Wolves prevail over Nuggets, and other sports highlights

CHRIS FARRELL: This is Minnesota Now. Time is 12:39. I'm Chris Farrell, and I'm in for Cathy Wurzer. All right, the Texas Rangers-- they are the World Series champions. They took home the title last night with a 5-0 victory over the Arizona diamondbacks. Now as far as we know, this game was played fair and square.

But that wasn't the case at the 1919 World Series. It's maybe the most famous or infamous baseball scandal in history. It was known or is known as the Black Sox scandal, when eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1990 World Series in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate. It ended up being a subject of a 1998 film Eight Men Out. Did you see it? I liked it.

And one of those men was Charles "Swede" Risberg. He, along with his teammates involved in the scandal were kicked out of the league-- no surprise there-- and he ended up in southern Minnesota. So for more on this slice of baseball history, we have Randy Anderson. He's the executive director of the Faribault County Historical Society. Glad you could join us.

RANDY ANDERSON: Hey, Chris. It's a pleasure.

CHRIS FARRELL: All right, now we kind of-- I think everybody kind of has in the back of their mind the Black Sox scandal, but how did the White Sox players-- how did they get caught?

RANDY ANDERSON: Well, somebody-- and I don't know the story in as much detail as I should, probably-- but the one of the players sort of gave up the story to some investigators right before the following season was about to finish. And the White Sox were actually just about ready to win the American League pennant again in 1920. So they were immediately suspended, and it took about a year for this to go through the court system.

They actually were-- they were charged and prosecuted. They were acquitted, but there was a new commissioner of baseball installed named Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and he was a hard hand, and so he banned them all for life. There's still speculation that some of the players weren't really in on it, Shoeless Joe Jackson in particular. But the evidence seems to lean towards the guilt of all of these guys.

CHRIS FARRELL: So what was Swede Risberg's role in the scandal?

RANDY ANDERSON: So he apparently was-- he was not the main instigator of it. The first baseman, Chick Gandil, was the person who really came up with the idea. And I'm not sure if he was approached first by the gamblers or if he went to them.

But Risberg was sort of the second in command, and he was also sort of the enforcer. He's the one who was obliged to get the other six men to go along with the plan to throw the World Series. They had to be, obviously, a bit careful about it. They couldn't be too obvious. And apparently, Swede was a man to be reckoned with.

When Joe Jackson apparently complained later that he didn't get his full share of the payout, Swede threatened to kill him, and Joe took it seriously. He was quoted as saying, "Swede is a hard guy." So Swede was the strong arm to get the other players to toe the line.

CHRIS FARRELL: So how did Swede end up in Minnesota?

RANDY ANDERSON: Well, right after, they were banned from baseball, interestingly enough, they were brave enough or proud enough to barnstorm Wisconsin and Minnesota, especially the Arrowhead section of Minnesota. They even called themselves the Mesabi Black Sox when they were playing up in the Arrowhead.

But they somehow wound up stuck around the Midwest. They dispersed a bit, but Risberg had some connections to Minnesota. His first wife was divorcing him in California, and he apparently found a second wife here in southern Minnesota. And the story is a bit convoluted. It's unclear whether she was a woman from Blue Earth or a woman from Rochester. But anyway, he found his way here to the 507 area code by the middle of 1922.

CHRIS FARRELL: So what was the state of baseball in Minnesota in the 1920s? I mean, was there a lot of games going on? Were there a lot of teams?

RANDY ANDERSON: It was incredibly robust. I know there was just a recent celebration of the centennial of organized town baseball. But actually, Blue Earth had-- the first historian of Faribault County mentions the first baseball game played in Blue Earth was in 1867.

And he went on to say ball clubs have been formed in all the villages and in most of the townships of the county and match games between the various clubs were quite frequent, especially on public days such as the 4th of July. But by the 1920s, town pride and civic pride really was underpinning some of these contests. And the teams were allowed, effectively, to pay one or two players.

So they were really semi-pro. They weren't purely amateur. And there were some hurt feelings among some of the smaller towns here who couldn't afford to pay someone, or the person they did pay wasn't the equal of, for instance, a former major league baseball player.

