Author: David Shama

Derrick Harvey, defensive end from Florida, is a name frequently speculated on as the Vikings’ first round pick in the NFL’s college draft on April 26.  ESPN’s Scouts Inc. ranks Harvey as the 11^th best player on its top 32 prospects list.  Louisville’s Brian Brohm, No. 29, and Michigan’s Chad Henne, No. 30, are two quarterbacks the Vikings might be hoping are still on the draft board when they pick at No. 47 on the second round. Arkansas running back Darren McFadden is rated No. 1 by Scouts Inc. (see the Draft Central page at www.espn.com).

The Vikings’ signing yesterday of free agent quarterback Gus Frerotte presumably means that if the team takes a quarterback in the draft, that player competes with Brooks Bollinger for the No. 3 spot on the depth chart.  Frerotte, 36, is a 14-year NFL veteran seen as the No. 2 QB and mentor to Tarvaris Jackson who starts his third season with the team this summer.  Frerotte played in the 1996 Pro Bowl but has only started 82 career games including three last season for St. Louis.

Vikings vice president of sales and marketing Steve LaCroix reported via e-mail last week that season ticket renewals are over 80 percent.

Former Twin Torii Hunter, now with the Angels, leads the American League in home runs with four.

The Frozen Four starts tomorrow night (Thursday) in Denver (ESPN2) with Boston College playing North Dakota, followed by Michigan and Notre Dame. This is the third consecutive year the tournament has no Minnesota schools.  There are, however, Minnesotans to watch including four players with North Dakota, T.J. Oshie (Warroad), Chris VandeVelde (Moorhead), Michael Forney (Thief River Falls) and Landon Snider (Brainerd).

Carl Sneep (Brainerd) and Joe Adams (Breck School) play for Boston College.  Notre Dame’s roster includes Ryan Guentzel (Hill Murray), Garrett Regan (Hill Murray) and Mark Van Guilder (Roseville Area High School).

Minnesotans have no home town ties to the three finalists for the 2008 Hobey Baker Memorial Award, honoring college hockey’s top player, but some may be pulling for Nathan Gerbe, junior forward from Boston College. The 5-foot-5, 165-pound Gerbe is one of the smallest players in college hockey but he’s frustrated defenses with his high-energy play, producing 30 goals and 30 assists in 41 games to rank second in the nation in scoring.  Gerbe played against the Gophers in the NCAA playoffs. The other Hobey Baker finalists are Ryan Jones, senior forward from Miami University, and Kevin Porter, senior forward from Michigan.  This award winner will be announced Friday from Denver and aired live on ESPNU at 6:30 p.m. Minneapolis time.

St. Thomas will win a record sixth consecutive MIAC baseball championship if a preseason conference coaches’ poll released earlier this month is correct.  Coach Dennis Denning’s team includes eight returning starters, plus six of the top eight pitchers.  Among the standouts is catcher Matt Pexa, a preseason All-American.  Here’s the coaches’ predicted order of finish: 1. St. Thomas  2. St. Olaf  3. Saint John’s  4. Gustavus  5. Hamline  6. Augsburg  7. Concordia  8. Bethel  9. Macalester 10. Saint Mary’s  11. Carleton.

The Timberwolves FastBreak Foundation is hosting an online vote for fans to select a local non-profit organization to receive the foundation’s monthly grant of $10,000. Fans can log on to www.timberwolves.com through Monday, April 14 and cast their vote for one of five pre-selected charities: Bolder Options, Children’s Home Society and Family Services, PEACE Foundation, People Serving People, and YouthCARE.  More information about each organization can be found online at www.timberwolves.com.

Got a to-do list of household tasks tonight?  Feeling sorry for yourself because you want to watch the NCAA national championship game between Kansas and Memphis?  No problem.  TV’s over the top number of commercials will offer so many breaks in the game action you can tackle your tasks, too.

I am prepared for each commercial.  If I am feeling ambitious, I may do some stretching exercises, or in a rare moment knock off a few push ups.  I even find paying bills more pleasant than the commercial breaks.  And like other fans, I often reach for the remote and channel surf.

This rant isn’t directed at just the national championship game.  College basketball, profiting from the mega payday of television, has damaged its wonderful sport by allowing the networks too many commercials in each televised game.  From games in November right into April, fans in the arenas and watching at home have to either cope or flee from advertising pollution.

