Morneau, Twins in search of more postseason hardware

Miller: 5 things to know | Twins camp

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- New this year for fans at Hammond Stadium, spring home of the AL Central champion Minnesota Twins, is a grassy berm down the right-field line.

Joe Mauer became the first catcher in AL history to win a batting title. (AP)

What's obviously missing is an expanded clubhouse for the players. There's no trophy room. Where are these guys supposed to keep their trophies?! My gosh, after baseball's very own version of Home Depot finished hording the hardware last fall, it will take decades to solve the storage issues.

Let's see, first baseman Justin Morneau was named American League Most Valuable Player, Johan Santana won his second Cy Young Award. Joe Mauer became the first catcher in American League history to win a batting title. Center fielder Torii Hunter won his sixth consecutive Gold Glove. And general manager Terry Ryan was named AL executive of the year.

"A lot of people underestimate how much the accolades, compliments and awards mean in the Upper Midwest," bullpen coach Rick Stelmaszek says. "If it happened in Chicago or Boston, New York or Los Angeles, they'd be knighted, for crying out loud."

Now in his 27th season as a Twins coach -- the longest run for a coach in club history -- Stelmaszek is something of an expert on the Twins, Minnesota and the Upper Midwest.

So, if no knighthood, no late-night television talk show circuit and no Oprah, what, exactly, do these guys get back home for all this glitz?

"A pat on the back and an 'Attaboy!'" Stelmaszek quips. "And a, 'Here's a snow shovel. Now dig yourself out!'"

Perhaps the least likely of the guys to win a major award and the most likely to already own a snow shovel is Morneau, the 25-year-old Canadian who last year dug himself out of a horrendously slow start to become the Twins' first MVP since Rod Carew in 1977.

In the process, he also became the first Twin to smash 30 or more homers in, incredibly, 19 years.

Not that Morneau hasn't been blessed with the talent to be a premier slugger in this league for a long time. It's just that, there he was, sitting at .208 and five homers at the end of April ... and at .244 with 10 at the end of May.

And this was his follow-up to a miserably disappointing 2005, in which he batted .239 with 22 homers and 79 RBI.

In other words, he played far under his own -- and the Twins' -- expectations for roughly a year and a quarter.

Most cases, that's not exactly prelude to an MVP.