This week's sports news: Timberwolves, Gophers and Twins, oh my!
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (1) drives past Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (6) and forward Jarred Vanderbilt (2) during the first half of an NBA basketball play-in tournament game Tuesday in Los Angeles.
Marcio Jose Sanchez | AP
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: Well, it is Thursday. It means it's time for sports. We're going to hear from our sports experts right now-- Wally Langfellow, Eric Nelson. Wally's the founder of Minnesota Score Magazine and the co-host of 10,000 Takes sports talk show on radio and TV. Eric is the other host of 10,000 Takes. He's also the Minnesota Vikings reporter for CBS Sports Radio's Eye on Football. How are you guys doing?
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Enjoying our summer weather although I am looking out a window to do it, but we'll take it.
ERIC NELSON: Yeah, Cathy. Have you opened the retractable roof in that luxurious studio you broadcast from today?
CATHY WURZER: Wouldn't it be nice to have done that? Yes, I love it. I love it. Maybe a little warm for some of us, but it's still really nice. Let's talk baseball, which is always nice to talk about. Wally, Twins in New York tonight for the first of four games. Don't they usually have trouble with the Yankees?
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Oh, boy. Yes, they do. That's the understatement of the year. Yeah. They have always traditionally struggled with the Yankees, particularly, oh, let's say, the last 20 years or so. It has not gone well for the Twins playing against the New York Yankees.
But they go tonight. Joe Ryan on the mound for Minnesota. And that has actually been one of the pluses for the Twins. Their starting pitching has been really lights out this first week and a half, two weeks of the season. And hopefully, they can continue that.
Because when their starting pitching goes deep into the game, like they have been, it rests that bullpen, which got overused and abused and ended up on the injury list and everything else at the end of last summer. So hopefully, that continues. Of course, the Twins took two out of three from the White Sox earlier this week, including a win yesterday. It put them back into first place in the Central Division.
Now, if you were at Target Field this past week or past weekend, you found out that last call for beer has been moved to the eighth inning. It was previously in the seventh inning. That is one of the upshots of these shorter games now. Because of the pitch clock, games have been about a half hour shorter than they were last year. 31 minutes is the current level of quickness as opposed to last year.
And the Twins are now one of four teams that are allowing you an extra inning to go buy a beer. And concessions are going to be affected by shorter games. There's no question about it. And the Twins are trying to do something about it. They want to keep padding their pockets, so they have added another inning where you can go get a glass of beer.
CATHY WURZER: Eric, I mean, are you happy about this? How about the games that are sped up? Is that good, bad, or indifferent? Eric, you with me? Oh, we might have lost Eric there, Wally. I'm not sure where Eric went.
WALLY LANGFELLOW: I can tell you this, that it is-- from that standpoint, with regard to good, bad, or indifferent, I mean, I think that for the most part, I think everybody is happy to see the games move along more quickly.
I know Major League Baseball has made a point of it, Cathy, trying to get these games-- they were stretching-- nine-inning games we're stretching anywhere from three hours to three and 1/2 hours. And they wanted to get them in the same neighborhood as like an NBA or an NHL game-- that 2 and 1/2 hour mark. And that's where they are right now. They're at about two hours and 30 minutes. So that's the good part. That's the good news.
Players are adjusting, and the fans are adjusting, too. You have to pay attention because if you're not paying attention, you're going to miss something now. And these games do go by a lot quicker.
The other thing I was going to mention, there have been plenty of other changes at Target Field, if you were venturing over there this past week and you noticed.
CATHY WURZER: Hang on, Wally. Yes. Eric noticed that. Eric, are you on the phone right now?
ERIC NELSON: I am. We have reconnected.
CATHY WURZER: Excellent. We were talking about changes at Target Field.
ERIC NELSON: Yeah. And I was going to say too before we had the glitch, that I'm not sure they're happy about these beer sales and maybe lack of revenue coming in, especially in places like Milwaukee, the Brewers, Saint Louis owned by Anheuser-Busch, and Colorado owned by Coors. So I don't know how it's playing in those markets.
But I do know this, Cathy. There are some changes at trendy Target Field. The video board is brand new. It is the sixth largest video board. So it's a jumbo jumbotron out there in left Center field. There's a smaller one in right field. They look great. Obviously, it's high def.
The Twins have this tower as well in right field. And now on top of it I call it the Twin spin ball. There's this baseball on it inside the TC logo, and it slowly rotates during the game, an it lights up in the night games. It's pretty cool.
But if you're trying to find those out of town scores, which used to be in right center on the outfield wall-- those are gone, and they're now ribbon boards along basically the second level of Target Field on each side. So they're a little harder to locate.
And in Major League Baseball's quest to squeeze out ad revenue in any way possible, the Twins now have advertising on the rim of the dugout just below the roof. And I'm talking digital advertising.