But these games would draw, in our part of the state, as many as 1,500 spectators, which is-- that would be the entire population of Blue Earth, roughly, in the 1920s. So they were incredibly popular and played-- like I said, there was a lot of civic pride and teams played other communities that were very close by, so there were a lot of bragging rights at stake, I think, during that period.

CHRIS FARRELL: So do you have a sense of what was his time like on the Blue Earth team? Did he have fun?

RANDY ANDERSON: He was the star. I don't know if he was having fun. I'm not even sure what he was getting paid. But he was-- I noted that he played under his own name here in Blue Earth. And the Blue Earth Post was bemoaning the fact that they had been losing to two teams that had the paid professionals-- there was one quotation where the Post says that all homeboys that year, years ago, made up a town's team for whom its citizens would enthuse over and fight for if need be is a thing of the past. Before any town can have a team these days, it is necessary to hire two pitchers, a catcher, and a shortstop.

And Risberg was actually the shortstop on the White Sox, primarily the shortstop. But he was called into service to be the pitcher for the Blue Earth town team primarily. And apparently, he could throw hard, and he immediately changed the tune of the Blue Earth season.

And there's a nearby town called Amboy just north of us a little bit. And their newspaper complained that when Blue Earth hired Risberg, if our information is correct, they paid him more money than it cost the entire village of Amboy to put a winning team in the field for the entire season. So it wasn't a secret that you paid these players, but there definitely was some competition, and there were no salary caps, apparently. So that's how the game was played in the 1920s.

CHRIS FARRELL: OK, so if I were on one of the opposing teams or maybe on the team, but I'd worry about, OK, this guy's reputation-- were there fears that he was going to cheat?

RANDY ANDERSON: That's a good question. I don't know that there would have been any good reason for him to throw a game where there was no money on the line with the outcome. Did he doctor the ball when he pitched? I wouldn't be surprised if he did, but who didn't?

CHRIS FARRELL: I was just going to say, I think that was kind of like routine, right?

RANDY ANDERSON: Yeah, you had to. You weren't playing hard if you weren't cheating. But I don't I think he was-- he only played here for about three months, four months. And then he moved on to the next year-- he played for the team in Rochester. And then he appears to kind of left Minnesota, at least in the summers to play, in Montana, the Dakotas, and in Manitoba.

And he did play, actually, in 1932 for the Sioux Falls Canaries, which is still a Minor League team today, but under a certainly different ownership. But he stayed in baseball for about a decade after he was banned. So he must have-- he certainly made money at it, but he must have still loved it. I would say, a bit like the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, he maybe would have played for nothing, but he certainly enjoyed getting the compensation.

CHRIS FARRELL: And in your research, I mean, any sense of what he was like as a as a teammate? Because Shoeless Joe Jackson said he was a hard man, and I don't want to cross this guy.

RANDY ANDERSON: Yeah, my guess is he was-- I'm sure he was no nonsense. I bet he showed up just in time to play the game, and I would imagine he took off right afterwards, but I don't really know for sure. He doesn't seem like the farming type to me, and his second wife was either the daughter of a dairy farmer or a dirt farmer, and so he was sort of-- although he may have been obliged to do some chores when he got home, so maybe he did stay in town and enjoy himself a little bit afterwards.

But interestingly enough, there's no reflection in the news record of his personality. It's just that it was clear that people knew who he was. They didn't have to explain who he was. And he must have he must have cut quite a figure in the Blue Earth uniform for those few months, that summer of '22.

CHRIS FARRELL: I would think so. Plus he was a good player, so he was probably enjoyable to watch.

RANDY ANDERSON: He was a good player. And certainly, I know about this only because there was a-- the Minnesota's great baseball historian Stew Thornley was here in Blue Earth about 35 or 40 years ago, and I happened to be at the talk. And there was an older fellow who was growing up in Blue Earth in the '20s, and he remembered playing catch with Risberg and another one of the Black Sox, Happy Felsch, before one of the Blue Earth games. So if anything that maybe gives you a little insight into his personality, he was willing to toss the ball around with the 10-year-old. He probably wasn't the worst guy in the world.

CHRIS FARRELL: No, but you know. Well, thank you very much, I really appreciate your taking your time. Randy Anderson is the executive director of the Faribault County Historical Society.

