(ABC 6 News) – It’s official; Joe Mauer has been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

The born and raised St. Paul native had a 15 year career in Major League Baseball, spending all of them with his home town Minnesota Twins.

From his time as a three-sport star athlete at Certin-Durham Hall in high school, to the final inning of his career playing catcher behind the plate. Mauer had the lofty expectations of a superstar always on his shoulders.

Despite the ups and downs of his career through injuries and age, he will be enshrined forever in baseball’s hall of immortals.

Mauer was drafted number one overall in the 2001 MLB Draft by the Twins. He made his MLB debut three years later on Opening Day, April 5, 2004, against the formerly known Cleveland Indians.

While he battled injuries in his first two seasons, Mauer thrusted himself into stardom in 2006 winning the American League Batting Title with a .347 batting average, along with earning his first all star appearance and Silver Slugger.

From 2006-2013, Mauer accumulated three batting titles, three Gold Gloves, five Silver Sluggers, played in six All Star games, and won the American League MVP for the Division Champion Twins in 2009.

Mauer’s MVP season coincided with the Twins final year in the Metrodome. He had a career high in home runs (28) runs batted in (96), batting average (.365), on-base percentage (.444) and slugging percentage (.587), which earned him the nods. All while missing the first month of the 2009 season.

Mauer shifted over to playing first base full time in 2014 following a series of concussions that pulled him from behind the plate. While he was never quite the same hitter at first, he played out to accumulate over 2,000 career hits and have a touching moment of playing his last inning in the Majors behind home plate.

Mauer had his number 7 retired by the Twins in 2019 and entered the Twins Hall of Fame in 2023. He will be enshrined in Cooperstown, New York, on July 21 of this year alongside former third baseman Adrian Beltre, first baseman Todd Helton, and manager Jim Leyland.