David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Twins Pondered Re-Signing Morneau

Posted on February 28, 2014February 28, 2014 by David Shama

Contrary to what fans may believe, the Twins were interested in signing Justin Morneau during the off-season. Team president Dave St. Peter told Sports Headliners this week there were discussions last fall before Morneau accepted instead an offer from the Rockies.

“This is a guy that we have a very close relationship with,” St. Peter said. “Wore our uniform since day one as a pro player and won an MVP for us.”

St. Peter also said moving Joe Mauer from catcher to first base was “going to impact Justin’s role with the team.” Morneau would have been a DH, pinch hitter and part-time first baseman.

No doubt the Rockies offered more money to the 32-year-old Morneau who was the American League MVP in 2006 when he was a major contributor to Minnesota’s Central Division title. Morneau reportedly has a two year $12.5 million deal with the Rockies, or $1 million less than he was paid last season by the Twins, according to a December 4, 2013 story by Cliff Corcoran on Mlb.si.com.

Morneau hasn’t been an MVP type hitter for years and the Twins traded him to the Pirates late last season. With the Rockies he’s found a familiar face in former Twins outfielder Michael Cuddyer who at age 34 won the NL batting title last season.

“[Having Cuddyer] makes the transition a little easier,” Morneau said in Ben Haber’s story on MLB.com Tuesday. “He is a guy I have looked up to in the past and that I can go to if I need anything.”

Morneau has the opportunity with the Rockies to replace the retired Todd Helton at first base.

Twins Notes

The Twins have produced consecutive season records of 66 wins and 96 losses. St. Peter acknowledges the need for improvement but won’t put a number on how many games he wants the Twins to win.

“I want to see us take a step forward,” St. Peter said. “The way I define it is we obviously need to be playing meaningful games in the sense that we feel as though we are contending in the months of August and September. If we’re doing that I think we’ve taken a significant step forward and that’s ultimately what we’re hoping for.”

Baseball has made a commitment to regular season international games. In late March the Dodgers and Diamondbacks will play in Australia. St. Peter believes next year two MLB teams may play in South Korea.

“We’ve expressed interest in that (a foreign game) to the league,” he said. “I think it requires the right players on your roster to play in those games.”

Participation by the Twins in such a game could be three, four or five years away, St. Peter said. A fit for Minnesota may develop if minor league prospect Max Kepler eventually plays for the major league club and MLB approves a game in Europe. Kepler, a native of Germany, could potentially be a big draw in his home country.

Kepler, who has played first base and in the outfield during his pro career, may start this season in Class A at Fort Myers. “He’s a very impressive physical specimen,” St. Peter said. “Strong young man, great runner. Just a really, really, solid athlete.”

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Price Increase Coming for U Football?

Posted on February 26, 2014February 27, 2014 by David Shama

Gophers notes:

It doesn’t require an advanced degree in marketing to foresee a likely increase in 2014 Gophers football ticket prices.

A Gophers spokesman didn’t confirm an increase will soon be announced but said, “We haven’t raised ticket prices since TCF (Bank Stadium) opened in 2009. But I don’t know right now if we’re going to be raising them this year.”

That’s five seasons with not even inflationary increases on ticket prices, and obviously operating costs are rising including for coaches’ salaries. Head football coach Jerry Kill’s new contract boosts his annual pay by $900,000 and the athletic department is committed to keeping the compensation for assistant coaches competitive with the better paying programs in the Big Ten Conference.

The Gophers had losing seasons from 2009-2012 but last fall Minnesota was 8-5 overall, 4-4 in Big Ten games. The eight wins were the most by the program since 2003 and the league record was the best since 2005.

The team’s on-field results and the stability of prices for five seasons makes a price increase in 2014 more acceptable to ticket buyers than in the past. Because season ticket renewals must be sent out within three weeks the Athletic Department will have to decide soon about pricing, assuming a decision hasn’t already been made.

Kill continues to be impressed with the leadership and commitment to excellence of University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler. Kill said Kaler “doesn’t want to be in the middle of the road on anything” and he trusts him.

Kill has also been impressed with the leadership of quarterback Mitch Leidner in off-season workouts. Spring practice begins next Tuesday with the Spring Game scheduled April 12 at TCF Bank Stadium.

The biggest challenge Kill may have in replacing linebackers coach Bill Miller is finding another staffer as adept at recruiting in the state of Florida. Miller has resigned to join the Florida State staff.

Epilepsy occurrences prevented Kill from driving last fall and earlier this winter but he said on Monday he’s behind the wheel again.

