23 July 2023
It’s clear that unless Danielle Hunter gets a much bigger contract before Vikings training camp begins next week, he won’t be showing up.
It’s a good guess that the Vikings are willing to improve the team’s top pass rusher’s $5.5 million salary for the coming season to $15 million plus incentives, but are reluctant, because of his injury history, to guarantee a deal for 2024 or beyond. It could take at least a two-year guaranteed contract in the $35 million to $40 million range to keep Hunter, 28, happy in Minnesota.
If Hunter is a no-show for training camp, he would get fined on a daily basis. If he elected not to show up for the regular season, he would lose game checks.
Coming out of LSU in 2018, Hunter signed an under-market $72 million, five-year contract. He also missed a season and a half due to injuries. Had he not missed those seasons, he would have received a long-term guaranteed deal from the Vikings. Now, negotiations could get ugly.
— In a month or so, when Forbes comes out with its annual NFL franchise valuations, the Vikings, purchased by Zygi and Mark Wilf for $600 million in 2005, are expected to increase from $3.93 billion to $4.5 billion.
— Saudi-funded LIV golfers won’t be playing in the 3M Open this week, but next year plans are to recruit 8-10 LIVers to compete at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine. Some, by the way, won’t be recruited — they’re not wanted.
Still to be determined is whether LIV players and the pending partnership with the PGA Tour will be allowed next year to retain their enormous guaranteed money deals.
— The golfer to watch at the 3M Open is Ludvig Aberg, 23, the former Texas Tech All-American who is considered even better than Viktor Hovland and Matthew Wolff were when they joined the Tour four years ago.
The 6-foot-3, 190-pound Swede who already is a European Ryder Cup prospect averaged 326.2 yards while while hitting 80% of fairways at the Canadian Open last month. He’s a good guy, too.
— The 3M Open purse this year is increasing $300,000 to $7.8 million. Pro-ams are a huge revenue source for the 3M, and all four this week are sold out with fees ranging from $2,500 to nearly $7,000 per golfer. Meanwhile, the tournament has sold $18 million worth of corporate deals.
— Thomas Lehman, 27, son of Tom of the PGA Champions Tour and who has received a sponsor exemption for the 3M, recently shot 66-68-69 to win $2,733, finishing in a tie for third in the Central Valley (S.D.) Dakotas Tour tournament.
— Among celebrities in 3M pro-ams are ex-Vikings Adam Thielen and Kyle Rudolph, ex-Cardinal Larry Fitzgerald Jr., a bunch of NHL players and actor Josh Duhamel.
— More than 50 players from the British Open at Royal Liverpool near England will play in the 3M Open, which usually provides a charter to fly them to Minnesota. Not this year, though. That’s because there are four direct flights from London. For the charter, the players do pay their own way — it would cost 3M more than $400,000 if it paid for players on a charter.
— Spring Lake Park grad Troy Merritt, who’ll play in the 3M, tweeting on putting yips: “I always thought they were a myth, but THEY ARE REAL!!”
— Dennis Evans, the 7-foot-1 (7-6 wingspan) incoming Louisville basketball freshman who decommitted from Minnesota, is projected as a potential first-round pick for the 2025 NBA draft, per nbadraftroom.com.
— The Macalester men’s basketball team, which returns five starters and its nine top scorers from last season, will play the Gophers in an exhibition game Nov. 2 at Williams Arena.
— Hall of Famer Brett Favre, who began his college career as the seventh-string QB at Southern Mississippi, returns to Minnesota on Sept. 9 as speaker at the Morrie Miller Athletic Foundation fundraiser banquet in Winona.
Miller is a former Gophers football player from Winona. Past speakers secured by Winona native marketing whiz Patrick Klinger include Cal Ripken Jr., Joe Montana, Mike Ditka, Tom Lehman, Rod Carew, Lou Nanne, Paul Molitor and Bud Grant.
— Gophers baseball players George Klassen and Brett Bateman have signed with the Phillies and Cubs, respectively, Klassen getting a $275,000 bonus and Bateman $205,000. The Gophers program has had at least one player chosen in the major league draft for 36 straight years, tops in the Big Ten. The No. 2 school is Michigan at 12.
