Like many of you, I woke up Saturday to the news of House Speaker Melissa and Mark Hortman’s assassination and the shootings of Sen. John and Yvette Hoffman. I’m not going to share the bigger picture here, but rather how it related to what I do as a content creator for a sports newsletter and as a fan. There was an extra jolt for me because, with a bit of Internet research, I confirmed the alleged assassin is someone whose father I had written about years ago when the team he coached won a state high school baseball tournament.
I had tickets for the Lynx at noon and, frankly, the last thing I felt like doing was going to a game. Any game. My friend who I was going with said he felt the same way. Then I wondered why Minnesota sports weren’t coming to a halt for a day so people could reflect and show respect. Minnesota United played that night and finals in the state lacrosse and baseball tournaments went on as scheduled. My nephew was on a team playing for the lacrosse title, and I didn’t go.
I wondered why this wasn’t like when NBA and WNBA players decided to stop games for a day in May 2020 when Jacob Blake was shot to death by a police officer in Wisconsin. Or when the Twins called off a game in April 2021 against Boston -- a few minutes before it was scheduled to start – on the afternoon following the shooting of Daunte Wright by a police officer in Brooklyn Center. I also compared it to national events in the past, when games were halted (Martin Luther King’s assassination, the NFL after 9/11) and the time when the NFL played (and later regretted playing) on the Sunday after President Kennedy was assassinated. There are differences in every situation but parsing them wasn’t on my mind Saturday.
A high school league staffer, Laura Mackunthun, answered my query about the tournaments by writing that talks were held Saturday morning. “In communicating with our host venues and their security partners, the decision was made to continue with the scheduled baseball and lacrosse state championships. The situation was monitored throughout the day and plans to adjust, if needed, were in place.”
I also asked around among people who I know are both politically engaged and sports fans. The political commentator Aaron Rupar was at the Lynx game and said it didn’t occur to him that events would be called off, but he could “definitely see the case for postponing, on Saturday at least.” Another friend noted the Lynx held a moment of silence and added, while she wasn’t interested in sports that day, “there’s probably an argument to be made for not letting the nutbags shut down everything, as long as there’s not a threat to public safety.” Another said that nothing should have been played.
I asked Jill Burcum, the award-winning Star Tribune editorial writer, and she replied: “Had there been a serious public safety risk, like evidence suggesting (the alleged assassin) would target the games, then yes, they should have been canceled. Otherwise, I think it's important that life go on and we don’t let psychopaths . . . shut down the good life we are so blessed to have in Minnesota. I’ve also known Hortman and Hoffman for years. They are both the epitome of decency, and I’d like to think that they’d agree.”
As time went on, the thing that became clearest to me is that it was a 50/50 call. And it probably played out the way it should: If you felt like backing off sports for a day, that was fine. If you decided to do things as planned, that was fine. For me, it felt good to talk about it and refine how I felt in those first few hours.
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HOW BAD ARE THE TWINS? Well, they have the same number of wins as they did when I hit the send button on last week’s Sports Take. Heading into today’s game in Cincinnati, they had two hits with runners in scoring position on their current road trip. (It should be noted that one of them came without an opponent’s outfielder swatting a fly ball over the wall with his glove.) Relievers failed on back-to-back days while getting swept at Houston. Royce Lewis is on the injured list again. Carlos Correa is making a mess at the plate.
BIG PICTURE: The Twins are making too many mistakes and have too many marginal players to be taken seriously as a playoff contender. They are pretty much having their 2024 late-season meltdown right now. According to FanGraphs — the best of the baseball geek websites, IMO — their postseason odds have dropped in the last 15 days from 67.5% to 32.9% CHART: https://fluence-media.co/odds0619
SNAPSHOTS: Fourth inning of Tuesday’s game vs. the Reds. David Festa walks two batters. Both score on a two-out double. Festa strikes out a batter — but he reaches base on a passed ball when Ryan Jeffers flubs the catch. Batter takes second on a delayed steal. Both runners score on a single. That’s a four-run inning in a 6-5 loss. Twins pitchers walk eight batters, the other Reds runs score on a two-out rally and second baseman Willi Castro simply fails to throw the ball to complete a double play. That’s Little League-level baseball, friends.
THE CORREA PROBLEM: Via Bobby Nightengale at Star Tribune. Read this story and weep for some of the numbers in a season that, so far, is spectacularly substandard. These numbers aren’t in the story, but Correa’s “slash line” — batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage is .240/.283/.374. The MLB averages this season are .245/.316/.396. Correa’s on-base percentage is 68 points below his career average. His OPS (on base-plus-slugging percentage) is 257 percentage points below last year’s figure. VERBATIM: “The word ‘frustrating,’ I don’t know if I would use. I’m process-oriented. I’m going to put in the work every day. I want to perform for the team. I want us to win as many games, and I know when I’m playing my best baseball, especially hitting at my best, we’ve got great chances to win every night. But at the same time, what I love about baseball is the ‘figure it out’ part.” FULL STORY: https://fluence-media.co/correa0619
MY TAKE: What I love about baseball is the winning part.
