Twins – Page 147 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

All Bets on Regarding Twins Finish

Posted on March 4, 2016March 4, 2016 by David Shama

Twins president Dave St. Peter believes the American League Central will be so competitive that even the 2015 World Series champion Royals could finish last in the division this season. “I don’t think there is any doubt that every team is probably capable of winning it (the division title), and every team is probably capable of finishing in last as well,” St. Peter told Sports Headliners by telephone from Florida.

The Twins jumped from a 70-92 record in 2014 to 83-79 last year. That record gave Minnesota a second place finish in the division behind the Royals (95-67). The hope St. Peter has now is the club will continue its improvement in 2016 and reach the playoffs.

Miguel Sano (photo courtesy of Minnesota Twins).

Unlike last year, the Twins will have starting pitcher Ervin Santana and young slugger Miguel Sano on the roster for the entire season. The overall personnel, including the addition of South Korean DH Byung Ho Park, could be the best in years. “We believe we can compete for a division championship, “St. Peter said.

A lot of baseball authorities, though, think the Royals will repeat as division champs, and there are minimal predictions the Twins will finish first. The Twins were listed No. 22 among 30 MLB teams in a ranking of MLB teams by the February 15 issue of Sports Illustrated. Minnesota’s Central Division rivals all had higher rankings, with the White Sox No. 17, Tigers 16 and Royals 10.

Don’t expect the team’s won-lost record in spring training to be a precursor of regular season success or failure. At the top of the team’s goals is to have its best players available when the season opens in Baltimore April 4. “We want to make sure we maintain the health of our team,” St. Peter said. “So far so good.”

Look for Sano, Park and center fielder Byron Buxton to log a lot of playing time in spring training. Sano is adjusting to a new position, right field. Park, playing in America for the first time, is acclimating to the highest level of baseball. The team’s center field job is vacant and the speedy Buxton has been anointed as the regular for awhile but must prove he can hit big league pitching.

Among the Twins’ best prospects is outfielder Max Kepler, the 23-year-old native of Germany who probably isn’t ready yet for the big league. St. Peter, though, said he will be surprised if at some point this season Kepler doesn’t play for the Twins. “We have high hopes for him,” St. Peter said.

Twins legend Rod Carew, who could find out this summer if he can have a heart transplant, is in spring training with the team and assisting daily with hitting instruction. Carew will be with the club in Fort Myers through March 15. “He is working hard,” St. Peter said. “He feels great.”

With American and Cuban relations becoming friendlier, the Twins may be fortunate to have a special connection on that baseball crazy island. Cuban native and Twins legend Tony Oliva has a brother in Cuba who is prominently involved with baseball. Decades ago the Twins were aggressive in signing Cuban players including Oliva and Zoilo Versalles who was the AL MVP in 1965. Oliva regularly visits Cuba to see family members.

St. Peter said tickets remain for the team’s home opener on April 11 against the White Sox. He expects a sellout to be announced later this month.

Worth Noting

The Minneapolis City Council votes March 18 to approve details for renovation of city-owned Target Center. A $130 million renovation funded mostly by the city and Timberwolves is expected to move ahead with work starting in May, including enhancements to most of the Target Center suites, and installation of a new scoreboard. Next spring and summer the building will be closed for events, including Lynx games, so that more thorough renovation can be done.

Look for an announcement later this year on where the Lynx will play in 2017 while Target Center is being renovated.

Vikings Head coach Mike Zimmer and family are starting the Mike Zimmer Foundation to honor his deceased wife Vikki who died in 2009. The foundation’s mission is to better the lives of children including through learning about healthy, active lifestyles.

The Gophers’ football offense had its struggles last season and finished 13th in the Big Ten in scoring offense at 22.5 points per game. Minnesota coach Tracy Claeys was asked Monday what the strengths of the offense will be. “Wide receiver; we should be awfully good and…tailback pretty good. I would argue tight end wise we can be as good as anybody. I think everything is a strength on offense. If we get our offensive line straightened out, then I think we’ll score a lot more points than we did this last year.”

