Justin Morneau is so competitive he won't even let his kid win at Candyland

Morneau takes winning seriously, especially at home

By Gemma Kaneko

November 18, 2014

During Game 2 of the Japan Series, Justin Morneau almost punched a hole in the ceiling of Tokyo Dome, hitting a two-run homer that cut MLB All-Stars' deficit to 3-2. Nevertheless, MLB lost 8-4, and Morneau was a little disappointed, because he really likes to win.

We know what you're thinking: Come on, everybody likes to win. But you don't know Morneau. In his postgame interview, the Rockies infielder said he even wants to defeat his wife at checkers.

Or Scrabble. Or Trouble. Or Clue. Said his wife, Krista:

When we have board games, it's serious. Some nights we go to bed mad. And then we'll laugh about it because it's stupid.

On our honeymoon we played cribbage and it was like the second time in my life we played cribbage. And he was so mad because I won two out of three games that he wouldn't play me for the rest of our honeymoon. And then a year later he decided he wanted to play again on a flight to London, a long flight. I won again, I skunked him. and he refused to play me again for another year. I think he's won since then. It's pretty fair. He'll win and next time I'll win so it's pretty back and forth.

Seriously, Krista knows that the Morneau house will not give up victories easily:

Our daughter Evelyn, she's four so she's just figuring out Candyland, but I don't think she's won a game yet.

Sorry, Evelyn, better luck next time. And if you think your parents are just going to let this slide, forget about it. Morneau is not a humble winner:

I like to say that I win, and when I do I'm kind of the opposite of how I am on the baseball field. I let everybody hear about it and I walk around the house bragging. I have a lot of fun with it, and I think my wife hates losing to me more for that reason, just because she has to hear about it more than anything.

But Krista has developed a strategy to deal with that:

We were playing Scrabble and I knew I was going to lose so I purposely hit the table so I lost some tiles. It was bad. We had to play like three more games after that.

She says they make everything into a game:

Going to the car or getting the kids in the car seats, we'll have races. Who gets to the fridge first.

The other day our son realized our big ottomans in the living room, he could take the cushion off so it's just the big base on wheels. And Justin started pushing him around the tile floor. So I put our daughter on one and we were having races and it was best out of three and it was the third round and I actually ended up spraining my thumb because it got caught on the carpet and I jammed it.

Said Morneau:

It's a battle in our house and you never really give in. Can't let anybody win.

Reporting by Ian Kay / MLB.com.