So the Timberwolves beat reigning NBA champions the Denver Nuggets yesterday at the Target Center. And the Vikings are regrouping after learning an Achilles injury has taken quarterback Kirk Cousins off the field for the rest of the season. And he was playing so well. So joining me to talk about this and other sports news, Wally Longfellow and Eric Nelson. Wally is the founder of Minnesota Score sports magazine and cohost of the sports talk show 10,000 Takes. Eric is the other host of that show and Vikings reporter for CBS sports radio Eye on the NFL. Well, welcome.

WALLY LONGFELLOW: Thanks, Chris.

ERIC NELSON: How are you doing, Chris?

CHRIS FARRELL: Yeah, so I'm going to start off with you, Wally. We got this trade for quarterback Josh Dobbs from Arizona. So give us the quarterback situation now after Cousins has been injured.

WALLY LONGFELLOW: Well, as you noted, Cousins out for the year with the Achilles injury. And he was playing well. I mean, he was lights out--

CHRIS FARRELL: Wasn't he? I mean, it was so much fun to watch.

WALLY LONGFELLOW: Oh, no question. He was as good or better than any quarterback has been playing this year in the NFL. And really, the Vikings didn't have a backup plan. They really haven't had one, because at the end of the season, he's going to be a free agent. Regardless if he's healthy or injured, Kirk Cousins is a free agent. And you just didn't know where they were going to go. Well, we found out in a big hurry where they were going to go. They made a trade for Josh Dobbs. They did not feel comfortable with Jaren Hall on his lonesome for sure.

But Jaren Hall will start. He's the young man, the rookie that came in when Cousins got hurt on Sunday. He did complete three out of four passes. He did fumble the football. I think that there's somewhat of an uneasiness, but we're going to find out on Sunday because he's the one that's been in camp since this summer. So he'll be the starting quarterback on Sunday.

Josh Dobbs will be the backup quarterback. This, of course, will be Hall's first NFL start, and, of course, he got, as I said, his first fell experience this past Sunday in Green Bay. So we'll see how it goes. I think they feel more comfortable with the veteran. Dobbs has been starting for the cardinals all season long because of the injury to Kyler Murray, although he was going to be benched this week, so that kind of gives you an idea of where the Cardinals were on Josh Dobbs, just throwing it out there.

CHRIS FARRELL: OK, so Eric, there's the expression-- never make forecasts, especially about the future. But I'm going to ask you to make a forecast. I mean, how do the Vikings look in terms of making the playoffs, maybe wild card team?

ERIC NELSON: Well, right now, Chris, if the season were to end, they would be a wild card team, despite starting out 0 and 3. I mean, they've dug out of a huge hole. Minnesota right now 4 and 4, and, of course, they got that border battle win last Sunday against Green Bay 24 to 10 at Lambeau Field. The Vikings remain two games behind Detroit in the NFC North. So they've got a little work to do if they're going to catch the Lions, but they do have two games down the road with Detroit. And clearly, Minnesota is playing better-- three straight wins for the Vikings, four of their last five. This is a huge game in the NFC Sunday at Atlanta because the Falcons are also 4 and 4.

They're tied for first with Tampa Bay in the very mediocre NFC South. They have a young quarterback, the Falcons do, in Desmond Ritter, a second-year player from Cincinnati trying to fill the cleats of Matt Ryan, who was an outstanding quarterback. And then running back Bijan Robinson is their top ball carrier, 446 yards on the ground, four touchdowns. So this is a game where whoever wins, if there were a tie down the road to determine who might go into the playoffs as a wild card team, this would be a tiebreaker advantage for the Vikings or the Falcons, whoever wins. So it's really a big game Sunday, and we'll find out a lot about Jaren Hall, the rookie out of BYU, for Minnesota.

CHRIS FARRELL: Well, I'll be watching. Fingers crossed, I'll be watching. But Wally, let's shift to Gopher football. Now they're in a first place tie in the Big 10 as I understand it, and they're playing Illinois this weekend, right?

WALLY LONGFELLOW: That is true. They're in a first place tie in the Big 10's west. They have another home game this weekend. They'll play host to Illinois on Saturday. Minnesota beat what I thought was a very poor Michigan State team last Saturday. Michigan State had all kinds of troubles this year. That was at Huntington Bank Stadium. I was there for that. It was a 27 to 12 win for the Gophers. And they got a great performance out of running back Jordan Nubin, who had never played the position as a college football player.

