Draft and minor leagues Morneau did not attend college, despite receiving many attractive offers from NCAA schools. He was selected by the Twins in the third round (89th overall) of the
1999 Major League Baseball draft. He converted to first base in 2001 while playing for the Class-A
Quad Cities River Bandits. In six minor league seasons, he hit .310 with 87 home runs, 153 RBI and 122 doubles. Morneau participated in the 2002 and 2004
All-Star Futures Games, playing for the World teams. A week later on June 17, he hit his first career home run off
Kansas City Royals reliever
Albie Lopez. Morneau played in 40 games with the Twins in 2003, batting .226 with four home runs and 10 RBI. In 2004, after Morneau compiled impressive minor league numbers, the Twins dealt veteran first baseman
Doug Mientkiewicz to the
Boston Red Sox and Morneau became the Twins' starting first baseman. He appeared in 74 games for the Twins in 2004, hitting .271 with 19 home runs and 58 RBI in 280 at bats while committing just three errors. He finished the season with a .239 batting average, 22 home runs and 79 RBI in 141 games.
Dominance (2006–2009) During Morneau's first three seasons with the Twins, he wore #27. Starting in 2006, he wore #33 for the rest of his Twins career. After a slow start to
2006, Morneau exploded offensively in the months of June, July, and August, raising his batting average nearly 50 points in June after beginning the month hitting .240. He raised his average another 33 points in July and after June consistently appeared near the top of the
American League leaderboard in batting average, home runs, and RBI. On August 9, Morneau became the first Twin since 1987 to hit 30 home runs in a single season. He finished the season hitting .321 (seventh in the AL) and slugging .559 (sixth in AL) with 34 home runs and 130 RBI in 157 games. For his hitting, he won the 2006 American League
Silver Slugger Award representing first basemen. On November 21, 2006, Morneau won the
American League Most Valuable Player Award in a close vote over
Derek Jeter of the
New York Yankees, becoming only the fourth player in Twins history (after
Zoilo Versalles,
Harmon Killebrew, and
Rod Carew) to receive the honour. He became the first Canadian to win the AL MVP award, and the second Canadian to win a major league MVP award (Larry Walker was the first, having won the NL MVP Award in
1997; Walker and Morneau were joined in
2010 by
Joey Votto). In 2007, Morneau played in 157 games, batting .271 with 31 home runs and 111 RBI. Morneau appeared on the cover of the arcade baseball video game
The Bigs in Canadian stores and at
Best Buy stores in the United States. Morneau was named to the
2007 Major League Baseball All-Star Game roster in 2007 for the first time. He also participated in the
2007 State Farm Home Run Derby for the first time. He was up first and hit four homers and ended up tying with
Albert Pujols in the first round. He was subsequently eliminated with only one homer on five chances in a tie-off. Pujols advanced to the second round with two homers. Morneau had his first career three home run game on July 6, 2007, against the
Chicago White Sox. He had a solo, a two-run, and a three-run homer. He had an at-bat to try for his fourth home run, but his bat got under the ball, and he flew out to deep left field. In January 2008, Morneau agreed to a six-year contract extension worth $80 million, which at the time was the longest and richest contract in Twins history until in 2010, teammate
Joe Mauer signed an eight-year, $184 million contract. Morneau produced with his new contract, as he played in all 163 of the Twins' games and hit .300 with 23 home runs and 129 RBI. Morneau was then announced as a reserve player for the American League in the
2008 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Morneau won the
2008 Home Run Derby, defeating
Josh Hamilton of the
Texas Rangers. He became the first Canadian to win the
Home Run Derby. Later during the All-Star event, Morneau scored the winning run for the American League in the
MLB All Star Game at
Yankee Stadium on a sacrifice fly to right field off the bat of
Michael Young. Morneau was awarded the
Lionel Conacher Award as the Canadian Press Male Athlete of the Year, joining
Ferguson Jenkins and
Larry Walker as the only Major League Baseball players to win the award. Morneau finished second in the balloting for AL MVP, as
Dustin Pedroia won, and
Kevin Youkilis came in third. In 2009, Morneau batted .274 with 30 home runs and 100 RBI in 135 games.
Injuries and struggles (2010–2013) Morneau got off to a strong start in the 2010 campaign, batting .345 with 18 home runs and 56 RBI in 81 games. He also posted a major-league leading .437
on-base percentage and .617
slugging percentage at the All-Star break. Morneau missed the remainder of the 2010 regular season with the effects of
post-concussion syndrome. After the Twins clinched the
American League Central Division championship, Morneau said that he was finally symptom-free. Morneau said he would be unavailable for the
ALDS, but that he hoped to be available for the
ALCS should the Twins advance. On October 4, 2010, the Twins announced that Morneau would not return for the 2010 season, regardless of how far the team went in the postseason. In 2011, the Twins were glad to see Morneau somewhat recovered from his season-ending concussion in the previous season. He was in the Opening Day starting line-up against the
Toronto Blue Jays. This did not last long, though, as he missed five games with the flu later in April and a couple of games in June with a sore wrist. He underwent neck surgery in June to correct pinched nerves in his neck, causing him to miss two months from mid-June to mid-August. Just ten days later, he missed two games with a bruised foot. On August 29, 2011, Morneau suffered a left shoulder injury that would lead to mild concussion-like symptoms. These symptoms eventually led to Morneau missing the remainder of the season. In 2011, Morneau appeared in just 69 games collecting just 60 hits, only four of them home runs. He batted a meager .227 with 19 walks and 30 RBI. All of the previous are career lows disregarding his rookie season. who was later identified as
Duke Welker on October 5, 2013. On September 1, 2013 he made his debut with the Pirates, playing first base. He initially wore number 36 but later changed numbers – Morneau wore number 33 in Minnesota, but due to number being retired in Pittsburgh (in honor of
Honus Wagner), he simply decided to double it to 66. He batted .260 with 3 RBI in 25 games as a Pirate. The deal became official on December 13. Morneau became the first Rockies player since
Larry Walker to wear #33 as it had been out of circulation, but not retired for Walker since he was traded to the
St. Louis Cardinals in 2004. Morneau went on to have a solid year in Colorado, batting .319 with 17 home runs and 82 RBI in 135 games. Morneau had a .310 batting average with three home runs and 15 RBI in 49 games with the Rockies in 2015. He was immediately placed on the 15-day disabled list, and was projected to return after the
All-Star break. Due to
Zach Duke wearing number 33, Morneau decided to wear number 44 instead. In 58 games with the White Sox, he batted .261 with six home runs and 25 RBI. He received five votes (1.3%), making him ineligible for future ballots. ==Front office and broadcasting career==