Another bad move at the U of M – Tracy Claeys fired

Minnesota acting head coach Tracy Claeys calls out to players during the fourth quarter against Nebraska in Minneapolis Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)

I have to rant this morning and it has nothing to do about baseball or the Minnesota Twins. It has to do with the Minnesota Gophers football team that I have followed since I was a kid living on a farm in the 1950’s. Back then we lived in a small farm-house and our only source of heat was the wood stove that sat in our living room. If you wanted to get up to warm house (we considered low 60’s warm) in the morning you had better get up during the night and put more wood on the fire. It takes a lot of wood to last through those long cold winters in Taylors Falls, Minnesota.

Which takes me back to my rant, I used to spend many a Fall Saturday afternoon listening to Minnesota Gopher football games as I chopped, split and piled the wood in the shed for the long winter ahead. I chopped a lot of wood growing up and listened to the Gophers win a lot of football games. I still remember how disappointed I was when the Gophers lost 17-7 to Washington in the Rose Bowl after the 1960 season. My biggest Gopher disappointment was probably their 14-9 loss to those hated Badgers and QB Ron VanderKelen in 1962 due to some questionable calls by the ref’s.

I have followed Minnesota golden Gopher football ever since….. now we have AD Mark Coyle firing coach Tracy Claeys. I have seen all that has gone with the program this year and the challenges that the team and coaching staff have endured on their way to a nine win season.

For the life of me I don’t see how Tracy Claeys can be blamed and fired after this season. Claeys is a good man who ran a good program and yet the University and Coyle see fit to fire him. On of the stated reasons was low season ticket sales and low attendance at the games, maybe the U of M should look at their own Marketing department for some answers. I guess I didn’t know that the head football coach was also responsible for attendance numbers. You think you saw low attendance numbers this past year? Wait and see what you get in 2017.

This firing is totally unfair and unjust to Tracy Claeys and his staff and the University of Minnesota leadership should be embarrassed to have something like this happen on their watch. I am not a Gopher season ticket holder but the U of M leadership team has chased off yet another Minnesota Gopher football fan.

Twins first exhibition game on deck

The Minnesota Twins open their 2015 exhibition season by playing the Minnesota Gophers on March 4 and they will play their final spring training game on Saturday April 4th at Hammond Stadium against the Boston Red Sox. When early April rolls around we will all have a pretty good idea who will make this years opening day roster. Having said that, I don’t think that Twins fans should get too attached to the players on the opening day roster because I have a feeling that the “roster will be a-changing” and I can’t wait to see some of that new blood when  it heads north to Minnesota and Target field.

Tinker Field 6The Minnesota Twins played their first ever exhibition game on March 11, 1961 at Tinker Field in Orlando. Cookie Lavagetto and his boys took on the Detroit Tigers and their first game turned out to be a 4-1 loss. Paul Giel started the game for Minnesota and took the loss and Bob Bruce who started for the Tigers was credited with the victory. You will notice in the box score that although this was the first game of spring training and players were not in the shape that they are in today that a number of the pitchers that pitched in this game logged three innings not the one inning that you will probably see tomorrow.

Paul Giel (courtesy of the Minnesota Twins)
Paul Giel (courtesy of the Minnesota Twins)

The box score below was provided courtesy of Stew Thornley, Thanks Stew, we appreciate it!

Twins first ST game boxscore 3-11-1961

Checking out the CenturyLink Sports Complex

Since I am here in SW Florida for a couple of weeks I thought I would stop by the Minnesota Twins spring training complex which has been renamed as the CenturyLink Sports Complex and see how thing are progressing on Phase II of the $48.5 million (Twins kicked in $6 million) remodeling effort.

The old Lee County Sports Complex sign at the entrance is gone and as of yet there is no new sign. The complex and a number of its fields are currently being used to host the Roy Hobbs World Series so there were a lot of cars in the parking lot with players and fans milling about. The stadium itself is a beehive of activity as you can see in some of the pictures I took while I was there. There is dust, dirt, and construction equipment everywhere.

When I looked around the fields I could see some players off in the distance with some Twins gear on running around on that new agility field that was built last year that has what looks like a little hill on it. There were about two dozen players running around throwing a basketball back and forth as they ran from one end to the other in groups of three. I didn’t recognize anyone off-hand  so I asked one of the guys that seemed to be running the exercise who the players were he grunted that they were some Twins minor league players going through rehab and he did not seem interested in chatting.

