Twins – Page 163 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Beer Locations to Increase at U Stadium

Posted on July 10, 2014July 10, 2014 by David Shama

When the Gophers play their opening game of the season at TCF Bank Stadium on August 28 against Eastern Illinois fans will have more locations to buy beer and wine.

A source told Sports Headliners that approximately 150 points of sale in the stadium will serve customers—about double the number from last season. That means about 150 workers available to sell alcohol in different parts of the stadium. Also new is beer and wine will be sold 90 minutes prior to kickoff and through the third quarter—compared with 60 minutes and through halftime in 2013.

The athletic department is making the changes to create a better fan experience. In the past, the stadium beer and wine locations were overcrowded (plaza area only) but being able to purchase those alcohol products at regular concession stands, creating additional points of sale, will provide more efficient service.

Beer and wine sales at TCF Bank Stadium began in 2012 and the athletic department has netted about $200,000 in profit the last two seasons. That profit is expected to increase this year but the department doesn’t see the alcohol sales so much as a revenue producer as it does filling a customer need. Most college stadiums don’t sell alcohol but in a pro sports town like Minneapolis the Gophers want to be competitive with amenities.

A few thousand or more University students typically attend Gophers home games and many are under the legal drinking age of 21 in Minnesota. Customers must show identification to purchase alcohol at the games. Despite the presence of beer and wine sales at TCF Bank Stadium, University officials didn’t see any significant increase in behavior problems with fans in 2012 and 2013.

Worth Noting

The Gophers’ opening football game on August 28 at TCF Bank Stadium will start at 6 p.m. and will be televised by the Big Ten Network. The Vikings play the same night starting at 7 p.m. in Nashville against the Titans in a preseason game televised by KARE 11.

BaseballAmerica.com released its midseason top 50 prospects list on Monday and five players from the Twins organization are in the group including outfielder Byron Buxton who is No. 1 in the rankings. Third baseman Miguel Sano is No. 9 while right-handed pitchers Jose Berrios, Kohl Stewart and Alex Meyer are No. 27, 30 and 32.

Fox Sports North will televise a replay of Minnesota’s 1965 MLB All-Star Game tonight at 5:30 p.m. and show the 1985 game on Friday at 11 p.m.

Metropolitan Stadium was the site of the 1965 game when the National League defeated the American League, 6-5. Harmon Killebrew homered and drove in two runs. Other Twins playing for the American League were Earl Battey, Jim “Mudcat” Grant, Jimmie Hall, Tony Oliva and Zoilo Versalles.

The Metrodome hosted the 1985 game and the National League won 6-1. The lone Twin in the game was reserve outfielder Tom Brunansky who went hitless in one at bat.

As part of All-Star weekend activities, the State Fairgrounds will be the site on Sunday of a first ever event—The Color Run MLB All-Star 5k Presented by Nike. Baseball alums at the event are expected to include former Twins Scott Erickson, Doug Mientkiewicz and Dave Winfield. The Color Run website describes a “unique paint race that celebrates health, happiness and individuality.” Participants are doused in a different colored powder at each kilometer. More on Sunday’s event at Allstargame.com/run.

Minnesota native and former Timberwolves executive Kevin McHale hasn’t been part of an NBA championship team since the Celtics won the title in 1986 but perhaps that will change in Houston where he is the Rockets head coach. If speculation turns into reality with the Rockets signing a superb free agent this summer, that could make Houston—already with star players in Dwight Howard and James Harden—a title contender for McHale, the ex-Celtics Hall of Fame power forward.

Joel Engel e-mailed that his son Derrick Engel, the former Gophers wide receiver, is “on track with his rehab” and hopes to be ready for private workouts in coming weeks. Engel had ACL surgery last December but is hopeful about a career in pro football.

Derrick’s younger brother Sean, who played for Chaska High School as a sophomore wide receiver, is now 6-foot-5 and a player to watch in the class of 2016.

The Twin Cities Dunkers continue to help fund the athletic needs of Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools. From equipment to transportation to uniforms, gifts from the Dunkers Fund have grown from $32,500 to $71,000 in the last two years and are expected to increase in 2014. “You have boosted confidence and pride in these kids on and off the playing field,” a coach told the organization.

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Mauer’s Grandpa Not Blaming Booing Fans

Posted on July 8, 2014July 8, 2014 by David Shama

Jake Mauer predicts his grandson Joe Mauer will hit over .300 before the season ends but told Sports Headliners he understands the frustration Twins fans have with their $23 million per season first baseman.

“He’s getting a big salary, he should produce,” Jake said. “That’s what the fans think and that’s what the fans want. He’s trying but it just don’t happen (yet). But I don’t blame the people.”

Jake said Joe has mentioned the possibility of being benched, and grandpa has thought too the former American League batting champion should come out of the lineup. “But they can’t bench him because he’s making so much money. They gotta have him in the lineup,” the older Mauer said.

