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Charley Walters: Twins likely won't be able to dip into Rochester for help
Rochester Red Wings pitcher Bartolo Colon, 44, pitched his first game in the Minnesota Twins organization Thursday, July 13, 2017. The Twins signed him to a minor-league contract in the hopes he would join the major league pitching staff for the remainder of the season. (Joe Territo / Rochester Red Wings)
By Charley Walters | cwalters@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: May 30, 2020 at 4:49 p.m. | UPDATED: June 1, 2020 at 9:18 a.m.
If and when the Minnesota Twins begin their 2020 season, it appears they won't be able to ask their Class AAA Rochester Red Wings club for help.
It's not yet official, but it appears inevitable that Rochester's entire season — which already has had 49 games canceled due to COVID-19 — will be canceled. Last season, the Red Wings shuttled some 80 players between the Twins and other minor league affiliates.
Major league rosters will be extended for depth for an abbreviated season, but high-minor league development of players is expected to be eliminated.
Coincidentally, this is the final season of the Red Wings' AAA affiliate agreement with the Twins.
The Red Wings, who have a 140-game schedule, averaged attendance of nearly 8,000 after Memorial Day last season. The team already had ordered its promotional merchandise for the season, including 2,000 bobbleheads celebrating popular utility player Willians Astudillo, nicknamed "La Tortuga" (The Turtle). The bobbleheads feature a shell on the back.
If there is no season, those might be sold to charity.
The Red Wings have obtained a small business loan through mid-June, allowing the team to retain employees through then. After that, the future, affected by the virus, is unknown.
Had it not been for the pandemic, on Sunday afternoon the Twins would be completing a four-game series against the White Sox in Chicago.
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Pssst: The Vikings' recent signing of Anthony Harris to a questionable $11.44 million franchise deal for the coming season probably means that either Harris, 28, or fellow safety Harrison Smith, 31, won't be back in Minnesota in 2021.
Most NFL teams don't pay safeties a total of $22.19 million. Smith is to make $10.75 million this year. Which safety to keep will be made based on who plays best, the other moving on.
Meanwhile, it had to be an easy decision for Harris to accept the franchise offer. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Vikings money could dry up. By signing, the $11.44 million is guaranteed.
This year's U.S. Open men's golf championship at Winged Foot in New York has been rescheduled from June 18-21 to September 17-20. Exactly 50 years ago on June 18-21, the U.S. Open was held at Hazeltine National in Chaska.
That was 1970, when promoters, eager to sell tickets, offered a $35 special — including clubhouse credentials and onsite parking for the entire tournament — if tickets were purchased in December, five months ahead of the event.
At Winged Foot in September, a clubhouse ticket, just for the first day of the tournament, cost $1,284.
At Hazeltine, remember, it was Dave Hill who was fined $150 for suggesting the course could use 80 acres of corn and a few cows to be complete. Hill finished runner-up to champion Tony Jacklin, the Englishman who won by seven shots. Jacklin's payday: $30,000 from a total purse of $195,700. The winner at Winged Foot in September will get a check for $2.25 million from a $12.5 million prize fund.
In the tournament at Hazeltine, played in cold and windy conditions, was 18-year-old amateur Ben Crenshaw, just out of high school in Texas. He would go on to win two Masters at Augusta National. Defending U.S. Open champion Orville Moody missed the cut.
Golf's greatest player, Jack Nicklaus, who previewed the tournament for Sports Illustrated and called the course a blind man's bluff because of the doglegs, shot an opening round 81 but made the cut with subsequent rounds of 72, 75, 76 to finish in a tie for 49th. Arnold Palmer tied for 54th (79-74-75-77).
Lower level ticket price for the scheduled Sept. 13 Vikings-Packers game in Minneapolis: $1,736 on vividseats.com.
Last week's naming of Gophers Max Meyer and Zach Raabe as All-Americans by Collegiate Baseball increased John Anderson's total of 15 he has coached. Between 1990-2006 at Minnesota, Anderson coached 15 players who went on to the major leagues.
