Twins – Page 103 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Wild to Make “Noise” in Player Market

Posted on April 28, 2019April 28, 2019 by David Shama

Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold is anticipating July 1, and the period when NHL teams can pursue free agents to help their teams.

Leipold told Sports Headliners he’s excited about the summer ahead and upgrading Minnesota’s talent pool. “For the first time in seven years we have some cash (payroll flexibility) to go out and get involved in unrestricted free agents,” he said. “You know we haven’t had money since (signing Ryan) Suter and (Zach) Parise. …”

The Wild, who missed the playoffs this spring after six straight years, had only two goal scorers with over 20 goals last season. Parise, who along with Suter signed $98 million deals in 2012, had 28 goals and Eric Staal scored 22. The Wild ranked 27th in the 31 team NHL in regular season goal scoring with 210, or about 2.5 per game.

Before the season ended, general manager Paul Fenton made payroll moves to create more flexibility, to spend money this summer to acquire one or two productive goal scorers. “We’re excited about that,” Leipold said.

The owner would welcome a 25-plus goal scorer. “They’re hard to come by and they are expensive,” Leipold said. “But there are some people out there like that and we’re anxious to talk to them.”

Leipold didn’t mention names but among those Minnesota seems certain to consider is former Edina and Notre Dame star Anders Lee of the New York Islanders. He scored 28 goals and had 23 assists last season, and becomes an unrestricted free agent in July.

Lee turns 29 that month and is in the prime of his career. He might command a new contract of $7 million or more per season not only for his offensive production but also because of his leadership.

Could the Wild sign even two premiere goal scorers? “It would be hard to get two premier goal scorers but I guess it defines what you mean by premiere,” Leipold said. “I mean if we have $12 million available to us this summer we can make some noise and that’s what we plan to do.”

What’s the likelihood of Minnesota coming up with at least one very productive forward? “I think the likelihood is very good. I think we will,” Leipold said. “Minnesota is a great place to play, and we have a lot going for us right now.

“We’ve got some really young players that would be appealing to anybody looking at coming to our team. And we have some experienced players that know how to do it, know how to win, and know how to play in the playoffs. We will be in a good place come this summer so I am excited about that.”

Worth Noting

Did Leipold labor over whether to retain Bruce Boudreau as coach after the Wild didn’t make the playoffs? “Not at all,” Leipold said. “Done deal.”

Leipold has a high regard for Boudreau who has coached the team for three seasons. “I like Bruce. I like the way he coaches,” Leipold said. “I think he’s got command of the players.

“Last year, I am not blaming Bruce on how things ended up. This is a tough league. I don’t know if everybody understands that. Only half the teams make it (into the playoffs). We got knocked out there at the end. But that happens.

“Look what’s happening (upsets) in the playoffs, this is completely crazy. There’s a lot of parity in this league.”

Ex-Vikings defensive lineman Bob Lurtsema had a blue-collar mentality when he played in the 1970s. He looks at players in the NFL Draft and sees impressive athletic skills, but not necessarily hard workers. “I would draft on work ethic alone, almost,” he told Sports Headliners.

What percent of players have a work ethic meeting Lurtsema’s expectations? “Not enough, I will tell you that. If I say 50 percent, I would be high.”

Lurtsema on Kirk Cousins, the Vikings’ $84 million quarterback: “The kid has a work ethic like you wouldn’t believe.”

Former Vikings center Matt Birk is a Renaissance man with his varied activities including public speaking, starting a new Catholic school in Burnsville and doing comedy at local venues for charity. Unity High School plans to open in the fall, and Birk will do his comedy act for a school fundraiser on May 4 at Royal Cliff in Eagan. Birk will perform at the Gasthof in Minneapolis May 3 for Teach for Christ.

During playing days with the Vikings, Birk owned two Minneapolis-St. Paul restaurants. He told Sports Headliners he’s not likely to go back into that business.

“No, never. (Well), never say never.”

The Twins try for a home sweep against the Orioles in today’s series finale at Target Field. Minnesota has won 11 straight over Baltimore dating back to last year.

Minnesota designated hitter Nelson Cruz is hitting .455, with four home runs and six RBI against the Orioles in five games this season.

The Twins have placed catcher Willians Astudillo on the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain, an injury he suffered yesterday afternoon running the bases. Astudillo has played in 16 games, hitting .327 (16-for-49) with four doubles, two home runs and seven RBI. The Twins recalled outfielder Jake Cave from Triple-A Rochester to replace Astudillo on the 25-man roster.

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Play-by-Play Voices Last Forever

Posted on April 18, 2019April 18, 2019 by David Shama

I attended a breakfast club gathering a couple of weeks ago to hear guest speaker Jim Nantz. The voice of CBS sports, in town for the Minneapolis Final Four, charmed his audience at the Minneapolis Club, just like he has done for decades providing play-by-play of America’s more important basketball, football and golf events.