CHRIS FARRELL: He had never played the position?

WALLY LONGFELLOW: Not as a college football player. They put him in there, and he ran for 204 yards-- was the-- get this-- the Big 10 offensive player of the week. He also had two touchdowns in the game. And quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis had a pretty good game too, one of his better days throwing the football. He threw for 200 yards and a touchdown and just one interception. So they played well against a team that they should beat.

This is another team that they should beat. Illinois is wallowing near the basement of the Big 10 west. And the Gophers control their own destiny. We'll see what happens going forward. But this is one that they should win, and they need to win.

CHRIS FARRELL: But Eric, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Illinois cause problems for the gophers?

ERIC NELSON: Yeah, absolutely, Chris. In fact, two years ago, the scenario was almost exactly the same. Illinois came into Minneapolis an underdog. The Gophers had everything in front of them as far as controlling their own destiny and winning that coveted Big 10 west title. And it was a clunker. Illinois handled Minnesota, won the game, and you could argue that cost the Gophers a chance to go to the title game in Indianapolis. So you can't assume anything with Gopher football.

One thing we know-- Illinois head coach Bret Bielema does not like the U of M. He played football at Iowa. He used to coach at Wisconsin. He's got a boulder on his shoulder when he faces the Gophers. There's something about maroon and gold he doesn't like. Now he's down there at Illinois. As Wally mentioned, the Illini have struggled. They're 1 in 4 in the Big 10 west. They're three and five overall. But this could be their season to throw a monkey wrench into the Gophers' plans of maybe winning the Big 10 west once again. So Minnesota fans know what I'm talking about. You cannot assume anything when it comes to Gopher football.

CHRIS FARRELL: So Wally, about not assuming anything, the Timberwolves-- I mean, that game against Atlanta, but then they beat the Denver Nuggets, the NBA world champion.

WALLY LONGFELLOW: Yeah, it shows you what an 82-game season will do to you, doesn't it? They scored 79 first half points on Monday against Atlanta. They looked like world beaters. And then they collapsed in the second half, losing by 14. They were outscored by 33 points in the second half.

But last night, the Denver Nuggets come to town, the defending world champions in the NBA, and they really controlled the game from the get go. They win the basketball game last night 110 to 89. Anthony Edwards led the way for Minnesota with 24 points. Two-time MVP Nikola Jokic-- he had 25 for the Nuggets. Wolves are now 2 and 2 through their first four games. They'll continue this four-game home stand Saturday against the Utah Jazz.

One other note-- fans were trying to watch the game on the Bally Sports app. So this is if you're trying to stream the game-- they had issues, Bally's did. Actually, they had issues nationwide. Of course, Bally Sports North, with all of its financial difficulties, has a lot of people frustrated trying to watch games. And that, of course, is where the wild game is supposed to be broadcast tonight as well. So, you know, buckle up.

CHRIS FARRELL: That's right. So Eric, you just got one minute left here, but I want Bobby Knight-- I mean the legendary Indiana University men's basketball coach has passed away. And any thoughts?

ERIC NELSON: Yeah, an icon. I had a chance to interview him a couple of times in my career, and he was a crusty, curmudgeon, old-school coach, but he won a ton of basketball games.

Certainly one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time. Controversial figure, no doubt because of his approach-- some people viewed him as a bully. His nickname was "The General." He once hit a police officer in Puerto Rico. He threw a chair across the court in a game. But he also knew how to win, and he ran a clean program at Indiana-- never involved in any kind of scandal. So that was always something people who liked Bob Knight would point out. Three national titles--

CHRIS FARRELL: Well, here, I'm going to have to be a referee and call time out, blow the whistle.

ERIC NELSON: I'm going to throw a chair, Chris.

CHRIS FARRELL: Oh, OK. I'll catch it. Well, thank you very much. Wally Longfellow is the founder of Minnesota Score sports magazine, and Eric Nelson is the Vikings reporter for CBS sports radio, Eye on the NFL. Together, they host a sports talk show, 10,000 Takes.