At Target Field, Rocco Baldelli still finding eggs from last Easter

In packing for the Twins’ upcoming six-game road trip to Baltimore and Houston, manager Rocco Baldelli slid aside a clipboard on his desk. Underneath, in a hole carved into the wood, the new Minnesota skipper found a mostly-melted milk chocolate Easter egg.

The egg was the sixth found by Baldelli around Target Field since his October hiring.

“I can’t walk into the clubhouse, I can’t walk into the dugout, I can’t walk anywhere without wondering if I’ll find another lump of chocolate,” he said.

The eggs had been hidden by Joe Mauer in 2018 for the Twins’ annual Easter Egg hunt.

“He was always the best at hiding those,” left fielder Eddie Rosario explained. “We’d never find them on Easter, but over the coming days, the next few weeks, even months later, you’d open a drawer and there’d be something brown in there.”

Bench coach Derek Shelton added, “Joe would never get mad at the guys for not finding eggs. He’d congratulate them and wish them a happy belated Easter.”

Mauer was given free rein of Target Field to hide the eggs, but one player who wished not to be identified said that Mauer would never hide them in the seats or other publicly-accessible areas, keeping the hunt among those in the clubhouse.

“I found one under a batting helmet about two weeks after Easter,” the player said. “It still tasted like normal.”

With Mauer’s retirement this offseason, it’s unclear who will take up the mantle of egg hider this Easter, though with the team on the road, we may have to wait another year to learn.

“We’ve thought about having José [Berríos] hide them,” Rosario said. “He’s feisty enough; he’d probably enjoy it.”

Starting pitcher Kyle Gibson enjoyed the news of Baldelli’s discovery.

“That explains why Molly [former manager Paul Molitor] kept complaining about the smell in his office,” Gibson said.