Each game has pre-determined commercial breaks that occur at approximately the 16, 12, eight and four minute marks of the two 20 minute halves.  That’s annoying enough, but there’s also the spontaneous timeouts called by coaches.

I recall a game where a coach called timeout within the first minute of the second half.  Then after viewers worked their way through a full run of commercials, the other coach called timeout within the second minute.  If you’re tracking this, you know what comes next: the obligatory 16 minute mark break in the action.  That’s three full rounds of commercials totaling at least six minutes while we saw about four minutes of game action.

Earlier this winter I turned on ESPN2 to watch the “end” of a game preceding the Michigan-Minnesota telecast.  It was approximately 7:50 p.m. when I tuned in and realized there were about six-plus minutes to play in the game.  At about 8:20 p.m. the game ended and the Gopher game was, of course, joined in progress.  Thirty minutes to play about six minutes thanks to timeouts and deliberate fouls to stop the game clock.  Outrageous!

In Saturday’s semi-final Final Four game between UCLA and Memphis there were seven commercial breaks in the first half.  Two of the breaks lasted about 30 seconds, the other five were over two minutes including one I clocked at 2:45 including CBS program promotion.  Commercials and promo messages totaled over 10 minutes in the first half.  The first half began at about 5:12 p.m. and ended at approximately 5:58 p.m. so it required about 46 minutes to play a 20 minute half of basketball.

No other major TV sport, including the NBA, allows so many timeouts and commercial breaks in such short spans of game action.  This is a disservice not only to the ad weary fans but also to the players who have fewer long stretches of uninterrupted play that are both a beauty to experience and watch.

College fans are bothered and even may be driven away by the problem.  Don’t be surprised if ratings are down for March’s NCAA tournament games.  Even if they’re not, you can be sure a lot of ads were never watched.  Go get the task list!

On February 6, the Miami Heat traded Shaquille O’Neal to the Phoenix Suns.  The Heat had the worst record in the NBA, 9-39, but the Timberwolves, 10-38, were a close second.  Today, with the 82 game NBA season almost at an end, the Heat are 13-64, the Wolves 19-57.

Although mathematically possible, no team is going to “catch” the Heat on their way to the worst record in the league.  The prize for fewest wins and most losses, of course, is that the Heat will have the greatest likelihood of lucking out in the upcoming NBA draft lottery.  That system determines the order of drafting in the annual NBA draft of college and foreign players, and the team with the poorest regular season record has the best odds of securing the No. 1 pick.

While the Wolves have been winning an occasional game (3-7 in their last 10), the Heat have been awful, winning just four games in two months (one in their last 10). Heat president and coach Pat Riley metaphorically posted a “gone fishing” sign when he sent O’Neal to Phoenix and later announced that with 21 games remaining in the season his other superstar, Dwayne Wade, wouldn’t play anymore because of a troublesome left knee.

The Wolves’ Antoine Walker played two seasons for Riley and was part of the 2006 NBA championship team.  He told Sports Headliners awhile ago he thinks Riley is trying to “salvage” something from this season by gaining the No. 1 pick.  He respects Riley, who has had five NBA championship teams, describing him as a great coach and shrewd evaluator of talent.

What puzzles Walker is why Riley radically changed the roster of the Heat so soon after having a title team.  Last summer the Heat moved on without veterans James Posey, Jason Kapono and Walker.  Then the trade of O’Neal and sidelining of Wade has left the Heat with a terrible team that includes former Wolves Ricky Davis, Mark Blount and Marcus Banks.

Walker said the Heat have to start from “scratch” beginning with the 2008 draft. “Having the No. 1 pick doesn’t necessarily make it happen, so it’s definitely going to be a rebuilding process,” Walker said.

The Wolves, meanwhile, have both stayed in the lottery race and shown some improvement on the court.  Right now the Wolves have the third worst record in the league.  They’re likely to be dealt one of the first half dozen picks via the draft lottery.  The Wolves, with one star in 23-year-old center Al Jefferson, have been evaluating several other young players who at times show promise and have produced a sporadic surge in better play since early March.

How ironic if the Wolves, already more talented than the Heat, out lucked the Heat in the draft lottery.