CATHY WURZER: Oh, that's annoying.
ERIC NELSON: Yes.
CATHY WURZER: Well, OK.
ERIC NELSON: Yeah.
CATHY WURZER: There you go. Let's talk about the T-Wolves while we have some time here. Wally, now, they didn't look that great the other night. Where are right now when it comes to the playoffs with them?
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, they're not in the playoffs yet. They play tomorrow night, and I call them the punch happy Timberwolves after the debacle last Sunday night where Rudy Gobert punched a teammate, punched Kyle Anderson. Then subsequently, was suspended for Tuesday's game against the Lakers.
And then Jaden McDaniels broke his hand by punching a wall. And, of course, as I mentioned, Gobert was suspended-- did not play in the play-in game against the Lakers. So now they are in a must-win situation. McDaniels, oh, by the way, is out for the year. He punched a wall, broke his hand, and he's out for the season.
They played Tuesday without Gobert. He will be back tomorrow night. They host OKC-- that's the Oklahoma City Thunder at Target Center. The winner moves on and will play against Denver. The loser is done for the season. So it comes down to this tomorrow night.
They will-- as I said, they're without Jaden McDaniels. But Rudy Gobert will be back in the lineup on Friday. And there is some question as to whether they should or shouldn't have played Gobert on Tuesday. That was a team decision. And I can tell you right now, Eric and others, fans, not happy with the fact that Gobert did not play on Tuesday because he could have made a difference.
CATHY WURZER: Hmm. Wow. Eric?
ERIC NELSON: Yeah. Absolutely, Cathy. I mean, if you look at that game against the LA Lakers on the road-- they lost in overtime, so they were clearly in the game until the very end. I don't know why the Timberwolves felt like they had to suspend Rudy right after he threw the ill-fated punch at Kyle Anderson, and then they sent him home for the rest of the night.
He came out with the text blast to his teammates, everybody in the organization. He owned it. He apologized. He said, I was wrong. So he was a step ahead of it that way.
But where I'm going is the game against the Lakers at that point in time is your most critical game of the season. You have a franchise that since 1989 has stumbled and bumbled and done so many things wrong that the fan base is just-- they are starving for something good.
And so you take Rudy G. out of the equation-- a guy they mortgaged the farm for in a blockbuster trade that a lot of people did not approve of-- and you don't let him play in this game? It made no sense to me.
What I would have done if I were the GM or the owner of the T-Wolves, I would have hit him where it counted-- in the bank account. I would have told him to pay us some money, and we're going to move on. But we need you on the floor against the LA Lakers.
We'll see how he does Friday night, tomorrow, against Oklahoma City. Because if Minnesota wins, then the Timberwolves are the number eight seed in the Western Conference playoffs, and they will play Denver, the top seed, Sunday night in Colorado.
CATHY WURZER: All right. The Wild, Wally, are winding up the regular season I think- what- tonight in Tennessee?
ERIC NELSON: Correct. They play Nashville tonight. They're in the postseason. They will finish in third place in the division, regardless of what happens tonight. They'll open the playoffs, however, on the road, so they will not get any home ice.
They could play as soon as Monday in the playoffs against either the defending Stanley Cup champions from Colorado or the Dallas Stars. One other note on tonight-- Ryan Hartman will not play tonight. He is suspended as a result of a penalty from Tuesday's game against Winnipeg. He can, however, return for the post-season.
And last year, they had home ice against St. Louis and it didn't really matter. They ended up losing the series anyway. I think that they want to try and get healthy. And that's an issue right now for them.
CATHY WURZER: Eric.
ERIC NELSON: Yeah. Well, they're going to limp into the postseason. I mean, minus Joel Eriksson Ek and Oskar Sundqvist-- they're both hurt. Marcus Johansson was cross-checked late in that game against Winnipeg on Tuesday. Sam Steel also left that game because he was sick. So a lot of the regulars are either banged up or they're ill.
And here's the crazy thing. If Minnesota should play Colorado in round one, the defending Stanley Cup champs, how about this if you're a Minnesota sports fan-- and assuming this the Timberwolves win tomorrow night-- you could go out and watch the T-Wolves play the Nuggets at Ball Arena in downtown Denver. And then the next night could watch the Wild skate against the Avalanche at elevation 5280 in the very same building in Denver, Colorado. So potentially, you could have Minnesota teams taking on Colorado teams in the playoffs in basketball and hockey simultaneously.
CATHY WURZER: Wow. Who would know? Say, before you guys go, I was surprised to hear that there are problems on the Gopher women's tennis team.
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Yeah. They had to cancel the rest of their season, Cathy. They only have three healthy players remaining. They started out with seven. They've only been playing with for the last several matches. They've actually lost eight straight matches. So they've canceled the rest of the season. That included five conference matches. And then they will not play in the Big Ten Tournament.
