Mauer injury shouldn't scare once-timid Twins

Somewhere, Carl Pohlad looks down on his son from the afterlife and says, "Didn't I tell you a thousand times? That's why you don't pay players that kind of money, right there. Have I taught you nothing at all?"

And his son Jim says, "Dad, Joe Mauer's heel is just a week-to-week thing. And hey, you said it was OK to pay Justin Morneau in 2008, remember? Relax, will you?"

Thus is life with the new, financially dynamic Minnesota Twins. Get a new ballyard, throw nine figures at your uber-All-Star catcher, and for what? So he can get hurt in the first month? Jim, m'lad, trust me. Dad is really pissed right now, even if he did sign off on the Morneau deal.

Joe Mauer will return and consternation over his big contract should end. (Getty Images)

Now we are not advocating that Jim Pohlad, the son of the late Twins owner, shouldn't have done the Mauer deal, or the stadium deal. If the citizens of Minnesota are happy, we're happy. You can't take it with you, right?

But though we can't provide a lot of anecdotal evidence, it always seems like the nouveaux riches (French for new at the money-spending game) take a quick beating on their first big investment, as though God is reminding them that luck has as much to do with staying rich as hard work, fortunate parent selection or even greasing the wheels at the capital.

And the test of a new spender is seeing whether he'll be a spender the next time something like this comes up.

That's where Mauer's heel injury, which went from day-to-day (the original report) to week-to-week (manager Ron Gardenhire's latest assessment) is kind of fascinating, as foot injuries go. Mauer is exactly the kind of player that ball teams should go to all permissible lengths to retain, because players of his variety come along so seldom. It shows a team is serious about more than profit-taking and real-estate scams, and it makes people who want to give those teams money to watch their product a bit more amenable to the process of giving.

But you can't let a little bad luck the first time you've thrown your wallet into the middle of the table deter you, Jim. We can surmise that when Mauer went down Friday night in Cleveland (now there's another metaphor for something), these thoughts raced through your head -- "$184 MILLION DOWN THE GURGLER! I'M DOOMED! I'M DOOMED! GAAAAAAGGGHHKHKHKHK!"

Or something like that.

But here's hoping you regained your equilibrium, even if it took a bottle or so of Old Overcoat to do so. Sometimes bad luck is just bad luck that shouldn't impact the bigger business plan, and hey, at least Gardenhire didn't say it's year-to-year.

This is the danger of putting a dollar sign on the muscle, to quote the title of the book on scouting. Muscles and their friends tend to break down under stress, especially for catchers, and you commit $184 extra large only when you see the kind of fellow a community can rally around. I mean, we know a guy in town who would have announced his retirement twice and still showed up for the last week of training camp.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Point is, Jim, you're just going to have to get back up on that horse. When it comes time to pick up Michael Cuddyer's option, or Jason Kubel's, you have to maintain what you set in motion with the Mauer deal, and the Morneau deal (which Dad pretty well oversaw). Spending is a dangerous game, and the only thing worse than spending badly is spending a couple of times, not liking the result and then becoming the Kansas City Royals. The fans will think you pulled a fast one on them and remember that there's other stuff to do in the summer.

Yeah, next to paying baseball players, the hardest thing to do is customer relations because the very best you can hope for is that they'll only think you're an idiot 60 times a year.

But that's how it works when you're trying to run with the cheetahs after years among the water buffalo. It's not a game for candies, or for kids who hear their father's lectures from the beyond.

So stiffen that spine, Jimmy, and stay the course. After all, there's Francisco Liriano and Carl Pavano to consider, too. And what about Joe Nathan?

Actually, you know what, Jim? I think I'd just let Dad howl a bit. Yeah, it can be annoying, especially when you're trying to concentrate, but a nice tumbler of the hair of the dog makes everything sound better -- even the voices in your own head.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.