I then wandered over to the new minor league player dormitory and that is really a very cool building. Right now the building is also home to the Ft. Myers Miracle offices while work at the stadium continues. When you first walk in the door you are greeted by a security guard that is sitting at a desk that has a huge TC logo behind him that must be 10-12 feet tall. The area has a very high ceiling and the entire ceiling is a huge Twins logo, the pictures I took do not do it justice because it is just too big and I could not get far enough away to get a good picture.

The security guard was very nice and seemed very proud of the complex and he spent some time with me telling me all about it. He mentioned that the dormitory has 58 rooms and 54 of them are doubles for the minor league or rehab players. The other four are used to house management and one of the units is strictly for display to other organizations or teams that may be interested in seeing what the Twins have. I asked if I could get a quick tour of the main floor to take some pictures and he was very nice about it and took me around and explained things.

Our first stop on one end of the complex was the huge theatre type room that sits I think about 260-280 people and I believe it is called the Hall of Champions. It was dark in the room and difficult to get a good picture but it was pretty luxurious with some soft leather looking chairs. Some of the recent Twins meetings after the 2014 season ended used this room. It has several big screen TV’s as well as a huge pull-down display screen. As we wandered over to the other side of the complex we passed a very nice looking large  cafeteria that supposedly has some pretty good food. We then went on to the huge players recreation area that had TV’s, foosball tables, tennis tables, pool tables and a few other odds and ends. There are also various class rooms that are used for English classes and things like that. The walls are nicely decorated with uniforms of the various Twins teams ranging from rookie leagues to the major leagues and huge baseball cards of former Twins players similar to what you see at Target field. There is also a display of Twins bobble-heads and another display has the caps from all the Twins organizational teams. I did not go upstairs to see any of the dorm rooms but all in all it is a very impressive building and will serve the Twins and their players very nicely.

Randy RosarioWhile I was in the complex pitcher Randy Rosario wandered in and was kind enough to spend some time chatting with me. I sure wish I would have brought my little recorder but I did not bring it on this trip. Randy is one of the Twins players that is currently rehabbing from TJ surgery. When I asked Randy how he was doing he said he was doing great and will continue with his rehab for a couple more weeks before heading home for the holidays to the Dominican and then returning for spring training. I asked him if he would be throwing in spring training and he said that probably would not happen until April which is about 11 months out from his TJ surgery in May of this year. A nice chat, thank you Randy.

Twins pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to camp on February 22 and the rest of the team is scheduled to report on February 27. The Twins say that everything is on schedule with the remodeling and that it will be ready to go when they play the Boston Red Sox in their first official home exhibition game of the season on March 5. The actual first game at Hammond Stadium is the day before on March 4th when the Twins take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers. I added a link to the Twins 2015 Spring Training schedule on the right hand side of the home page. The pictures I took the other day can be seen on the 2014 CenturyLink Sports Complex remodel link.

Twins minor league player of the week

Mike Kvasnicka trying to make a "circus" catch
Mike Kvasnicka trying to make a “circus” catch this past April (Photo by Derek Davis of Portland Press Herald)

New Britain (AA – Eastern League) outfielder Mike Kvasnicka (kwas-NIK-ah) is the Twins
Minor League Player of the Week. The Lakeville, MN native played in seven games for the Rock Cats, hitting .407 (11-for-27) with two doubles, one home run, five RBI and three runs scored. Mike was acquired by the Twins from the Astros for pitcher Gonzalo Sanudo on March 25, 2013.

Kvasnicka was the Astros supplemental first round pick in the 2010 MLB Draft. Kvasnicka is the highest drafted Golden Gopher player since Glen Perkins was selected with the 22nd overall pick by the Minnesota Twins in 2004 in the first round. He is also the highest selected Minnesota position player since Brent Gates, who was drafted by the Oakland Athletics with 26th overall pick in the first round of the 1991 Major League Baseball Draft. Kvasnicka is the first Golden Gopher to be drafted by the Houston Astros. Various reports had Kvasnicka receiving a $936,000 signing bonus.

Mike was drafted as a third baseman from the University of Minnesota despite having never played the position more than a handful of times. Kvasnicka was primarily a catcher in college but did occasionally mix in some starts as an outfielder. The Twins have been using the 25-year old switch-hitting Kvasnicka strictly as an outfielder in 2014 playing him in all three outfield positions.

In his fifth season of pro ball, Kvasnicka has a career batting average of .256 with 41 home runs in 1,585 at-bats.