about your “blogging” skillz . . . Good luck out west, here’ hoping you guys can come home with a 7 - 3 record
Looking ahead, the Twins off day on Monday the 15th allows them to skip Liriano’s turn in the rotation, which would have fallen naturally on that day.
That decision may be essentially made in part by Liriano tonight, depending how well he does. He pitches Wednesday the 10th too.
romer,
i probably won’t get 5 hours of sleep before friday or saturday’s game in Chiacago
They should get rid of Weeghman Park, which has never hosted a world champion in baseball. If they had built lights prior to the ‘42 season, as was originally planned, there’s no way the Cubs would still be playing there.
Comiskey Park was having structural problems, so the American League President (remember when there actually was a league president?) ordered the Sox to move. Then Governor J. Thompson thought they could get state financing if the Sox threatened to move to Florida.
Hey, for writing style, grammar, sentence stucture, and all of that jazz, it’s A+.
How many of us would make this deal? Justin will spill the beans on the conversations at first base, if, and only if, all bloggers were to reveal their true identifies and spill the beans, by actual names, on all of their co-workers and others with whom they deal in their employment.
Joe,
I would
Shawn, in 4 years, me, too.
did you really expect him to tell his life story to creepers like us that hang on every game?
Bob, creeps or “creepers?” What’s the diff?
no difference.
Really, the guy’s only fault is that he likes the Vancouver Canucks.
Hey Justin, this is your golfing partner from your rookie year. Keep up the good work. We can do this.
Justin Morneau is quietly having another MVP year. By quietly, I mean stomping all over pitchers, mashing home runs and cruching out extra base hits while playing first base at a very high level.
Great blog post, too.
I am looking forward to the games at Wrigley.
Although I am expecting a bit more hostile reception than at the Twins-White Sox games I go to. Call it the lingering effect of Steve Bartman.
See you in Wrigley from the second deck. I’ll be one of 5,000 Twins fans yelling MVP!
Watch out for things flying at you.
If you get a “Twins suck” comment, ask that Cubs fan when the 1908 World Series will be on DVD.
The Cubs are battling the Pirates for 4th place right now…
Justin, did you play Little League as well as hockey up in New Westminster? You look VERY young in that pix. But definitely an upgrade over LEN3 (LOL!!).
You guys stop giving Justin grief about his writing. At least he didn’t take forever to write something on that photo for Elton John. At last report Batting Champ was still mulling over what he would write.
Speaking of bromances, when they said Elton had asked for autographed pix from you two, I went “huh?” What does the Brit know about baseball? Better watch out!! (really LOL)
Even if you don’t know anything about blogs, I hope Krista is reading our posts and truly laughing out loud and giving you “reports.” As someone said earlier, this is some of the most fun you can have anonymously.
Good luck, keep crushing them and I hope you get another MVP soon.
La Velle - any change the Twins will move Liriano to the bullpen and go after Glavine as a 5th starter? I am beginning to think we simply have too much youth in our rotation and would benefit from a savvy vet like him in the rotation. I know it is a stretch, but it does not sound like we have much else in AAA to go to for additional starting pitching. Also, I have little faith in Perkins return. We could move Henn back to AAA, release Ayala and strengthen our team overall!
[…] (*) Finally, don’t miss the guest post on La Velle’s blog from Justin Morneau. […]
Good work Justin. This blog of yours is about as good as the conversation I had with the giant Morneau booble-head at Weggy’s. Kidding. You are my favorite player and will be the main reason other players in the near future will want to play with the Twins. I do want to know what you and the opposing players talk about at 1st base though?
Justin, thanks for the blog entry. Hopefully you are able to check in on the posts to read your reviews. Nobody pulls many punches around here. (To be a true guest blogger on LENs blog, you have to chime in with an occasional post, as well.)
I’m also interested in the conversations you have at first base, but my real question is this:
Is Joe Crede “All Out of Love” because of the long-running bro-mance between you and Joe M?
Second question…what marks did Krista give you on your first blog entry? I’m giving you a solid B+. Good humor, good inside jokes, “take ‘em one day at a time”-isms. A little more inside the clubhouse, and a dig or two on LaVelle, and you’d have it.
Good luck the rest of the year…keep up the good work.
gotta love lavelle being so cozy with players….makes me even more confident in his critical/objective journalism
la velle, please don’t ever remind me ever again how borring and personalityless my heros are.
Just a note about Morneau’s class.
The last three years Justin has signed a baseball for my boys when we’ve gone on road trips to Baltimore 06, Chicago 07, & Cleveland, 08. (hint: It doesn’t hurt that Dad always wears his “Team Canada” baseball jersey.
Last year in Cleveland, when he was mired in that awful slump, Justin came by and greeted the fans. He could have hid in the dugout. Instead, I asked him to sign “Happy Birthday 5/15/09″ for my six-year old who shares a birthday with Mr. Morneau.
As #33 came to bat on this shared birthday, I presented the ball to my son. Next pitch–BOOM! Touch m’ all Justin. Thanks for touching my life, and the life of my kid.
Mauer knows how “boring” he is. And he’s nice enough to admit it — which makes him even more “boring”.
So the guy’s not an entertainer……big DEAL! And thank goodness he’s not withdrawn or a little weird or something.
I’ll take it every time.
In more important news, are the Twins even attempting to upgrade the middle infield? A prominent sports magazine says Jack Wilson (Pittsburgh’s SS) is available but with the $6M price tag. Sure would be nice to shore up this position…
PREACHER:
Kent Hrbek did something similar when I took my son to a game over twenty years ago. Now a fully grown successful man, he says that was the hightlight of his boyhood and mentions it frequently!
thrylos98 - the Twins would be in 5th place in the NL central. Not sure how you can rag on the Cubs for being in 4th (3rd now)
Guess you found your slumpbuster forever in krista. good work! your teammates thank you! Hope she can make it through the end of the season without getting tired!!!