The Gophers hold their Pro Day on Monday for players who have used up their eligibilities. Pro football evaluators are expected to look at these players from last year’s Gophers team: Brian Bobek, Briean Boddy-Calhoun, De’Vondre Campbell, Theiren Cockran, Antonio Johnson, KJ Maye, Peter Mortell, Eric Murray, Miles Thomas and Rodrick Williams. Pro Day will be held at the Gibson-Nagurski Football Complex and is closed to the public.

The Capital Club, featuring local sports figures as speakers, hosts Claeys April 13 at Town & Country Club in St. Paul. For more information about membership, contact Patrick Klinger, Patrick@thebrandenhancementgroup.com.

Over 100 people at the club listened to former North Stars player and executive Lou Nanne earlier this week. He had the audience laughing with his many stories. Nanne, who started doing TV analysis 52 years ago at the boys high school hockey tournaments, is working the Class AA games this year. He told Sports Headliners the most challenging experience over the years has been monitoring emotions when his son Marty, and grandsons Tyler and Louie, played in the tournament.

MIAC men’s basketball regular season champ St. Thomas hosts a four team opening weekend NCAA Division III tournament this Friday and Saturday. The 24-3 nationally- ranked Tommies are the only program in the country with 11 consecutive conference titles, 11 straight NCAA appearances, and 11 consecutive 20-plus win seasons.

The Tommies will play Iowa Conference playoff champion Central College of Pella, Iowa (19-9) starting at 8 p.m. Friday in Schoenecker Arena. The 5:30 p.m. game matches UW-Oshkosh (18-9) against Elmhurst (Ill.) (21-6). The winners meet Saturday at 7 p.m. for advancement to the Division III Sweet 16.

Waseca’s four overtime 103-100 boys basketball win over Marshall last night is drawing lots of media attention today including online from the Washington Post. The game will long be remembered as a Minnesota prep classic.

Author Patrick Mader said about 1,000 copies have been sold of his book “Minnesota Gold: Conversations with Northland Athletes Competing on the World Stage.” Mader, whose book came out last October, profiles 57 Minnesotans, including past Olympians, and details their lives and accomplishments. More at Patrickmader.com.

The Minnesota Wild, looking better in recent days for its playoff drive, are in Buffalo tomorrow afternoon. The Wild is 6-2-2 in its last 10 games against the Sabres. A year ago January, Minnesota goalie Devan Dubnyk shutout the Sabres 7-0—the largest margin of victory in Wild franchise history.

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No Escaping Franchises’ Wanderlust

Posted on February 22, 2016February 22, 2016 by David Shama

A trip to southern California reminded me about the nomadic ways of sports franchises. Chargers board chair Dean Spanos has put on hold plans to vacate San Diego and play in Los Angeles—contemplating at least one final attempt for a private-publicly funded stadium in his NFL city.

Thank the Lord it only cost a billion dollars to keep the Vikings in Minneapolis.

When I started thinking about the franchise history of Minnesota’s professional sports teams, I got a bad case of the yips. Vikings, Twins, North Stars, Lakers—yikes! No wonder my right hand shakes while I try to hold a cup of coffee.

American sports teams can move around like doughnut franchises. The NBA’s Kings, for example, started as the Rochester Royals. They became the Cincinnati Royals, and later the Kansas City Kings, before emerging as the Sacramento Kings.

Baseball’s Braves had a long stay in Boston before a sometimes glorious run in Milwaukee during the 1950s and ‘60s. They broke many hearts in Dairyland by relocating to Georgia where those ambitious Braves are counting down the days before moving into their third stadium in greater Atlanta.

Long ago the football Cardinals played second string to the Bears in Chicago and flirted with a move to Minnesota before landing in St. Louis. Then the Cardinals decided Arizona was a better place to roost. St. Louis got its revenge by taking the Rams from L.A. That lasted until last month when the NFL approved a Rams return to southern California where they will play in a new palace said to be the next big thing among football stadiums.

Most Vikings fans could care less about the Rams, who every couple of decades jilt either L.A. or St. Louis. But Purple Nation is still rejoicing that Los Angeles, without any football for about 20 years, didn’t lure the Vikings to southern California where now either the Oakland Raiders (previously the L.A. Raiders) or the Chargers (long ago the L.A. Chargers) might join the Rams in that new palace in suburban Inglewood.

