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Lengthy Twins Games Test Interest

Posted on May 20, 2013May 20, 2013 by David Shama

I am back in a familiar spring habit regarding the Twins who after a laborious day at Target Field yesterday have now lost five consecutive games. The first several games of the season I am locked in for all nine innings but by this time in May my interest borders on apathy.

Here’s the problem: not only are many games too dang long, but the Twins don’t win enough games and hit enough home runs (next to last in AL). Translation: if the action isn’t compelling, then a three to four hour time commitment is often too much for me.

Major League Baseball knows despite the solid popularity of its sport, lengthy games are a concern. Yeah, other entertainment like football and basketball have increased dramatically in game times over the years but baseball is more problematic because it’s a very deliberate endeavor and the season is the longest of any in American sports.

In the 1970s the average MLB game was two hours and 30 minutes, according to a July 27 story last year by Bleacherreport.com. The article said since 2007 the average has not fallen below two hours and 50 minutes. Twins games dating back to May 11 of this year have clocked in at 2:45, 2:55, 2:51, 2:44, 3:26, 3:24, 3:53 and yesterday’s 3:15 which was 6:15 if you count a three hour rain delay.

Now compare that with the game times for the 1965 World Series between the Twins and Dodgers. Four of those seven games were played in less than two hours and 16 minutes. The longest was two hours and 34 minutes.

Patrick Klinger was vice president of marketing for the Twins through last season and was asked about baseball’s slowdown. “Twins games used to start at 8 o’clock on week nights back in the 60s. Even when I was an intern with the Twins back in 1986, games started at 7:35. Now they start at 7. They take so long.”

What happened? Innings breaks are longer to allow more TV commercials to pitch products and services, but the game has changed, too. Years ago starting pitchers often finished the game, working all nine innings. Now baseball has become a parade of pitchers. Managers even change pitchers more than once in the same inning. Add to that meetings at the mound between the pitching coach, pitcher, catcher and infielders.

Pitchers also work at various paces, including slow and slower while hitters can be cautious about looking over the pitches thrown at them. Think about Joe Mauer who seldom swings at the first pitch. Hitters often review five or more pitches before the ball goes into play.

MLB doesn’t want games played at a leisurely pace. Umpires are instructed to do what they can to make sure games are played efficiently. MLB obviously knows games lasting beyond three hours are a time commitment problem for fans including those attending a week night game. And it’s more than a three hour commitment because fans sometimes arrive an hour or so before the game and travel time has to be added in as well.

“What we wanted to do (at Twins games) was to provide the very best entertainment experience possible,” Klinger said. “We wanted people coming back often. If there was a long game (that) kind of slogged along I am not sure that provided the best entertainment experience. Are those people going to be as likely to return?”

Klinger said more likely to bring back the fans is a “good, crisp well played game” lasting about two hours and 30 minutes. He suggested that template is likely to have fans saying, “You know what? That was a lot of fun. Let’s go back next week.”

Klinger wrote in an e-mail that technology at the ballpark has enhanced the entertainment experience and during long games made the trip to the stadium more fun for fans. “Technology…now allows for huge video replay boards and social media opportunities inside the ballpark. In addition, there is much greater attention being paid to pregame ceremonies, between innings entertainment and music. It’s all designed to improve the in-ballpark experience by keeping fans engaged when the action slows.”

Klinger said complaints from fans about the length of games weren’t that numerous when he was with the Twins. “We didn’t get a lot but it was something we were always concerned about because this is a society now that wants instant gratification,” Klinger said. “Baseball is a deliberate game, and people’s attention spans aren’t maybe what they once were. Too many other distractions. We wanted to keep the game moving along. … Keep them (fans) interested and not looking at their cell phones, doing other things.”

Of course it’s not just the fans who attend games that baseball wants to attract. Audience development means attracting new followers and turning casual followers into passionate fans. “If there were ways to move it along, make it a little bit more dynamic, I think we’d pick up some fans,” Klinger said. “Too many people just sit in the stands (not engaged), or they try to watch a game on television and they think that it’s just too deliberate, too slow for them.”

Even Klinger, still a baseball fan after leaving the Twins and starting his own consulting company, knows his baseball focus is sometimes challenged. “I find myself, frankly, sometimes sitting on my sofa flipping channels. It’s so easy now with the remote control in your hands and a hundred stations or more on your television. There’s a break in the action, or if things are just deliberate, it’s so easy to hit a button and you’re watching something else.

“To flip to something else and then maybe flip back. So staying focused for three, three and one-half hours on a game I think is a little bit harder than it used to be. There are just too many options.”

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Movie 42 Stirs Minnesota Connections

Posted on April 15, 2013April 15, 2013 by David Shama

A baseball fan who looks hard enough at the new movie 42 can find connections to Minneapolis-St. Paul.