Athletic director Norwood Teague said a feasibility study is being done regarding how to fundraise the $190 million project to upgrade facilities. A fundraising committee headed by former Gophers hockey player Lou Nanne has been formed and results of the study will bring focus to the project.

The Gophers basketball team, surprise 95-89 winners last night over Iowa, are 7-9 now in the Big Ten. If Minnesota can win one of its two remaining Big Ten games the Gophers can equal last year’s 8-10 league record, even though that was a more talented team.

The Hawkeyes have eight Iowans on their roster. The Gophers have one Minnesota native, sophomore power forward Joey King.

King has replaced Oto Osenieks as a starter in recent games. Osenieks, who has an injured knee, didn’t play last night. His totals in the previous three games have been 6, 10 and seven minutes.

Reserve redshirt freshman forward Charles Buggs, who had scored only five points all season, had 13 last night. Gophers coach Richard Pitino said Buggs has the “best potential” of anyone on the team.

Gophers junior guard and leading scorer Andre Hollins has been dating Gophers women’s junior guard and leading scorer Rachel Banham for 10 months. “She watches all my games. I watch all hers,” Hollins said last night, acknowledging they give each other advice.

Will the two marry? “Who knows,” Hollins answered.

Worth Noting

Rookie swingman Shabazz Muhammad, who was the Timberwolves key player in a road win over the Suns last night scoring a career high 20 points, was in high school two years ago and considered by many observers to be the best prep in the country. If he continues to play at a high level the Wolves could become a playoff team this season, and probably for sure next year.

Kennys Vargas, the Twins minor league prospect who has impressed with his power in spring training, hit 19 home runs in 125 games last year for Fort Myers. Vargas, a first baseman, had an impressive on-base plus slugging percentage of .813.

Vargas, 6-foot-5, has struggled with his weight and is now at 275. “I am not saying 275 isn’t okay,” Twins president Dave St. Peter told Sports Headliners. “He’s a big man. He can carry that. We don’t want him to be more than that.”

St. Peter said about 6,000 tickets are still available for the team’s home opener with the Athletics on April 7. By opening day St. Peter expects the club to have the “equivalent” of more than 17,000 full season tickets, down approximately 2,000 from last year’s total.

The Twins have sold about 100,000 tickets for their 16 home spring training games in Fort Myers. St. Peter expects seven or eight games to sell out and total attendance to reach 120,000 or more, placing the Twins in the “upper echelon” among MLB clubs for total home spring attendance.

The Big Ten has named Edina native Matt Hopfner Freshman of the Week in baseball. Last week the Northwestern outfielder had four multi-hit games and a .500 on-base percentage.

KARE 11 executives have to be delighted with viewership during the Winter Olympics that ended on Sunday. The station had the highest viewing of any American TV market for the Olympics, according to a KARE news release. KARE’s average household rating over 17 days of prime time Olympic telecasts was a 19.1 rating with a 36 share, besting second place Salt Lake City.

The station’s late news following Olympics programming was also highest in the country by a wide margin averaging an 8.5 rating/27 share for adults 25-54.

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Herb Brooks Olympic Legacy Continues

Posted on February 24, 2014February 24, 2014 by David Shama

When the U.S. lost 1-0 to Canada in the semi-finals of men’s Olympic hockey on Friday it meant 34 years have past since Americans won gold medals in that competition.

The aura of the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” gold medal winning team is enhanced even more now. A group of amateur players led by coach Herb Brooks defeated the mighty Soviet Union, a hockey empire some observers considered invincible.

Brooks, the former Gophers national championship coach who died in 2003, would be frustrated the U.S. hasn’t been able to win the Olympics since 1980. He was an American patriot whose hockey genius and personality made him uniquely qualified to push a team of college players to perhaps the greatest sports triumph of the 20^th century, defeating the Soviets in a stunning semi-final game and going on to win gold medals 34 years ago today against Finland.

The Soviets used professional players and U.S. Olympic team trainer Gary Smith put the magnitude of the American upset this way: “It was like Eden Prairie High School beating the Vikings in football.”

Brooks’ coaching style was to identify an “enemy” and the Soviets were a perfect fit for his psychology. “Even though it was a hockey game, it just seemed like it was more of the United States of America’s way of life versus the Russian way of life,” Smith said. “He would refer to the Russians as those ‘Commie,’ and I don’t think I can use the (next) word.”

Not even the substitution of professional players from the NHL to replace amateurs has been able to produce another Olympic championship for the U.S. The 2014 Americans couldn’t even earn a third place bronze finish, stumbling in an embarrassing 5-0 loss to Finland on Saturday.