Mauer is on the 15-day disabled list with a right oblique strain suffered several days ago. The injury to his side and its timing have added to the frustration for Mauer who was hitting a career low .260 on June 24 but raised his average to .271 on July 1. In the last 10 games before being sidelined he was hitting .359 and had 10 RBI (only 28 for the season). Jake predicts his grandson will not play again until July 18.

“He couldn’t understand the (poor hitting) stretch that he went through,” Jake said. “He’s never had it in his life. He starts coming out of it and then he gets hurt.

“He says, ‘What the heavens are going to happen next? Here I suffer for two months and then I start a string of going good and then I get hurt. It’s just terrible.’ ”

Jake said Joe’s struggles have at times caused his grandson’s spirits to be low. “He feels he’s letting the team down. He just can’t get the hits that bring in the runs.”

Jake, a former baseball player himself, mentored Joe as a child growing up in Saint Paul. What’s the problem with his grandson’s hitting this year?

Jake believes the concussion Mauer suffered last August and caused him to miss the remainder of the season is a factor. “I think it has hampered him. I really do.”

Mauer learned last summer and during the fall months the ongoing aftereffects of a concussion. He also could look at the history of close friend Justin Morneau who suffered a concussion in 2010. It has only been this season that Morneau, now with the Rockies, returned to being one of baseball’s more productive hitters.

A winner of three batting titles and .330 lifetime hitter going into this season, Mauer has not only produced minimal offensive numbers including only two home runs but has been striking out more than normal. Jake said Joe has told him his timing isn’t right.

Joe also critiqued himself by saying, according to Jake, that “sometimes I have a lazy swing. Sometimes I have a good swing but I am never consistent.”

Not only do fans wonder about the concussion but there is speculation Mauer is an old 31 after 10 seasons of absorbing the physical toll of catching. This season he was moved to first base but no one would argue the change has helped Mauer who hit .324 and .319 the last two seasons as a catcher.

Still, Jake said his grandson “definitely” will hit over .300 before the season ends. “He’s on his way and then he got hurt.”

Mauer’s contract runs through the 2018 season. Although the Twins have lost close to 100 games each of the last three seasons and appear destined for the same results in 2014, Jake said Joe doesn’t want to play for another team now or ever. “Oh, no. The Twins are his home and there is no other team that he would play for. …If the Twins won’t have him back (after the contract expires), he won’t come back with any other team except the Twins.”

At next week’s MLB All-Star Game in Minneapolis Jake and Joe could do something neither would have predicted. The two will probably watch the game together in the Target Field suite Mauer owns. A six-time All-Star, including last year, Mauer will have to watch from some place other than the field or the dugout.

“He doesn’t believe he belongs,” Jake said.

It’s been that kind of season so far.

Worth Noting

Mid-July is typically a time of minimal rain in Minneapolis and long range forecasts indicate dry weather for next Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game here.

Jim Kaat, 75 and among the former Twins who will be in town for All-Star activities, is an ambidextrous golfer who has shot his age both right and left handed. Kaat won 25 games in 1966, the most in Twins franchise history for a single season.

The Twins, who play on the road at Seattle and Colorado before the All-Star break in scheduling starts next Monday, have lost four consecutive series. Last night’s loss against the Mariners left the Twins with a 3-11 record since June 23.

The Eastern Illinois team the Gophers open their season with at home on August 28 is ranked No. 24 nationally among FCS teams by Athlon magazine’s college football issue. The Panthers were 12-2 last season but lost their star quarterback to the NFL and coach to Bowling Green.

North Dakota State, a program using Minnesota high school players for a foundation, will be chasing a record fourth consecutive FCS national title. The Bison are ranked No. 2 in the country by Athlon.

The magazine selected former Eagan High School player Zach Zenner, now at South Dakota State, as one of two running backs on its All-America first team.

New WCHA commissioner Bill Robertson recently was at Bemidji State and plans to visit all 10 of his schools before Christmas. Robertson, a Saint Paul native, became WCHA commissioner this spring succeeding Bruce McLeod.

Players from the Timberwolves NBA Summer League roster will scrimmage tomorrow night at Target Center starting at 7 p.m. The scrimmage is open to the public and admission is free. Timberwolves fan memberships are required to obtain autographs after the scrimmage. More details are available by contacting a Timberwolves membership sales rep at 612- 673-1234. The Timberwolves begin their NBA Summer League schedule on Saturday night in Las Vegas against the Mavericks.

The most recognizable names on the summer league roster are Gorgui Dieng, Zach LaVine, Shabazz Muhammad, Glenn Robinson III and Alexey Shved.

Registration for the 2015 Grandma’s Marathon opened last week. The annual Two Harbors-to-Duluth race is the 16th largest in the country and in 2014 had 7,964 participants.

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Jones Works on Gaining U Admission

Posted on June 18, 2014June 18, 2014 by David Shama

Jeff Jones is focusing on earning admission to the University of Minnesota by attending Minneapolis Public Schools summer classes, and recently took the ACT test for a fourth time hoping to improve his score.

A source told Sports Headliners Jones is working to raise his overall high school GPA and hopes that improvement along with a higher ACT score will allow him to gain admission to Minnesota and join the Gophers in time for August workouts and preparation for the 2014 season. Jones took the ACT test last Saturday and the results are expected later this month.