Anderson, 65, in his 39th season as Gophers coach, is the Big Ten's all-time winning coach. But he's only the eighth-highest paid baseball coach in the conference at $232,000. Michigan's Erik Bakich is No. 1 at $625,000.
Jon Leuer, 31, the former Osseo star, after making nearly $35 million in nine NBA seasons that included a couple disabling injuries, has decided to retire.
Mike Rostampour, the 6-8, 230-pound Henry Sibley grad who has been playing professional basketball in Tehran, has had his season canceled due to the global pandemic but is still in Iran rehabbing from finger surgery. He'll return to St. Paul in a month or so.
A Minnesota first: Last week, Paige Bueckers (basketball) from Hopkins and Jalen Suggs (football-basketball) from Minnehaha Academy were named national female and male high school athletes of the year by MaxPreps.
Meanwhile, Minnehaha Academy's 7-foot incoming senior Chet Holmgren has been named the nation's No. 2 basketball recruit by MaxPreps.
Twenty-four of the NBA's 30 teams have contacted Cretin-Derham Hall for background checks on Daniel Oturu, the former Raiders star who is leaving the Gophers after his sophomore season to turn professional.
The 6-10, 240-pound Oturu will be represented by Bill Duffy, who also will represent point guard Tre Jones from Apple Valley via Duke. Duffy, a former Gophers guard, is among the NBA's prominent agents. He also represents Tre's brother Tyus, who has a $28 million, three-year guaranteed contract with the Memphis Grizzlies. Tre also is leaving college after his sophomore season.
It looks like Oturu will be a top-15 overall pick, Jones late in the first round.
The NBA draft, initially scheduled for June 25, has been indefinitely postponed, probably until at least August, depending on playoffs.
By the way, Zeke Nnaji, the 6-11 Hopkins' grad via Arizona, could be a first-round pick, as could Tyrell Terry, the 6-3 point guard from DeLaSalle via Stanford.
Four NBA first-round draft picks would be unheard of for Minnesota.
A year from now, Suggs and Holmgren are expected to be considered as first-round picks.
The way it looks now, the Timberwolves' first-round draft pick will come from among James Wiseman from Memphis, LaMelo Ball from Australia or shooting guard Anthony Edwards from Georgia.
Still scheduled is the St. John's-St. Thomas football rivalry for Nov. 7 at U.S. Bank Stadium. Ticket prices have not been decided.
Byung Ho Park, 33, who batted .191 for the Twins in 201 after the club paid $12.85 million just for the rights to sign him, is batting .227 with five home runs for the South Korean Kiwoom Heroes, who can be seen on ESPN on Wednesday at 5:30 a.m. against the Hanwha Eagles.
Condolences to the family of former Gophers QB and hockey captain Larry Johnson, who lost wife Susan, a former Minneapolis Washburn cheerleader, after 62 years of marriage to complications from COVID-19.
The same to the family of Eveleth hockey icon Bobo Kochevar at age 84 last week with dementia in a nursing home.
That was Mendota Heights' 13-year-old Sammy Udovich shooting a 3-under-par 68 from Southview Country Club's 6,404-yard back tees last week. A day later, Bella McCauley, 16, who last year for Simley won the Class A girls state high school championship by nine shots, shot 69 from the same tees.
Happy birthday: Wayne "Twig" Terwilliger, the beloved former Twins-Saints coach, turns 95 next month.
Don't print that
Before baseball's postponed season, Twins starter Michael Pineda was to sit out 39 of the 162-game schedule due to a 60-game drug violation suspension, of which he served 21 games last season.
Now, even though the new season has been proposed for 82 games, Pineda
still has to serve the remaining 39 games. It will also cost the 31-year-old, who is signed for $10 million this season, millions resulting from the owners-proposed new pro-rated salary structure.
If Gophers junior pitcher Max Meyer is still available at No. 10 overall in major league baseball's draft on June 10-11, look for him to be chosen by the San Diego Padres.
The Colorado Rockies, who have the No. 9 pick, also have a lot of interest in the 6-0, 185-pound right-hander from Woodbury. The Rockies, by the way, drafted shortstop Terrin Vavra from the Gophers in the third round two years ago.