And I am reminded how favorite broadcasters become part of our lives. At least the great ones do, and we revel in their calls of games that even become lasting moments and sounds in American culture (Russ Hodges: “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”)

I wasn’t old enough in 1951 to hear Hodges as he described Bobby Thomson’s home run that beat the Dodgers in their famous playoff game, but there are many words and phrases I have witnessed and heard from well-known sports broadcasters. Here are a couple that are memorable for me:

“And we’ll see you tomorrow night,” said Jack Buck after Kirby Puckett’s heroics lifted the Twins to a Game Six 1991 World Series win over the Braves.

“Hide the women and children,” said Keith Jackson when a herd of college football players were stampeding and throwing their girth around on a fall Saturday afternoon.

The first play-by-play voice earning my affection was Chick Hearn. Minneapolis businessman Bob Short moved the Lakers from Minnesota to Los Angeles after the 1959-60 season, and Hearn became the broadcast voice of the NBA team. When the Lakers were in the playoffs in the early 1960s Short arranged to have games televised back to Minneapolis, and that was my introduction to the exciting voice and words of Hearn.

“(Elgin) Baylor yo-yoing the ball at the top of the key,” Hearn might have said. “He fakes the defender into the popcorn machine and shoots from 23 feet.”

To an impressionable youth who loved the Lakers of Baylor and Jerry West, these weren’t clichés. Instead, Hearn’s words were inspiring descriptions of heroes and a great team lost when the Lakers moved west. I even wrote a long letter to Hearn gushing over his Lakers broadcasts, but never received a reply back. Maybe my correspondence ended up in the popcorn machine.

Hearn was part of a “Mount Rushmore” group of play-by-play guys who blessed the airwaves of southern California in the last century. Hearn with the Lakers, Ralph Lawler with the Clippers, Dick Enberg with the Angels and Vin Scully with the Dodgers.

What a hall of fame foursome!

Scully is a personal favorite and perhaps America’s all-time favorite play-by-play man. He had a 67-year run doing Dodgers games, dating back to the franchise playing in Brooklyn before moving to L.A. He also worked the national scene for awhile doing golf and NFL games. It was the velvety voiced Scully who called the Joe Montana to Dwight Clark touchdown that gave the 49ers a famous NFC playoff win in 1982.

I can’t let a roll call of national names go by without writing about Bob Costas. Great voice, smart, prepared and honest. With some guys you know there’s going to be a lot of bull, but not with Costas. He entertains but doesn’t forget he is a journalist. Besides that, he has carried a Mickey Mantle baseball card in his wallet for years. That alone scores points with me.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Kevin Harlan is the best play-by-play guy to ever work in this town for any of the pro teams or the Golden Gophers. He was the original radio voice of the Timberwolves and now has been on the national scene for years calling NBA and NFL games. From the beginning I liked his voice, intelligence, passion and cockiness (without being obnoxious).

Turns out Harlan and broadcast partner Tom Hanneman were practical jokers off the air, per Bill Robertson. “If you went on a (Timberwolves) road trip, your luggage could be missing for awhile,” said Robertson who was the team’s media relations man back in the 1990s.

My preference for Harlan drew comments from a couple of friends after I published my opinion. Somebody asked about Ray Scott, and another person brought up Ray Christensen. Let’s take them one at a time, while getting sidetracked by Halsey Hall.

Anyone who brings up Scottie has my immediate respect. I have never cared for guys full of themselves who can talk from sunrise until dusk. Scott was “Mr. Brevity” and he understood that doing play-by-play on TV wasn’t the same as on radio where more words are needed to describe what’s happening.

“Starr…Dowler…touchdown!” That was the efficient style Scott used to describe a Green Bay Packers touchdown pass from quarterback Bart Starr to wide receiver Boyd Dowler long ago.

Scott was part of the Twins broadcast crew in the 1960s and worked with perhaps the most loveable radio-TV character in the history of this state, Halsey Hall. He was a color commentator on Twins games and although he didn’t do play-by-play it’s impossible to leave him out of this column. He was just too entertaining to not write about today.

Halsey was a Minneapolis newspaper man for decades and it’s said his desk drawer might have contained a month’s old sandwich. He hated air travel because he thought it was risky. The standing joke was he would approach the airline counter and say, “Give me two chances to Chicago.”

Halsey’s passions included baseball, adult beverages and onions. He liked to carry a flask in his coat pocket, fearing that during his travels he might encounter a place where alcohol was prohibited. Recollection is he enjoyed onions so much he chomped on a whole one like most of us would attack an apple.

Halsey was a peerless storyteller including baseball tales. He was so entertaining in the 1960s and 1970s I used to welcome rain delays during Twins games. To fill air time until play resumed, Halsey told stories and they were marvelous.

Part of the joy in listening to Halsey was his infectious laugh. He often roared with laughter early on and throughout the telling of his tales. His own amusement and chuckling could get the tears rolling down your cheeks as you joined in.

I have heard or read more than a few Halsey stories over the years but a new one was offered recently by Robertson, who grew up in St. Paul and has spent much of his adult life in Minnesota. Halsey and another iconic Twins broadcast voice, Herb Carneal, were on the air years ago when they noticed Minneapolis Tribune writer Tom Briere had a problem. Somehow the Twins beat writer had caught his necktie in his typewriter.