CATHY WURZER: All right. I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. Have a good weekend.
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Bye, Cathy.
ERIC NELSON: Thanks, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: Wally Langfellow, Eric Nelson-- Wally's the founder of Minnesota Score Magazine and the co-host of 10,000 Takes sports talk show, and Eric is the other co-host of that show.
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Enjoying our summer weather although I am looking out a window to do it, but we'll take it.
ERIC NELSON: Yeah, Cathy. Have you opened the retractable roof in that luxurious studio you broadcast from today?
CATHY WURZER: Wouldn't it be nice to have done that? Yes, I love it. I love it. Maybe a little warm for some of us, but it's still really nice. Let's talk baseball, which is always nice to talk about. Wally, Twins in New York tonight for the first of four games. Don't they usually have trouble with the Yankees?
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Oh, boy. Yes, they do. That's the understatement of the year. Yeah. They have always traditionally struggled with the Yankees, particularly, oh, let's say, the last 20 years or so. It has not gone well for the Twins playing against the New York Yankees.
But they go tonight. Joe Ryan on the mound for Minnesota. And that has actually been one of the pluses for the Twins. Their starting pitching has been really lights out this first week and a half, two weeks of the season. And hopefully, they can continue that.
Because when their starting pitching goes deep into the game, like they have been, it rests that bullpen, which got overused and abused and ended up on the injury list and everything else at the end of last summer. So hopefully, that continues. Of course, the Twins took two out of three from the White Sox earlier this week, including a win yesterday. It put them back into first place in the Central Division.
Now, if you were at Target Field this past week or past weekend, you found out that last call for beer has been moved to the eighth inning. It was previously in the seventh inning. That is one of the upshots of these shorter games now. Because of the pitch clock, games have been about a half hour shorter than they were last year. 31 minutes is the current level of quickness as opposed to last year.
And the Twins are now one of four teams that are allowing you an extra inning to go buy a beer. And concessions are going to be affected by shorter games. There's no question about it. And the Twins are trying to do something about it. They want to keep padding their pockets, so they have added another inning where you can go get a glass of beer.
CATHY WURZER: Eric, I mean, are you happy about this? How about the games that are sped up? Is that good, bad, or indifferent? Eric, you with me? Oh, we might have lost Eric there, Wally. I'm not sure where Eric went.
WALLY LANGFELLOW: I can tell you this, that it is-- from that standpoint, with regard to good, bad, or indifferent, I mean, I think that for the most part, I think everybody is happy to see the games move along more quickly.
I know Major League Baseball has made a point of it, Cathy, trying to get these games-- they were stretching-- nine-inning games we're stretching anywhere from three hours to three and 1/2 hours. And they wanted to get them in the same neighborhood as like an NBA or an NHL game-- that 2 and 1/2 hour mark. And that's where they are right now. They're at about two hours and 30 minutes. So that's the good part. That's the good news.
Players are adjusting, and the fans are adjusting, too. You have to pay attention because if you're not paying attention, you're going to miss something now. And these games do go by a lot quicker.
The other thing I was going to mention, there have been plenty of other changes at Target Field, if you were venturing over there this past week and you noticed.
CATHY WURZER: Hang on, Wally. Yes. Eric noticed that. Eric, are you on the phone right now?
ERIC NELSON: I am. We have reconnected.
CATHY WURZER: Excellent. We were talking about changes at Target Field.
ERIC NELSON: Yeah. And I was going to say too before we had the glitch, that I'm not sure they're happy about these beer sales and maybe lack of revenue coming in, especially in places like Milwaukee, the Brewers, Saint Louis owned by Anheuser-Busch, and Colorado owned by Coors. So I don't know how it's playing in those markets.
But I do know this, Cathy. There are some changes at trendy Target Field. The video board is brand new. It is the sixth largest video board. So it's a jumbo jumbotron out there in left Center field. There's a smaller one in right field. They look great. Obviously, it's high def.
The Twins have this tower as well in right field. And now on top of it I call it the Twin spin ball. There's this baseball on it inside the TC logo, and it slowly rotates during the game, an it lights up in the night games. It's pretty cool.
But if you're trying to find those out of town scores, which used to be in right center on the outfield wall-- those are gone, and they're now ribbon boards along basically the second level of Target Field on each side. So they're a little harder to locate.
And in Major League Baseball's quest to squeeze out ad revenue in any way possible, the Twins now have advertising on the rim of the dugout just below the roof. And I'm talking digital advertising.
CATHY WURZER: Oh, that's annoying.
ERIC NELSON: Yes.
CATHY WURZER: Well, OK.
ERIC NELSON: Yeah.
CATHY WURZER: There you go. Let's talk about the T-Wolves while we have some time here. Wally, now, they didn't look that great the other night. Where are right now when it comes to the playoffs with them?
