Author: David Shama

The Twins’ groundbreaking event for the new baseball stadium (adjacent to 3^rd Ave. North and 5^th Street North) has been re-scheduled to Thursday, August 30.  The event begins at 4 p.m. with autographs available from Twins alumni starting at 4:15 p.m.  The groundbreaking ceremony is at 6 p.m.

The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission has postponed the Vikings stadium listening tour to several Minnesota communities because of the 35W bridge disaster.  The tour had been expected to start next month and continue through October, gathering input from Minnesotans about a new facility for the Vikings. 

Gulp: Sports Illustrated forecasts a 0-8 and last place finish in the Big Ten Conference for the Gophers this fall.  Bet your Christmas bonus this won’t happen.  Sporting News has the Gophers with a 4-4 conference record and a Motor City Bowl trip.    

Former Gophers from the 1967 Big Ten championship football team will be honored during a 40year anniversary celebration at the Minnesota-Ohio State game on Saturday, September 29, according to M Club director George Adzick.  The M Club (Gopher lettermen’s organization) is sponsoring reunion activities. 

The M Club is starting the Varsity Breakfast Club, monthly gatherings on the fourth Friday of each month (holidays excepted).  The events are open to the public and speakers will include Gopher leaders.  The first breakfast club is tomorrow (August 24), 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the Coffman Memorial Union Campus Club, with Gopher athletic director Joel Maturi as the featured speaker.  Cost and reservation information available via e-mail: mclub@umn.edu. 

Former Gopher and Chicago Bear Bronko Nagurski was named the starting fullback on Peter King’s all-time NFL team on sportsillustrated.cnn.com. 

Shelley Felicilda, a passionate Vikings fan for years, has started “VQueen/Because I Can,” a new Web based business offering female fans unique and classy sportswear.  From shorts to shirts to accessories, the site has a lot of fun merchandise to browse.   www.vqueen.com 

Crystal Clear Sports will offer webcasts of 60 Minnesota high school football games.  The first games will be August 30 and viewers can watch multiple games per high school football nights.  www.CrystalClearWebcast.com

Twenty-one players from the 1987 Minnesota Twins will be in Minneapolis this weekend for the World Championship Reunion.  There were 24 players on the 1987 World Series roster and two of those players, outfielder Kirby Puckett and pitcher Joe Niekro, are deceased.  The Twins front office hasn’t been able to contact pitcher Dan Schatzeder and he isn’t expected to attend the reunion.  

Patrick Klinger, Twins vice president of marketing, is impressed with the commitments made by those 21 players, plus five coaches and manager Tom Kelly.  “I think it really speaks to the camaraderie of that team,” Klinger said.  “It was a team not known as the most talented but they had tremendous camaraderie and chemistry.  It was also a team that had a lot of fun together.” 

The 1987 Twins won 85 games and lost 77.  Their regular season winning percentage of .525 is among the lowest ever for a team that won a World Series.

The team became world champions in Kelly’s second season as manager and ended a series of mostly miserable seasons in the 1980s as the Twins played seven consecutive years without winning more than half of their games. 

The world championship was largely the result of talented scouting and patience by the Twins farm system.  The organization developed outstanding players for the 1987 team like Puckett, first baseman Kent Hrbek, third baseman Gary Gaetti, catcher Tim Laudner and pitcher Frank Viola. 

They were a surprising group of players who enjoyed a stunning season.  That storyline fueled the emotions of local baseball fans that hadn’t seen the Twins ever win a World Series and had been without a world title in any pro sport since the 1954 Minneapolis Lakers won the NBA championship.

On Saturday night in a re-creation of the world championship parade, each of the 1987 alums will ride on to the Metrodome field in the back of a pickup truck.  Later all the alumni will collectively throw out the first pitch, tossing balls to current Twins. 

Before the game on Saturday, from 4:15 to 5:15 p.m., 1987 alumni will be available to fans in the stadium concourse for photographs.  On Friday, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., about half of the alums will sign autographs on the Metrodome plaza.  Sunday the remainder of them will sign autographs on the plaza from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The first 10,000 fans on Friday, Saturday and Sunday receive giveaways.  Friday’s giveaway is baseball cards of every player, plus Kelly and coaches.  Saturday is a mini-Metrodome giveaway and Sunday is a Gaetti bobblehead (he will be inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame that day).  The always popular Homer Hanky will be given to the first 40,000 fans on Saturday.

Tickets are still available for all three games.  Klinger said the Twins are expecting about 30,000 on Friday, 35,000 Saturday and 30,000 Sunday. 

Alumni arrive today and will attend a private affair tonight.  They are being flown into town and hosted at the ball club’s expense, Klinger said.  Each alum will receive a DVD set of the 1987 World Series.  Bobbleheads? You bet. Each person receives a team set of bobbleheads (all players, Kelly and coaches in bobblehead form).  Other gifts include two boxes of their own bobbleheads and Twins jackets created for them, Klinger said. 

“Guys are excited to a man to comeback to Minnesota and spend time with their teammates, and relive the ‘87 world championship,” Klinger said.

Gopher football coach Tim Brewster told Sports Headliners he’s concerned about the team’s punting and placekicking.  Recent Gopher seasons have at times been characterized by both short distances or accuracy of punts, kickoffs, extra points and field goals.  As sophomores last season punter Justin Kucek averaged 40.3 yards per punt,  ranking eighth in the Big Ten Conference, while place kicker Jason Giannini missed three extra points and eight in 2005.  Giannini was 7-12 on field goals and ranked 10^th in the conference in field goal percentage.  Joel Monroe, another sophomore last season, handled all kickoffs in 2006 (27 of 69 went for touchbacks) and some field goal/extra point work, going 2-3 on field goals and making all four extra points. He’s on the team again as a complement to Giannini. 

The Gophers will be far from the most talented team in the Big Ten Conference this fall and Brewster is determined to use special teams, including punting and kicking, to gain an edge against opponents.  Whether it’s covering punts and kickoffs, or consistently making field goals, Brewster hopes superior special teams can help the Gophers to wins they might otherwise not earn. 

“We’ve put tremendous emphasis on the kicking game (in pre-season workouts),” Brewster said.  “We’ve allocated more meeting time, more field time.  Now I am going to be honest with you.  I have a concern with our kickers and punters. They have not been consistent since this camp has opened.   

“I am very pleased with what we’re doing with coverage.  Our attention to detail, our attitude in the kicking game has been outstanding.  But we need…Kucek to step up.  He needs to be a more consistent punter.  We need…Joel Monroe to do a great job.  We need Giannini to be more consistent. He’s got to make every P.A.T.  That part of it has been a work in progress but we’ve made up a lot of ground.” 

Improvement will need to happen soon because the Gophers open their season in about two weeks, on September 1 against Bowling Green at home.   

In recruiting news, the Gophers have a verbal commitment for next season from an outstanding high school punter.  Rivals.com reports Bradley Nortman of Brookfield, Wisconsin has recently committed.