Due to baseball's reduction of the draft to just five rounds this year, Meyer will be the only Gopher chosen. That means a handful of other Gophers will not.
Rumors persist that 6-11 Gophers commitment Treyton Thompson of Alexandria, a top-100 recruit, is considering a transfer to Cretin-Derham Hall for his senior season this year.
As important as quarterbacks are to NFL teams, the Vikings are expected to place special emphasis on Kirk Cousins to try to insulate him from exposure to COVID-19 when practices begin.
CBS-TV's Jim Nantz, Nick Faldo, Ian Baker-Finch and Frank Nobilo — and perhaps Michelle Wie and Davis Love III — are expected in town July 23-26 to cover the 3M Open if the pandemic doesn't postpone or cancel the PGA Tour tournament.
Ironically, Richard Pitino's new Gophers men's basketball assistant Jeff Mailhot, the Hopkins grad, last season was an assistant at Iona, where Pitino's father, Rick, has taken over coaching.
That was former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, 53, said to be contemplating a comeback, in downtown St. Paul on Thursday with his entourage.
With the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference expanding to 10 teams last week, some people are convinced the next two schools joining the MIAC will be University of Northwestern-St. Paul and Martin Luther College of New Ulm.
By the way, it was esteemed former Vikings-Packers director of research and development Mike Eayrs, a member of the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame for football, who two years proposed how the MIAC could expand to 10 teams with two divisions.
Football coach P.J. Fleck, in his fourth year at Minnesota, is paid $4.5 million. Woody Hayes, who coached Ohio State to five national championships, was paid $43,000 in his final season in 1978, USA Today points out. Hayes believed the Buckeyes football coach shouldn't be paid more than the state's governor.
Fleck on Wednesday morning speaks to the Dunkers club via Zoom.
Ex-Vikings QB Tommy Kramer, living in Centerville, Minn., is planning a 40th anniversary reunion of his last-second 1980 "Hail Mary" pass to Ahmad Rashad that stunned Cleveland at Met Stadium to win the Central Division.
Justin Morneau's No. 33 could be the next jersey retired by the Twins. When he came to the major leagues in 2003, his jersey number was 27.
Speaking of retired Twins jerseys, Tony Oliva wore No. 38 before switching to No. 6. Kent Hrbek was No. 26 before his No. 14 was retired. Tom Kelly came to the majors as No. 16 but retired as No. 10.
Zoilo Versalles (No. 2) is the only former Twins' American League MVP (1965) whose jersey is not retired.
Jim Kaat's No. 36 jersey would seem a good bet to be retired if he's finally — and appropriately — voted into baseball's hall of fame.
That was Wild owner Craig Leipold zooming into St. Paul in his private jet last Wednesday for the first time in a long time.
The Wild are 85-to-1 odds to win the 24-team reformatted Stanley Cup by sportsbattingdime.com
Vikings coach Mike Zimmer on first-round draft pick wideout Justin Jefferson, to NBC Sports: "I think every coach and GM say that they were surprised that he was there when we picked him, but we really were this time."
Insiders say ex-Timberwolves coach Tom Thibodeau remains the favorite as the next Knicks coach.
Jacksonville University, which was in the Pioneer Football League that St. Thomas hopes to join for the 2021 season, has dropped the sport. Meanwhile, San Diego, which won the league with an 8-0 record last season, averaged 2,096 attendance per home game. St. Thomas last season, tied for first with St. John's with a 7-1 MIAC Conference record, averaged 2,095 per home game.
Tony Dungy, who spent four years as a Gophers QB and four more as a Vikings assistant, on last week's killing of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in South Minneapolis and subsequent destruction of property protests, on Mike Tirico's "Lunch Talk Live" on NBCSN: "That's what really hurts. I'm very familiar with that neighborhood and driven by there hundreds of times. There's a lot of minority community leaders, there's minority businesses, and to see that area just get taken down like this, it's very sad."
Charley Walters
Charley "Shooter" Walters writes a weekly sports column for the Pioneer Press.
cwalters@pioneerpress.com
Follow Charley Walters @Charley_Walters
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