— Sean Sweeney, the former Cretin-Derham Hall and University of St. Thomas basketball star who is a top assistant for the Dallas Mavericks, will switch from directing defense to overseeing offense this year.
— That was Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, who played QB at San Diego State, throwing a perfect strike with a ceremonial first pitch at a Padres game the other day. He was seen with Arkansas men’s basketball coach Eric Musselman, who played at the University of San Diego.
— Gophers QB Athan Kaliakmanis will throw the ceremonial first pitch at Sunday’s Twins-White Sox game at Target Field.
— The Dallas Cowboys’ Jerry Jones, in Bloomington last week for NFL owners’ meetings, had nice things to say about his former QB, Steve Walsh of St. Paul, who’s now coaching alma mater Cretin-Derham Hall.
— North Branch’s Rodney Skoog, brother of late Minneapolis Laker-Gopher Whitey Skoog and an all-state basketball player for Brainerd’s 1954 state championship team, died at 87 from dementia the other day. Whitey died four years ago at age 92.
— Former Stillwater and Tennessee baseball star Drew Gilbert had a single in two at-bats for the American League team in the recent All-Star Futures Game in Seattle. Gilbert, 22, an outfielder who received a $2.5 million signing bonus as the Astros’ first-round draft pick last year, is hitting .231 with five home runs for the Double-A Corpus Christi club.
— Another ex-Stillwater outfielder, Logan Jordan, is transferring from Campbell College (NC), where he hit .301 with 12 homers and 11 doubles this year, to Georgia.
— Twins Hall of Famers to attend Sunday’s new inductions in Cooperstown, N.Y.: Bert Blyleven, Rod Carew, Jim Kaat, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Tony Oliva and Dave Winfield. Joe Mauer becomes eligible for election next year in a first-year 2024 class that includes Adrian Beltre, Chase Utley and David Wright.
— Baseball’s Hall of Fame notifies eligibles to be by their phones between 5:15 p.m and 5:45 p.m. on election Sunday. If there’s no call, it’s bad news, Kaat told a recent Dunkers club audience. Kaat got his good news call at 5:35 p.m.
— Jeanne Arth, the former Wimbledon tennis doubles champion who resides at St. Therese’s in Woodbury and is among St. Paul’s all-time greatest athletes, turned turned 88 on Friday and is doing well.
— A Netflix series, “The Saint of Second Chances,” about zany former St. Paul Saints president Mike Veeck, who is played by Charlie Day (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” actor) will be released on Sept. 20.
— Xcel Energy Center hit a grand slam home run last week with the naming of Kelly McGrath as GM and executive director.
— St. Paul ranks sixth nationally for the number of pickleball courts for cities per 100,000 residents, Mike Nealy, the Alexander Ramsey and University of Minnesota grad who is new CEO of USA Pickleball points out. Minneapolis is 15th; Seattle No. 1.
— Tayler Hill, 32, the former Minnesota state girls basketball player of the year at Minneapolis South and Ohio State star who was a first-round WNBA draft pick, works for Nike in Portland, Ore.
— The late godfather of St. Paul, Nick Mancini, had to go through all sorts of contacts, but was able to get Tony Bennett to open his lounge at the Char House in St. Paul. Bennett died Friday at age 96.
Don’t print that
— There’s buzz that a new management company that operates U.S. Bank Stadium plans to replace the turf during the time the Gophers baseball team plays games there in February and March.
If the Gophers are squeezed out for turf replacement, it would mean they would be forced to play on the road for seven consecutive weekends next winter and spring. And that would mean of Minnesota’s 56-game schedule, only 18 would be home games. The Gophers usually average about 15 games at U.S. Bank Stadium.
— The Twins say they have no regrets about trading Luis Arraez to the Marlins for Pablo Lopez.
“Luis is a great hitter, no question about it,” chief baseball executive Derek Falvey said recently. “I’m proud of him and I’ve always been a fan of his. It’s a tough decision to make when you’re trading a good player for another good player, and we feel in Pablo we got someone who’ll be here for a really long time and is an anchor to our rotation. Those are hard to get.”
