Joe Mauer to enter Irish Baseball Hall of Fame on August 6

Joe Mauer’s next Hall of Fame stop will come back home, and the St. Paul Saints are making sure it feels like more than a plaque-and-photo moment. The former Twins catcher will be inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame on August 6 at CHS Field, a ceremony that lets the Saints turn one of Minnesota baseball’s biggest names into a ballpark event.

The Saints leaned into Mauer’s No. 7 from the start, tying it to Irish mythology’s symbolism of seven as a bridge between the mortal world and the divine. It is a smart piece of storytelling because Mauer wore No. 7 for 15 seasons with the Minnesota Twins, and the number already belongs to the way fans remember him. His middle name is Patrick, and the club says he traces his Irish roots to the west of Ireland. The Saints also noted that his mother, Teresa Tierney Mauer, has Irish heritage through the Tierney, Lydon, Murphy and O’Malley family lines of County Galway and County Mayo.

Mauer said, “I’m proud to be inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame,” and said it is an honor to join a group representing shared Irish heritage through baseball. That group is a sturdy one. The Hall was founded in 2008 by Shaun Clancy, was originally located inside Foley’s NY until 2020, and was relaunched in 2022 under the Irish American Baseball Society. Its list of prior inductees includes Nolan Ryan, Vin Scully, Jim Palmer, Wade Boggs, Steve Garvey, Mike King Kelly and Sean Casey.

For the Saints, the move fits the way the franchise operates in Minnesota’s baseball ecosystem. This is a Triple-A club that understands the value of local identity, and Mauer is about as local as it gets. He is a St. Paul native and a Cretin-Derham Hall graduate who won the 2009 American League MVP award and three AL batting titles. He is already a 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, and the Saints also put him into the St. Paul Baseball Hall of Fame in 2025.

That combination gives August 6 a different kind of pull at CHS Field. It is not just an honor for Mauer, it is a reminder that Triple-A baseball still has room to preserve regional memory in real time, with a hometown star serving as the link between the Twins, the Saints and the fans who know exactly why No. 7 still matters.