Rosengren: Meet the only high school pitcher to strike out Joe Mauer

From SABR member John Rosengren at SI.com on February 6, 2015:

Paul Feiner isn’t one to bring it up. The 33-year-old digital marketer loves talking sports, just not about himself and not about that day. His boss at Go Kart Labs, a digital agency in Minneapolis, didn’t learn of his employee’s claim to athletic fame until Feiner had worked there six months, and then teased him, “That would have been the first thing out of my mouth when I shook your hand:

‘I’m the guy who struck out Joe Mauer.’”

Lots of guys can say that now, especially with Mauer, the longtime Twins star, coming off a season in which he whiffed a career-high 96 times. But Feiner is the only one with the distinction of striking out Mauer in high school, when the St. Paul prep star batted .567 and whiffed exactly once in 222 at-bats.

It happened in the second game of the 2000 Minnesota state high school tournament, Feiner’s senior year, when his Elk River Elks played Mauer’s Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders. It wasn’t expected to remain such a big deal then but once Mauer made it to the major leagues in 2004 and started winning batting titles (he now owns three), people began mentioning Feiner’s accomplishment.

Read the full article here: http://www.si.com/mlb/2015/02/06/joe-mauer-paul-feiner-minnesota



Originally published: February 6, 2015. Last Updated: February 6, 2015.