Jake Mauer told Sports Headliners on Tuesday that grandson Joe’s cold, which has been bothering him for “two weeks,” still persists and has “slowed” him down.  Mauer has seen his average drop from .413 to .394 in the last 10 games.

A Wall Street Journal blog,  https://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2009/06/19/the-count-joe-mauers-pursuit-of-ted-williams/, speculates that Mauer has a one in 50 chance of hitting .400 this season.  The Braves’ Chipper Jones was hitting .420 last June and finished the season at .364.  Ted Williams was the last .400 hitter at .406 in 1941.  Also amazing is that the legendary Red Sox hitter batted .388 in 1957 when he was 39 years old and slow afoot.  If Williams, who played minor league baseball in Minneapolis, could have beaten out some infield hits he would have batted .400 in 1957.

Jake has been predicting a .400 season for Joe.  “I think he’s gonna get (it), if not this year, next year for sure,” Jake said.

Mauer is on the cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated. It’s the second time he’s been an SI cover boy.

The Twins and Mauer open a three game series against the Cardinals in St. Louis tomorrow night.  Busch Stadium will also be the site of next month’s All-Star game. Jake said Joe will be spending over $1,500 per person to bring 17 family members to the All-Star game where he figures to be the American League’s starting catcher.

Collective heads are probably shaking across the country with the surprising news that former Northwestern coach Kevin O’Neill has been hired to replace Tim Floyd as USC basketball coach.  “This guy is amazing,” said Jim Dutcher, former Gophers coach. “He keeps getting jobs and there’s nothing to support it.”

O’Neill has a 171-180 record with head jobs at Marquette, Tennessee, Northwestern and Arizona (interim coach in 2007-2008).  He also coached the Toronto Raptors in the NBA for one season, finishing with a 33-49 record.

Dutcher said that when O’Neill, who is known for a temper and colorful vocabulary, was coaching at Arizona as the interim replacement to Lute Olson the two weren’t speaking.

Gophers athletics director Joel Maturi had surgery recently on his left Achilles and is on crutches.  He won’t be able to jog for another four weeks or so.

Don Lucia’s Gopher hockey team will play its first game since 2000 at Target Center next year.  The Gophers-Wisconsin game on March 5 will be played at the downtown facility because of a scheduling conflict at Mariucci Arena.

The Gophers’ Jordan Schroeder, who led all college freshmen in scoring last year, is expected to return to school even though he could be a high pick in tomorrow night’s NHL Entry Draft.

The Gophers, who are possible contenders for the national championship, open their schedule next fall with eight consecutive WCHA games.

Comments Welcome

Anyone looking for consensus on the projected order of selection for the first six lottery picks in Thursday night’s NBA draft is likely to be frustrated, but at least two national publications agree on who they believe the Wolves will choose.  ESPN The Magazine and Sporting News predict the Wolves will choose Brandon Jennings with the No. 6 pick.

ESPN magazine asked NBA players such as Kevin Love of the Wolves who they would choose for their teams.  Told that the first five picks will be Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet, James Harden, Ricky Rubio and DeMar DeRozan, the Wolves’ 20-year-old forward chose Jennings, a point guard who opted for a year playing in Italy after finishing his high school career in 2008.

“We need a good 3, but since DeMar and Harden are off the board I like Brandon,” Love told the magazine.  “I admire his passing. … Plus, he’s a lefty, which makes him unorthodox and a tough matchup.”

Sporting News sees these players going in this order before Jennings: Griffin, Rubio, Thabeet, Jordan Hill and Tyreke Evans. The publication said this about Jennings:  “He’s a gamble, but the Timberwolves desperately need a point guard.”

The Wolves also have the No. 18 and 28 picks in the first round.  Sporting News offered a rather unorthodox draft day strategy, suggesting that with the point guard depth in this draft the Wolves ought to take three PGers on the first round and maximize the likelihood of finding a keeper.

Point guard is a problem but so, too, is finding a center that can block shots and rebound.  Sports Illustrated thinks Thabeet, the 7-3 shot blocking-rebounder from Connecticut, will fall to the Wolves at No. 6.  SI’s first five are Griffin, Evans, Rubio, Jonny Flynn and Harden.

Thabeet’s the consensus choice as the best big man in the draft.  There’s no consensus, though, on where he and many others will be drafted on Thursday night.

Comments Welcome

A vacationer made a first time stop at the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth last week and came away reminiscing about an old friend, Herb Brooks.  The visit came a few days before the public opening of a new Brooks exhibit.  A Hall of Fame spokesperson said the exhibit was scheduled to open last Friday.

The new exhibit has “never seen before hockey artifacts,” according to www.ushockeyhall.com.  What we saw about Brooks during our visit included a video of the famous 1980 “Miracle on Ice” game and an HBO special documenting the people and events involved with the U.S. hockey team winning the gold medal that year.

To know Brooks was to understand his devotion to detail and will to win.  The HBO show told of how Brooks kept his team on the ice practicing in a darkened arena after a pre-Olympic game displeased him.

He was a master of hockey tactics, and an extraordinary head doctor.  He tore his team down in the months leading up to the Olympics but it was a different approach when the Americans prepared to play the Soviet Union team in the semi-final game of the Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.  The Soviets were recognized as the best hockey team in the world, pro or amateur, but Brooks told his team the Soviets were ripe for an upset.

In the hall of fame his famous quote made to the team prior to the game says in part: “This is your moment.  You’re meant to be here.”

I met Brooks when he was winning national championships with the Gophers in the 1970s.  Then I knew him when he worked for the North Stars and also Jostens. There were other stops for him including coaching the Rangers, Devils and Penguins.  Brooks thrived on challenges and was curious to try different things.  His name was even rumored to be a possibility for Minnesota governor.

On February 22 of next year it will be 30 years since the U.S., an improbable collection of amateurs, shocked the world beating the Soviets, 4-3, and later winning the gold medal game against Finland.  This was America’s first gold medal in hockey since 1960 and it all came against a backdrop of sagging American morale that included gas shortages, the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan and the taking of US. hostages by Iran. The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey glory is recognized by many as the greatest sports story of the 20^th century.

Brooks was killed six years ago this August in an auto accident.  Because of places like the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame and the extraordinary accomplishments of his career, he will long remain a Minnesota legend and among the true heroes of 20^th century American sports.

Comments Welcome