A combination of ACT result and GPA determines admission at Minnesota and other colleges. Jones signed a letter of intent last February to become a scholarship player for the Gophers but has known for awhile he faced academic challenges.

Jones is the only Rivals.com four-star recruit in the Gophers’ 2014 recruiting class. He drew national attention in the prestigious Under Armour All-America Game in Florida last January, gaining 72 yards and being named Team Nitro MVP.

Other members of the freshman class have started summer school classes at Minnesota and are becoming acclimated to the football program through conditioning and on the field drills. This is Gophers coach Jerry Kill’s fourth freshman group at Minnesota and potentially the best. The coaches have been impressed with the physical size of the players and wait with optimism to see what the freshmen can do during the coming months.

Preseason college football publications rank Jones as Minnesota’s top recruit. Lindy’s Sports rates Jones the No. 10 incoming freshman in the Big Ten Conference but many other Gophers newcomers are intriguing too. Kill and his staff have developed a reputation for identifying talent that is better than advertised.

That intriguing group could include tight end Gaelin Elmore, wide receiver Melvin Holland Jr., center Connor Mayes, quarterback Dimonic Roden–McKinzy and defensive lineman Andrew Stelter. Lindy’s identifies wide receiver Isaiah Gentry as its “sleeper” among the Minnesota freshmen. “Isaiah Gentry out of Cincinnati Moeller was one of the most overlooked players in the Buckeye State, and Minnesota is getting a steal in the speedy 6-4, 185-pound pass catcher,” the magazine wrote.

Worth Noting

The Gophers players and coaches received their Texas Bowl rings on Monday. Minnesota lost to Syracuse in the Houston-based game last December.

Prior Lake linebacker Blake Weber, who was the South Suburban Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2013, has decided to play football at Rochester Community and Technical College.

Gophers football coach Jerry Kill said on WCCO Radio’s “Sports Huddle” program on Sunday that earlier this month the great grandson of the legendary Bronko Nagurski attended Kill’s camp. Nagurski is one of five former Gophers to have his jersey number (72) retired.

Dr. John Baumgartner, who passed away last week, was an outstanding Gophers football player who lettered four times, from 1951-54.

That was Minneapolis entrepreneur, best-selling business author, motivational speaker and former Gophers golfer Harvey Mackay sitting with wife Carol Ann near courtside at Sunday’s Game Five in San Antonio when the Spurs defeated the Heat to win the NBA championship. Carol Ann gave her husband the trip as a Father’s Day present.

“I go almost every year to a finals game,” Mackay said. “This was the loudest arena I’ve ever been in.”

Mackay said he didn’t meet one San Antonio native who wasn’t aware of Sunday’s game. “What was normally a 15 minute drive from our hotel to the arena took two hours. We got out and walked the last five blocks.”

It will be interesting to see how Flip Saunders fills in his Timberwolves coaching staff after already naming Sidney Lowe and Sam Mitchell assistants. Saunders’ son Ryan, with a reputation for statistical analysis expertise, has NBA coaching experience with the Wizards and seems likely sooner or later to join the Timberwolves organization. Don Zierden, a Minnesota native, was an assistant to Flip Saunders with the Timberwolves, Pistons and Wizards in the past, and is still with the Wizards. Former NBA head coach and assistant Eric Musselman is close to Saunders and resigned earlier this season from Arizona State.

Xavier Thames, a 6-3 senior guard from San Diego State, is a player to follow in next week’s NBA Draft. Thames isn’t a “brand name” but he impressed with his shooting at the NBA Combine last month. It would be ironic if the Spurs drafted Thames since their NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard is from San Diego State and was also underrated coming out of college.

The June 18 issue of Sports Illustrated refers to Nick Gordon, who the Twins selected No. 5 overall in baseball’s amateur draft this month, as the “best high school shortstop in America.” The Gordon article includes praise from former Reds shortstop great Barry Larkin. “The kid fields with the best angles of any young shortstop I’ve ever seen,” Larkin said of Gordon who was the first infielder taken in the draft.

The same issue includes a story about the infamous O.J. Simpson whose wife Nicole was murdered 20 years ago this month. Simpson later dated Nicole look-a-like Christie Prody, a Minnesota native who the magazine reported is serving time in a Minnesota prison “after a conviction for stealing prescription painkillers from an elderly couple.” Simpson is incarcerated in Nevada from a 2008 conviction on charges that included kidnapping.

Twins first baseman Joe Mauer went 18 games without an RBI before driving in the team’s lone run in a 2-1 loss last night to the Red Sox. The face of the franchise, Mauer is hitting .258 with 16 RBI and two home runs this season. Not surprisingly, he isn’t among the top five fan vote recipients for starting American League first baseman in the 2014 All-Star Game in Minneapolis.

StubHub.com is listing tickets starting at $13.77, $170.30 and $331.45 for the All-Star Futures Game, Home Run Derby and All-Star Game in Minneapolis. Top price listed for the July15 All-Star Game is $11,002.00.

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