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, they're not in the playoffs yet. They play tomorrow night, and I call them the punch happy Timberwolves after the debacle last Sunday night where Rudy Gobert punched a teammate, punched Kyle Anderson. Then subsequently, was suspended for Tuesday's game against the Lakers.
And then Jaden McDaniels broke his hand by punching a wall. And, of course, as I mentioned, Gobert was suspended-- did not play in the play-in game against the Lakers. So now they are in a must-win situation. McDaniels, oh, by the way, is out for the year. He punched a wall, broke his hand, and he's out for the season.
They played Tuesday without Gobert. He will be back tomorrow night. They host OKC-- that's the Oklahoma City Thunder at Target Center. The winner moves on and will play against Denver. The loser is done for the season. So it comes down to this tomorrow night.
They will-- as I said, they're without Jaden McDaniels. But Rudy Gobert will be back in the lineup on Friday. And there is some question as to whether they should or shouldn't have played Gobert on Tuesday. That was a team decision. And I can tell you right now, Eric and others, fans, not happy with the fact that Gobert did not play on Tuesday because he could have made a difference.
CATHY WURZER: Hmm. Wow. Eric?
ERIC NELSON: Yeah. Absolutely, Cathy. I mean, if you look at that game against the LA Lakers on the road-- they lost in overtime, so they were clearly in the game until the very end. I don't know why the Timberwolves felt like they had to suspend Rudy right after he threw the ill-fated punch at Kyle Anderson, and then they sent him home for the rest of the night.
He came out with the text blast to his teammates, everybody in the organization. He owned it. He apologized. He said, I was wrong. So he was a step ahead of it that way.
But where I'm going is the game against the Lakers at that point in time is your most critical game of the season. You have a franchise that since 1989 has stumbled and bumbled and done so many things wrong that the fan base is just-- they are starving for something good.
And so you take Rudy G. out of the equation-- a guy they mortgaged the farm for in a blockbuster trade that a lot of people did not approve of-- and you don't let him play in this game? It made no sense to me.
What I would have done if I were the GM or the owner of the T-Wolves, I would have hit him where it counted-- in the bank account. I would have told him to pay us some money, and we're going to move on. But we need you on the floor against the LA Lakers.
We'll see how he does Friday night, tomorrow, against Oklahoma City. Because if Minnesota wins, then the Timberwolves are the number eight seed in the Western Conference playoffs, and they will play Denver, the top seed, Sunday night in Colorado.
CATHY WURZER: All right. The Wild, Wally, are winding up the regular season I think- what- tonight in Tennessee?
ERIC NELSON: Correct. They play Nashville tonight. They're in the postseason. They will finish in third place in the division, regardless of what happens tonight. They'll open the playoffs, however, on the road, so they will not get any home ice.
They could play as soon as Monday in the playoffs against either the defending Stanley Cup champions from Colorado or the Dallas Stars. One other note on tonight-- Ryan Hartman will not play tonight. He is suspended as a result of a penalty from Tuesday's game against Winnipeg. He can, however, return for the post-season.
And last year, they had home ice against St. Louis and it didn't really matter. They ended up losing the series anyway. I think that they want to try and get healthy. And that's an issue right now for them.
CATHY WURZER: Eric.
ERIC NELSON: Yeah. Well, they're going to limp into the postseason. I mean, minus Joel Eriksson Ek and Oskar Sundqvist-- they're both hurt. Marcus Johansson was cross-checked late in that game against Winnipeg on Tuesday. Sam Steel also left that game because he was sick. So a lot of the regulars are either banged up or they're ill.
And here's the crazy thing. If Minnesota should play Colorado in round one, the defending Stanley Cup champs, how about this if you're a Minnesota sports fan-- and assuming this the Timberwolves win tomorrow night-- you could go out and watch the T-Wolves play the Nuggets at Ball Arena in downtown Denver. And then the next night could watch the Wild skate against the Avalanche at elevation 5280 in the very same building in Denver, Colorado. So potentially, you could have Minnesota teams taking on Colorado teams in the playoffs in basketball and hockey simultaneously.
CATHY WURZER: Wow. Who would know? Say, before you guys go, I was surprised to hear that there are problems on the Gopher women's tennis team.
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Yeah. They had to cancel the rest of their season, Cathy. They only have three healthy players remaining. They started out with seven. They've only been playing with for the last several matches. They've actually lost eight straight matches. So they've canceled the rest of the season. That included five conference matches. And then they will not play in the Big Ten Tournament.
CATHY WURZER: All right. I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. Have a good weekend.
WALLY LANGFELLOW: Bye, Cathy.
ERIC NELSON: Thanks, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: Wally Langfellow, Eric Nelson-- Wally's the founder of Minnesota Score Magazine and the co-host of 10,000 Takes sports talk show, and Eric is the other co-host of that show.
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