While you may not hate L.A., I do! I remember Los Angeles took the Lakers away from Minneapolis in 1960. To me, it was like the baseball Dodgers moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. The Lakers won five pro championships in Minneapolis, and became a dynasty again in the 1960s and beyond playing in southern California. This town lost some phenomenal basketball when it missed out on watching Lakers superstars Elgin Baylor and Jerry West in the 1960s.

Not that this area can claim purity in chasing franchises from another city. Major league baseball began here in 1961 when the Senators moved from Washington, D.C. That was the lowly Senators franchise from Damn Yankees Broadway fame who by 1960 was still losing lots of games but loading up with promising big leaguers. In 1965 players like Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison and Camilo Pascual helped form the core of a Twins team that lost to the Dodgers in the World Series.

Less than 15 years later Twins owner Calvin Griffith was interested in abandoning Met Stadium, a facility the Vikings also pronounced inadequate. The Met’s sightlines and smaller seating capacity favored baseball but Griffith knew that at least for awhile he could make more money in a new ballpark. As for the Vikings, rumors persisted they might move to Memphis—not only the home of Elvis Presley, but where Purple general manager Mike Lynn worked before coming north.

The Metrodome opened in 1982 and saved both the Twins and Vikings for Minnesota—at least for awhile. By 1997 Twins owner Carl Pohlad let it be known North Carolina could be the franchise’s next stop. Pohlad wanted a baseball only stadium for his team and there was no disputing the Teflon topped dome was a better home for the Vikings than the Twins. Eventually the Twins and Hennepin County came up with $545 million to build Target Field and keep major league baseball here.

By the late 1990s the Vikings were also grumbling about the dome and its limited gameday revenues. As the years went by the franchise’s frustrations increased and so did rumors about moving to Los Angeles. But in 2012 the state of Minnesota, the Vikings, and city of Minneapolis pledged to build the U.S. Bank Stadium that opens this summer.

Memories and wounds from the relocation of the North Stars by villainous owner Norm Green are still vivid. Serenaded by departing choruses from fans of “Norm Green sucks!”, the North Stars’ last season in Minnesota was in 1992-1993—just two years after losing to the Penguins in the Stanley Cup finals. The state of hockey was left without an NHL team when the Stars skated off to Dallas.

For years the North Stars, like the Minneapolis Lakers before them, complained about their home facility. The North Stars wanted more suites and other revenue enhancements at Met Center. The Lakers were bedeviled by frustrations in finding dates and scheduling games at the Minneapolis Auditorium. The community didn’t do enough to help both franchises with their facilities needs.

Health club gurus Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner built Target Center with private funding to bring the NBA back to Minneapolis in 1989. Later they had negotiations with a group interested in taking the franchise to New Orleans. The city now owns the arena and is working with Wolves owner Glen Taylor to renovate Target Center and enhance revenues while ensuring the team remains in Minneapolis.

The city of St. Paul and state of Minnesota answered mayor Norm Coleman’s pleas to replace the St. Paul Civic Center and return the NHL to Minnesota. The $130 million cost to build the Xcel Energy Center was a lot more than the potential funding needed to renovate Met Center and keep the North Stars in Bloomington. No one will argue, though, the “X” is a premier hockey facility.

All is quiet on the relocation front in Minnesota—at least for awhile. Our “doughnut shops” aren’t available to Los Angeles or any other city right now.

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Ex-Gopher AD Backs Frazier for U Job

Posted on January 31, 2016January 31, 2016 by David Shama

McKinley Boston will send a “letter of nomination” soon to University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler regarding the school’s vacant athletic director position. Boston, the former Gophers AD in the early 1990s, is promoting Sean Frazier for the opening at Minnesota that is being filled on an interim basis by Beth Goetz.

Boston, who retired as the AD at New Mexico State about a year ago, not only served as a leader in athletics and academics at Minnesota but also played on the Gophers’ last Big Ten football championship team in 1967. Because of Boston’s knowledge about the University and state of Minnesota, he believes Frazier would be the right fit for the Gophers’ opening created by the dismissal of Norwood Teague last year.