As Briere kept punching keys trying to solve his dilemma, Carneal watched with amusement and Halsey roared with laughter. “Halsey was hysterical for about a minute and a half,” said Robertson who has listened to the segment on a Twins commemorative cassette.

Not that Halsey couldn’t stir up his own incident. One time Halsey was smoking a cigar in the press box and flicking his ashes. The ashes ignited paper on the floor, setting off a small fire. Halsey’s sport coat, hanging on a chair, caught fire. Twins catcher Jerry Zimmerman later quipped, “Halsey Hall is quite a guy. He can turn an ordinary sport coat into a blazer in nothing flat.’”

Ray Christensen? There will never be anyone like him to generations of Gophers fans. He did U play-by-play football for 50 years, and basketball almost as long. A private and proud man, he liked working the basketball games without a broadcast partner. Perhaps the reason was he thought basketball games moved too fast to interject another voice into the reporting.

Ray had an authoritative voice that greeted listeners with, “This is Ray Christensen.” The opening words to his broadcasts commanded attention and were almost imposing but certainly not threatening. You thought maybe the Lord himself helped him perfect his familiar welcome to listeners.

Ray was sometimes partial toward the Gophers when seeing the action on the field or the court with a maroon and gold bias (just the way most fans like their local broadcasters). But he didn’t over dramatize things and become whiny. He was too intelligent and classy to ever let his work spiral into embarrassment. Yet you could hear the passion in his voice, and his affection for the Gophers.

Ray was a kind man and I never recall him saying a bad word about anyone on or off the air. He remembered the names of so many people including those he didn’t see very often. Always treating others, including his broadcast audience, with respect.

Ray passed away in 2017. Jim Nantz would have liked and admired him.

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Ben Leber: Vikings Need to Be ‘Tougher’

Posted on April 16, 2019April 16, 2019 by David Shama

Ben Leber has transitioned successfully into broadcasting, and unlike many former athletes who speak into a microphone, the ex-Vikings linebacker talks honestly to his audience. As a sideline radio reporter at Vikings games and college football TV analyst, Leber is informative and fun to hear because of his candid approach.

Leber retired from the NFL in 2012 after 10 seasons but remains an authority on the Vikings. Minnesota had a disappointing 8-7-1 record last season and failed to make the playoffs after summer predictions included the team among Super Bowl favorites. What do the Vikings need to do to be better in 2019?

Leber’s answer that the Vikings need to be “tougher” may surprise some fans because the club has built its reputation with defense and is led by demanding fifth-year head coach Mike Zimmer. But Leber told Sports Headliners the Purple took a step back last year from where they had been on both defense and offense.

“I think there needs to be an attitude and a stigma that’s set early on in the (2019) season that they have to play a ferocious and intimidating style,” Leber said. “I think everybody knows they will be well coached in Xs and Os, (but) now I think they need to take it to another level and…be the dogs on the field. Be the guys that people are afraid of. I don’t think that they struck fear in anybody last year.”

Leber believes the Vikings had an intimidating identity in 2017 when they went 13-3 in the regular season and won their first playoff game in the 2018 postseason. Leber said foes were “scared” of the defensive unit, and they over game planned about how to deal with Minnesota’s No. 1 ranked NFL defense. But in the NFC title game against the Eagles, things changed. Here is Leber’s analysis of why the Vikings experienced an embarrassing 38-7 loss costing them the opportunity to play in the 2018 Minneapolis Super Bowl:

“Philadelphia basically said, we don’t care who your stars are. We don’t care what the public thinks and what the media thinks. We’re going to attack those guys and put them in vulnerable situations, and they did.

“I think that (approach by opponents) carried over…and that’s what you saw this last year (2018). Early in the season the defense especially—just sort of scrambling to try to readjust itself—that the teams were attacking them so directly.”

In Leber’s view the offense also needs “to scare people in the run game.” Running back Dalvin Cook, whose first two seasons in the NFL have been limited by injuries, could play a major success role for the Vikings because he has big play potential that few NFL rushers possess. “Anything that makes Dalvin a true weapon where defenses have to worry about a home run shot with him, that’s a threat,” Leber said.

Perception can be reality, and Leber said the likelihood of the Vikings making consistent and productive plays in the run game is important. The benefit is that when defenders respect the run, play action passes are more likely to succeed, receivers have a better chance to get open and the offense simplifies for quarterback Kirk Cousins.

In addition to broadcasting, Leber is active speaking to groups, particularly corporations. He was raised in small towns in Iowa and South Dakota, and he shares a message with audiences about experiences in early life and growing into a man.

“I would say the biggest thing that I try to drive home is football wasn’t easy for me,” Leber said about his speaking assignments. “Not because of the physical aspect of it, but because of the self limitations that I put on myself, and I think that can apply to everything.

“I grew up listening to the labels that I came from a place…where people in a small town don’t succeed. I came from a place where people like to place labels on people, and I walked away going off to college believing those things. Almost holding myself back because I was sort of scared to succeed… .”