Twins – Page 165 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

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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St. Peter: Twins Built Better Than 2013

Posted on May 21, 2014March 15, 2023 by David Shama

Nobody is predicting the Twins will win the American League Central or even secure a wildcard position in the playoffs, but after about two months the home team certainly looks better than last year’s club that finished with a 66-96 record.

“I certainly believe so,” Twins president Dave St. Peter told Sports Headliners.

The Twins are 22-21 after last night’s interleague win over the Padres in San Diego. On this date a year ago the Twins were 18-25, and seven games out of first place.

The 2014 Twins, although six games behind the division-leading Tigers, and are in second place and have won three consecutive series. One was against the Tigers in Detroit, with the other two in Minneapolis facing the 2013 World Series champion Red Sox and also the Mariners.

The Twins have managed to play around .500 baseball despite a difficult early season schedule. Injuries to outfielders Oswaldo Arcia and Josh Willingham, and first baseman Joe Mauer have been a challenge, too.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that we believe this baseball team is built to be better than what we’ve been in the last three years,” St. Peter said. “That isn’t saying much because we haven’t been very good. We need to get better.”

The team’s last three regular season records were 66-96 twice and 63-99. Coming out of spring training there was hope but no assurance this season would be better. The starting pitching was a concern and fans had minimal optimism about run production.

St. Peter said the team’s bullpen has often been “very good” this spring while the ongoing effort is to restore “credibility” among the starting pitchers who must show more consistency. The offense has been much better than expected with the Twins fifth in American League runs scored. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but, nonetheless, we’ve been encouraged by a variety of different developments,” St. Peter said.

Ask St. Peter about early season Twins MVP’s and he mentions closer Glen Perkins, new starter Phil Hughes, new catcher Kurt Suzuki, third baseman Trevor Plouffe and second baseman Brian Dozier who has been statistically more impressive than anyone on the roster. Dozier, in his third season with the Twins, is tied for fourth in AL home runs, third in stolen bases and first in runs scored.

St. Peter has praise, too, for manager Ron Gardenhire and the coaching staff. “I think our manager and coaching staff have always done a great job here. Again, long way (for the team) to go.

“They (the staff) certainly should get credit for the continued evolution of some of our core players. Guys that maybe people had questions about. Whether it be a Plouffe, or a Dozier, or some of our bullpen guys, or what have you. There’s no doubt that the collective coaching staff deserves some credit and ultimately Ron Gardenhire is the leader of that group.”

The Twins made a habit of being blown out of games by the mid-innings last season. This year has been different and the team has not only stayed in games but rallied from behind, or overcome tie scores. “As we get into the heart of the season I’d like to think we’re in a position here where we not only can surprise some people but ultimately hopefully we can contend (for the playoffs),” St. Peter said.

The Twins haven’t been a contender since 2010 when they won their second consecutive AL Central title. The 2014 club still has most of its season ahead and has much to prove. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but, nonetheless, we’ve been encouraged by a variety of different developments,” St. Peter said.

Worth Noting

Each major league baseball team is guaranteed a roster spot for one player in the All-Star game. The 2014 game is in Minneapolis but nothing in the MLB rules guarantees extra roster spots for the host club. Closer Glen Perkins, an All-Star last season, and second baseman Brian Dozier are leading Twins candidates to participate in the game but first baseman Joe Mauer, who has only six extra base hits and is hitting .282, needs to pick up his production pronto before All-Star rosters are finalized in early July. Mauer has played in six All-Star games and his reported $23 million salary is among the highest in baseball.

St. Peter said Mauer is healthy now and mentioned other Twins All-Star candidates include catcher Kurt Suzuki and starting pitcher Phil Hughes. “We’ll have at least one All-Star and the play on the field will dictate whether we have more than one,” St. Peter said.

The fourth seeded Gophers baseball team plays its opening Big Ten Tournament game tonight in Omaha starting at 9 p.m. against fifth seeded Michigan. Gophers right-handed senior pitcher Alec Crawford from Wilton, Iowa was voted All-Big Ten Third Team by the conference coaches. Catcher Austin Athmann from Cold Spring was a unanimous All-Big Ten Freshman Team choice. Big Ten honors were announced yesterday.

For the first time in MIAC history one school has teams in both the NCAA Division III softball and baseball national tournaments in the same season. The St. Thomas softball team, 42-7, plays its opening game Thursday against Salisbury (Md.) in the eight-team, double-elimination tournament in Tyler, Texas. The Tommies have earned their fifth trip to nationals in 13 seasons but first since 2006.

The St. Thomas baseball team, 37-7, opens play Friday at 10 a.m. against defending champion Linfield (Ore.) in the eight-team, double-elimination tournament in Appleton, Wis. This is the Tommies’ fifth trip to nationals in the last 16 years and second in three seasons.

Gophers basketball coach Richard Pitino has been on the job for about 14 months and has yet to gain a recruiting commitment from a big name Minnesota high school recruit, but that’s likely to change with his 2015 class. Look for top 100 recruits Jarvis Johnson from DeLaSalle and Alex Illikainen from Grand Rapids to listen hard to Pitino, with either or both likely to become Gophers. Pitino probably realizes the chances of chasing Big Ten titles without one or two star contributors from Minnesota high schools are minimal.

Gophers football coach Jerry Kill, when asked on WCCO Radio last Sunday morning about redshirt freshmen who could contribute to the team’s success next fall mentioned running back Berkley Edwards, 6-foot-10 tight end Nate Wozniak and linebackers Ray Dixon and De’Niro Laster.

There’s probably more willingness among NFL owners than ever before to consider northern cities as Super Bowl sites. It’s not a trend but northern Super Bowls are more common than years ago. The 2014 game was in New Jersey and because the next three Super Bowls will be played in warm weather cities, Minneapolis likely benefitted in winning the 2018 game in a vote of league owners yesterday.

Pete Prisco from Cbssports.com posted his post-NFL Draft power rankings last Thursday and listed the Vikings at No. 27 among 30 teams. “It’s all about the quarterback position for the Vikings,” wrote Prisco who ranks the three other NFC North Division teams ahead of Minnesota.

Prisco has the Packers No. 8, Bears No. 12 and Lions No. 22. The Super Bowl champion Seahawks are his No. 1 team.

Dennis Schapiro, who died last week in Minneapolis at age 67, was a terrific editor and friend of mine. Condolences to Schapiro’s family including uncle Sid Hartman.

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