42 is the story of a courageous African American, Jackie Robinson, who broke major league baseball’s color barrier in 1947 while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson’s impact on society includes today’s tribute from MLB when every player in the American and National leagues will wear uniform No. 42 including at Target Field where tonight the Twins play the Angels. Today is Jackie Robinson Day, recognizing the April 15, 1947 arrival of Robinson in the big leagues.

Robinson, played by Chadwick Boseman in the film, endured a tsunami of racial insults from fans, players and managers in his early years with the Dodgers. In the movie Phillies’ manager Ben Chapman delivers a verbal assault that is the most painful scene to watch. The harassment’s intent is to have Robinson quit the Dodgers and the barrage is so ugly it almost makes the 28-year-old rookie first baseman implode.

Although some of Robinson’s teammates didn’t want him to be a Dodger, others came to his defense. Eddie Stanky confronts Chapman in 42, showing passion and a colorful vocabulary while protecting Robinson. Stanky, whose nickname was the “Brat,” played for several major league teams before becoming manager of the 1956 Minneapolis Millers.

The man Robinson replaced as the Dodgers’ first baseman was Howie Schultz, a St. Paul native. Schultz, who attended Central High School and Hamline, played four seasons for the Dodgers prior to 1947 with his best year coming in 1944 hitting 11 home runs with 83 RBI in 138 games, according to Baseball-reference.com.

Back in the 1940s the Dodgers had affiliations with Triple-A farm teams in St. Paul, and Montreal where Robinson played in 1946. There’s a scene in 42 in which St. Paul is written on a blackboard in the office of Dodgers’ general manager Branch Rickey. The Saints’ roster in 1948 included African American catcher Roy Campanella who also played for the Dodgers that same year.

In 42 Rickey, portrayed by Harrison Ford, is looking for a pioneer to break the color barrier and considers Campenella but dismisses the easy going catcher in favor of the ultra competitive Robinson. But both players became Hall of Famers including Campanella who played in 35 games for the Saints in 1948, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

Rickey’s motivations for enduring the wrath of the segregated south and some of his major league brethren for breaking the color barrier was part personal and part business. In the movie Rickey talks about how years before he had failed a black baseball player, but he also makes it clear that bringing Robinson to Brooklyn is about attracting more African-American fans to Ebbets Field.

The Dodgers’ desire to make more money eventually resulted in a failed new ballpark initiative in Brooklyn and relocation of the franchise to Los Angeles after the 1957 season. At the same time the Dodgers convinced the New York Giants to move to San Francisco so that two teams could play on the West Coast (making schedules more efficient) and also continue their storied rivalry. The relocations changed the history of baseball in Minnesota.

The Giants had been in high level discussions about moving to Minneapolis before Dodgers’ owner Walter O’Malley convinced them to move west. The Giants had operated the Triple-A Millers for years, played exhibition games here to test the baseball market and even had purchased land that potentially could have been the site of a major league park.

Instead of acquiring the Giants, this area waited until 1960 when the American League Washington Senators moved here for the 1961 season and became the Minnesota Twins.

Worth Noting

Yesterday’s Twins-Mets game, not played because of rain, is the first Target Field postponement of the season and will now be played on Monday, August 19 in Minneapolis. Right-hander Kevin Correia, scheduled to start yesterday for the Twins, will pitch against the Angels tonight.

After losing games to the Mets on Friday and Saturday at Target Field, the Twins are now 157-127 in interleague games. The Twins’ next game against a National League team is a week from tonight in Minneapolis with the Marlins.

Gophers’ baseball coach John Anderson earned his 500^th career Big Ten Conference win yesterday when Minnesota defeated Northwestern 7-1.

Parker Executive Search based in Atlanta has been paid “more than $295,000” by the University of Minnesota since 2007 to assist with searches involving Tim Brewster, Tubby Smith, Jerry Kill and Norwood Teague, according to the April 8 issue of Sports Illustrated. The story is about the role of search firms with college sports programs including their fees for identifying potential coaches and athletic directors.

Draft authority Todd McShay said on ESPN last Thursday the Vikings may draft Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o at No. 23 in the first round and California wide receiver Kennan Allen at No. 25. McShay said four wide receivers might be taken during the first round of the NFL draft April 25 including West Virginia’s Tavon Austin, a 5-9, 170-pound Percy Harvin like player who could be the first chosen.

Injured Timberwolves’ forward Kevin Love reportedly earns $13,668,750 in salary but has played in only 18 games this season. That works out to $759,375 per game.