Boston, an African-American, was the first minority person to become athletic director at the U. About 10 years ago he became a founder of a group to mentor and grow the number of African-American athletic directors. Among those in the group being mentored was Frazier who is now the athletic director at Northern Illinois after leaving the University of Wisconsin where he was deputy athletic director.

Frazier, who won’t speak publicly about athletic director openings at other schools, has impressed Boston over the years and the two men are friends. In an email to Sports Headliners Boston described Frazier as an individual who “should be a strong candidate” for the Gophers’ position. During a telephone conversation Boston said he expects to send his “letter of nomination” within the next several days.

The Gophers’ search is just beginning, and finding Teague’s successor will be a priority for Kaler who does know Frazier. Earlier this month the two men were in San Antonio where the Northern Illinois Athletic Department was recognized as the NCAA’s 2016 winner of the organization’s diversity and inclusion award.

As a leader of athletic departments Frazier has made a commitment to minorities and women, but his experiences and skill set go far beyond that initiative. He has been an athletic director on the Division I, II and III levels—gaining varied experiences working with different sports and having responsibilities in hiring coaches, fundraising, developing facilities and fostering academic performance by athletes.

At Wisconsin he was AD Barry Alvarez’s top assistant and he oversaw day to day operations of the Badgers’ 23 sport program. Alvarez runs one of the nation’s top athletic programs but delegated many of the details, including revenue development, to Frazier.

Frazier, who came to Northern Illinois in 2013, has experience working with national groups including a past assignment as chair of the NCAA hockey committee. He also knows Jim Delany and might well have the Big Ten commissioner’s endorsement for athletic director vacancies at Illinois and Minnesota.

While Frazier isn’t talking about those two Big Ten positions, it’s believed Illinois has already contacted him, and the process to fill that job may be moving faster than at Minnesota where Kaler has indicated a spring hire is likely.

Michigan introduced African-American Warde Manuel as its new athletic director on Friday. Manuel, who is a former Wolverines football player, had been the AD at Connecticut and is another individual mentored by Boston. Manuel and Frazier have similar experiences in athletics administration, and as college athletes. “You could certainly put them in the same category,” Boston said.

Frazier is originally from Long Island, New York and played football for Alabama from 1987-1991. Known as an extroverted personality who has made a name for himself in college athletics, Frazier reportedly dismissed interest in the Syracuse University AD opening last year.

Worth Noting

Bill and Kay McRreavy, long time Gophers boosters, were curious when their doorbell rang at 9:30 p.m. on a Saturday earlier this month. To their surprise, Jerry and Rebecca Kill came to say goodbye as they prepared to leave Minneapolis and relocate to Illinois. The Kills are a remarkable couple and they no doubt made time to say farewells to other Gophers loyalists who helped them at Minnesota during the last several years.

It might be that Minneapolis and U.S. Bank Stadium weren’t selected for the 2020 College Football Playoff Game because the site selection group was concerned about pushback from corporate sponsors who already are coming here in 2018 for the Super Bowl and 2019 for the Final Four. When there is another bid opportunity for games beyond 2020, look for Minneapolis to try again.

Minneapolis businessman and Taste of the NFL founder Wayne Kostroski leaves tomorrow for northern California and Super Bowl 50. This will be the 25th Taste of the NFL, with activities scheduled at the Bay Area’s historic Cow Palace that is celebrating its 75th anniversary. The event raises money for local and national food banks.

“We are proud to be celebrating 25 years and over $24 million, (and) nearly $200 million meals to food banks and nonprofit organizations across the country,” Kostroski said.

The Twins Winter Caravan drew large crowds again this January as past and present players made stops in regional communities. The Twins have staged the caravan for 56 years, the longest duration of any offseason fan tour in baseball. Twins legend Tony Oliva has participated in each caravan since 1964.

With Torii Hunter retired, it will be interesting to see who emerges as club leaders in 2016. Third baseman Trevor Plouffe, 29 and entering his sixth major league season, might be a candidate. He is personable and had the kind of season in 2015 that provides a platform for leadership.

He set single season highs last year in hits (140), RBI (86), runs scored (74), games (152), at-bats (573) and triples (4). Plouffe’s .972 fielding percentage ranked third among major league third basemen last season.

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