Arraez, 26, the reigning AL batting champion who hit .400 for much of the first half of this season, is hitting .373 and was an All-Star. Lopez, 27, is 5-6 with a 4.22 ERA and also was an All-Star.
“I hope this is one of those trades that works for both teams because it’s one of those you feel good about,” Falvey said. “When things are good on one side and things are good on the other side, you’re kind of looking at that and going, ‘This is what both teams expected or hoped would happen.’ I think there’s always a view that there’s a winner and loser in a trade, and sometimes there’s multiple winners.
“And, in my view, those are some of the better trades because then you’re actually doing business with that group in the future again.”
— A future Twins trade with the Marlins that Miami probably would make would be moving Byron Buxton and Max Kepler in a deal that would include ex-Gophers pitcher Max Meyer, the former first-round draft pick from Woodbury. Meyer is throwing bullpen sessions and is ahead of his recovery from Tommy John surgery a year ago.
— Although the Twins extended Pablo Lopez with a $73.5 million, four-year contract during this season, they aren’t ready to extend any other players during the season.
— A little birdie says former University of St. Thomas guard Andrew Rohde’s name, image and likeness (NIL) deal at Virginia, where he’ll be a sophomore this season, is $450,000 over three years. The Cavaliers plan for the 6-foot-6 Rohde to play substantial minutes this season.
— As the Gophers begin football workouts, three players — Brevyn Spann-Ford, Chris Autman-Bell and Tyler Nubin, the trio that will represent Minnesota at Big Ten media days this week in Indianapolis — rate grades on BLESTO’s incoming report of NFL prospects for next April’s draft. Wisconsin has just three players, too; Iowa four. Ohio State has 16; Michigan 13. Both the Buckeyes and Wolverines play Minnesota this year.
BLESTO is a national scouting program for NFL teams.
— Jim Marshall is a semifinalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but it remains unlikely the popular former Vikings defensive lineman will be voted in this year.
Marshall, 85, meant a lot to Grant, the Hall of Fame longtime Vikings coach, with his longevity, but made only two Pro Bowls. Hall of Fame voting remains political — the Wilfs need to work behind the scene — but not enough voters seem to regard Marshall the same as Alan Page and Carl Eller, both members. Former Vikings Chuck Foreman and Ahmad Rashad are more intriguing candidates.
— Twins starter Sonny Gray gets a $200,000 bonus for making the All-Star Game. Lopez gets $25,000.
— Reader Ed Brandt reminds us that every July 1 through 2035, former Met Bobby Bonilla, 60, collects $1.2 million via deferred payments from the $29 million contract he signed in 2011.
— We should find out before too long whether Vikings first-round draft pick Jordan Addison, cited last week after driving 140 mph in a Lamborghini in St. Paul, turns out to be another Jeff Gladney, the ex-Vikings first-round draft pick who was released after a felony assault charge. By the way, Viking Oli Udoh got pulled over twice this offseason for speeding (97 mph) and reckless driving.
— Amazing stat: Ahead of Saturday night’s game against the White Sox, Twins pitchers had struck out 952 batters this season, which was No. 1 in baseball. Meanwhile, Twins batters had struck out 1,009 times, No. 1 in baseball.
— Think Joey Gallo, batting .180 for $11 million this season, is a bust? Josh Donaldson, the clubhouse headache the Twins dumped on the Yankees, is batting .142. For $21 million.
But the Yankees have a new sponsored jersey-patch deal reportedly for $25 million a year, which makes a Twins jersey patch, if a deal can be made, worth about $8 million a year
— It’s looking like the Timberwolves made a worthy second-round draft pick in 6-foot-10 Leonard Miller, just 19, from the G League.
— Don’t think the Twins, who had the No. 5 overall pick in the recent MLB draft, weren’t thrilled when the Rangers took outfielder Wyatt Langford with the No. 4 overall pick, leaving high school outfielder Walker Jenkins available. Jenkins, 18, will cost the club a signing bonus of nearly $7.2 million.
Overheard
— Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, 41, on streaks of gray beginning to appear in his beard: “Streaky, just like our team.”
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