For the first time in league history, the WNBA draft will be televised in primetime. The first round begins at 7 p.m. CDT tonight and will be telecast by ESPN2. The second and third rounds (starting at 8 p.m.) will be aired on NBATV and ESPNU. The Lynx have the No. 12 pick in the first round, two second round selections and a third round choice.

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At 93 Hartman Still Chases the News

Posted on March 11, 2013March 11, 2013 by David Shama

Sid Hartman started chasing sports news for a Minneapolis newspaper in 1944.

Who could have predicted that 69 years later he would still be sniffing around locker rooms for a scoop?

Hartman’s 93^rd birthday will be Friday. He writes a sports column four times per week for the Star Tribune. His comments are heard three times each morning Monday-Friday on WCCO Radio and on Sundays the station airs the Sports Huddle program with Hartman and Dave Mona.

To the outside world, sports journalism looks like a cushy job. But sportswriting and broadcasting involve long hours and weekend assignments. Journalists work under the pressure of deadlines, and in today’s Internet and social media world there’s a constant appetite for news.

In this town many of the sports reporters are in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Only a few are in their 60s and nobody approaches Hartman’s age. At 93 he could be the great grandfather of reporters he competes against.

Where does the drive come from to be working like this seven years away from being 100 years old? What motivates Hartman to attend as many or more games, practices and news conference as most anybody in Minnesota? And when there are no formal news opportunities, he is likely to be stopping by Jerry Kill’s office or visiting Winter Park, or some place else where there might be a scoop, or at least a column note.

To understand Hartman’s work ethic look at his background. Hartman, who never attended college, grew up poor on Minneapolis’ North Side. In his biography, Sid, he described a family of four children with a sickly mother and alcoholic father.

“We had nothing,” Hartman wrote. “We ate chicken every night. My mother would go down to the Jewish butcher and buy two chickens for a buck. She would make chicken soup, chicken this, chicken that. To this day, I hate chicken.”

Hartman learned about hard work as a child. He began selling newspapers when he was nine. By the time he was in his 20s he was writing for the Minneapolis Times. Although his writing skills were minimal, he had something that attracted his newspaper bosses and provided opportunity.

In his biography Hartman wrote that his first boss in the sports department told him: “Don’t worry about writing. Give us the news. Writers are a dime dozen. Reporters are impossible to find.”

Despite limited education and training — or perhaps because of it — Hartman has worked seven days per week pounding his beat for information. “He found out the way to advance was to be aggressive, and I think that’s served him well during his career,” Mona told Sports Headliners. “I think he’s relished the role of the under dog.”

Hartman, divorced from Barbara Balfour decades ago, remains married to his work. “He is what he does,” Mona said. “Literally there is no doubt that Sid is always working or thinking about work.”

It’s admirable that at 93 Hartman has the energy and will to be so active. He moves around like a spry 70-something, fortunate to come from a family tree that included relatives who lived long lives. And Hartman has helped his cause by not smoking and doing a lot of walking.

“He is in remarkably good health, except for the hearing loss which he acknowledges and which is probably becoming even more obvious on the air,” Mona said. “I think in every other manner he’s incredibly fit. I would say robust.”

Mona, 69, has known Hartman since he was seven years old. Mona’s father, Lute Mona, was a successful Minneapolis high school basketball coach. Mona recalled that most reporters would telephone the house and ask, “Is your dad around?”

Not the uber-aggressive Hartman who commanded: “Hey kid, put your old man on.”

Hartman and Mona have worked as hosts on the Sports Huddle since 1981. It required time but Hartman came to trust Mona who jokes that the probationary period was only “20 to 25 years.”

“I think now that he respects that I am never going to hang him out there,” Mona said.

Hartman was born in Minneapolis on March 15, 1920. By now Hartmanologists have concluded that the man WCCO Radio’s Dave Lee refers to as a “Hall of Fame” sportswriter is never going to retire.

Those Hartmanologists are correct.

Mona said he receives text messages asking about Hartman’s future. “If it seems like we haven’t touched on the subject (retirement) for a long time — or maybe in advance of a birthday — I’ll ask him on the air. But I know the answer because we’ve talked about it so many times,” Mona said.

Hartman has watched sports figures who continued their careers into their 70s and even 80s die soon after retiring. People like Hartman who were totally wrapped up in their careers. “I think that Sid knows there’s a certain amount of immortality attached to continuing work,” Mona said.

So Hartman’s career —covering eight decades in newspapers and seven on radio —continues on. The legend grows, his name associated with the notable figures in this state’s cultural history. And like a Kirby Puckett or Jesse Ventura, Hartman long ago was even honored with his own bobblehead.

A week ago Sunday the Star Tribune published a New York Times story about a California man who at age 93 was still delivering newspapers for a paper he once owned. But guess what?

The Strib has a better story in its own sports department.

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