Lou Nanne, who captained the 1968 U.S. Olympic team, said the two most talented clubs in American men’s Olympic hockey history are the 1998 and 2014 teams. Nanne also said the Americans could just as easily be coming home from Sochi as Olympic champions.

“We’re good. We could play tomorrow and we could beat them (Canada),” Nanne told Sports Headliners.

The U.S. was ineffective offensively, having difficulty controlling the puck, in the semi-final loss to Canada. But Nanne gave credit to Canada, a great team that won the gold medal with a 3-0 win over Sweden yesterday.

“No doubt those are the two best teams (the U.S. and Canada),” he said.

The loss to Finland? “We weren’t ready to play,” Nanne said. “It looked like we were still thinking about Canada.”

Host Russia had serious ambitions about winning men’s hockey in Sochi. Instead the Russians didn’t even win a medal with losses including a 3-2 defeat against the Americans. Those results would have pleased Brooks and gave Nanne satisfaction too. “You always want to beat them (the Russians),” Nanne said.

Nanne decided not to attend the Olympics in Sochi because of concerns about terrorism and safety.

Worth Noting

After the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid, New York, Brooks was probably the most in demand speaker in the country. Later that year I asked him to speak at a banquet for a nonprofit organization. He agreed but refused to be paid.

The Gophers basketball team, 6-9 in the Big Ten and 17-11 overall, is desperate for a win against a top 25 opponent to enhance the fading possibility of being invited to the NCAA Tournament next month. Border rival Iowa, ranked No. 15 nationally last week, will be at Williams Arena tomorrow night for a “circle it” game.

The Gophers, losers in six of their last eight conference games, might be due for a surprise performance. The Gophers lost 94-73 at Iowa in January and Minnesota couldn’t stop fouling a bigger and deeper Hawkeyes team. Iowa made 27 of 37 free throw attempts in that game.

Iowa, 8-5 in the Big Ten and 19-7 overall, is a long shot but still has a chance at winning a share of the conference title. The Hawkeyes’ five league losses are by a combined 26 points.

Former Gophers football player Lewis Garrison, now a Big Ten basketball referee, officiated Saturday’s Iowa-Wisconsin game in Iowa City.

A February 17 Los Angeles Times article lauded the San Diego State basketball program that has been turning heads for years on the West Coast. The Aztecs were ranked No. 6 and 7 nationally last week by two polls. The program is led by head coach Steve Fisher and his top assistant, Brian Dutcher, a University of Minnesota alum and the son of former Gophers coach Jim Dutcher.

“Dutcher, 54, is one of the best college basketball minds never to have held a head coaching position,” wrote James Barragan of the Times. “It doesn’t bother him, though, because he knows one day this program will be his.

“He jokes that he has the longest title in college basketball: associate head coach/head coach in waiting.

“Dutcher was officially tapped as Fisher’s replacement in 2011 when the head coach requested as part of his own contract extension that the school identify Dutcher as his successor.”

The St. Thomas men’s basketball team has won a ninth consecutive MIAC title with a 18-2 league record. Coach John Tauer lost five seniors from last year’s Division III Final Four team including four starters but the Tommies regrouped to not only win the conference but earn a 21-4 overall record.

The Tommies’ first conference playoff game is at home on Friday night against an opponent to be determined, possibly St. John’s, a team that defeated St. Thomas last Saturday night and has won 10 of its last 12 games. The Tommies have a first round bye and will play either the Johnnies, Gustavus or Bethel.

Friday’s Ted Williams column generated e-mail responses from readers including from a friend who said his autographed Williams ball was valued at $1,300.00 by a memorabilia store in Boston in 2011.

Another friend told a story about Williams when he managed the Senators. Baseball pretty much started and ended with hitting for Williams, even as a manager. The story is that two of his coaches had a disagreement about how to work rundown plays in the infield. They asked the skipper for advice and he responded something like this: “Screw it. Let’s hit!”

The first of 16 Fox Sports North Twins spring training games from Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers will be this Saturday (noon Minneapolis time) against the Red Sox.

Former Gophers wide receiver Derrick Engel is preparing for the NFL Draft and working with ex-Vikings strength and conditioning coach Mark Ellis. Engel, recovering from ACL surgery, is working out at the University of Minnesota. He has hired Minneapolis-based agents James Selmer and Shawn Stuckey to represent him.

Concordia-St. Paul defensive end Zach Moore is scheduled to work out today with other defensive ends and linebackers at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. Moore is one of only nine Division II players invited to the combine where college players are evaluated for their draft worthiness. He is believed to be the only player from Concordia ever invited to the combine and is ranked as the No. 2 small college prospect for the upcoming NFL Draft by Peter Schrager of Fox Sports.

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