LOOKING AHEAD: The Twins don’t get much help from the schedule. They play only two teams with sub-.500 records before the All-Star break. They have yet to play the Dodgers, Cubs and Phillies, who have three of the four best records in the National league. They have 10 more games with Detroit, which has MLB’s best record, and six vs. the Yankees. Throw your optimism at me. I’ll judge if it sticks. https://fluence-media.co/schedule0619
COACHING HALL OF FAME PLAYERS: Via Richard Deitsch at The Athletic. The Athletic has a section called Peak, which writes about leadership and success in sports. It recently included a Q&A with Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve. She was asked what she learned about coaching Hall-of-Fame caliber players. VERBATIM: “Hold them accountable to standards even beyond their wildest imagination for their own abilities. Great players want to be coached and great players never think that they’re good enough. We have the Minnesota Hall of Famers, but I’ve also been around other Hall of Famers, and that is the common thread. They never think that they’ve arrived. There is always something else that they think they’re not quite good enough at. It drives them. I think accountability is the greatest thing that a leader can do for that level of player. We would be doing them a disservice if we just let their own belief and drive in themselves be the only thing that they have.”
MORE: The natural example is coaching Maya Moore. VERBATIM: “Our local beat writer after a game once said, ‘Cheryl, why do you get on Maya so much?’ I said, ‘Do you realize how much she’s doing wrong? She’s an incredible player, but I need her to do this and this and this and for her to be even greater.’ I have this thing where it has to look perfect. Take a DIY project. Someone will walk in and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s amazing.’ But I’m going, ‘No, you don’t know what it was supposed to look like.’ Well, that, to me, is practices and games. The practices is where we are trying to hone our skills so that the game is the work of art.” FULL Q&A: https://fluence-media.co/reeve061925
HUMBLING THE VIKINGS. Via Jacob Robinson at The Athletic. This early season preview includes one shocking number. BetMGM’s expected win total for the Vikings, even after last year’s 14-3 record, is 8.5. The Vikings as a .500 team in 2025? I’m not hearing that on the streets. But local talk assumes what outsiders are skeptical about: J.J. McCarthy’s ability. VERBATIM: “The Vikings also chose to forego the Aaron Rodgers show, instead going all in on McCarthy. When beat reporter Alec Lewis asked a colleague for their top-five list of needs for a winning season in Minnesota, their answer was telling: ‘McCarthy’s knee, McCarthy’s arm, McCarthy’s feet, McCarthy’s eyes and McCarthy’s mind.’ The Vikings secondary also deserves a mention, though they could improve it by signing Jaire Alexander or Jalen Ramsey. MORE: https://fluence-media.co/vikings0619
TOP POSITION BATTLES. Via Andrew Krammer at Star Tribune. No. 1 on the list of five battles to watch is what happens at cornerback. VERBATIM: One pressing question is how the Vikings secondary will look with three starters from last season — safety Camryn Bynum and cornerbacks Stephon Gilmore and Shaq Griffin — no longer on the team. Coach Kevin O’Connell shed light on the Vikings’ vision this month. It includes newly paid cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. . . . playing more slot cornerback — or inside formations — where all types of receivers are schemed into open spaces via pre-snap motions and post-snap route patterns. During the 2025 season, the Vikings face seven of the top 10 receivers in slot yardage from last season.” MORE: https://fluence-media.co/battles0619
53-MAN ROSTER PROJECTION: Via Will Ragatz at Sports Illustrated. Is it too early to predict the regular-season roster? I have two words for you. 1. Absolutely. 2. Never. ROSTER: https://fluence-media.co/roster0619
WATCH THEM WORK: Twelve Vikings preseason practices will be open to the public beginning on July 26. DETAILS: https://fluence-media.co/camp0619
HUGE WEEK FOR DRAFTS: The PWHL draft is Tuesday, the NBA draft is Wednesday and Thursday (one round each day), the NHL draft is a week from Friday and Saturday. Here’s a guide to help follow along.
NBA DEEP DIVE. if you want as much as you can get on the NBA draft without bouncing all over the Internet, use this guide from The Ringer. It includes a Big Board of the top players, that can be tweaked by position, skill set and player attributes. It also has a mock draft, which has the Wolves taking Drake Powell, a wing from North Carolina. VERBATIM: “Powell is a high-motor defender who can guard multiple positions and the type of offensive player who can space to the corner effectively or punish inattentive helpers with his cutting. He’s on my radar as a player who could, down the road, be seen as one of the steals of this draft.” DRAFT GUIDE: https://fluence-media.co/ringer0619
OTHER MOCK DRAFTS: Only two have the Wolves picking the same player, and they’re all different from The Ringer’s choice.. ESPN | Sports Illustrated | CBS Sports | Yahoo! | The Athletic
NHL’S MINNESOTA CONNECTION: Via MN Hockey Life. There are 19 Minnesotans listed in the final rankings released by NHL Central Scouting. Atop the list is Wisconsin defenseman Logan Hensler, who played high school hockey for Hill-Murray and was part of the U.S. national team development program. He’s ranked No. 12 overall. No. 2 (and 28th overall) is center Mason West, a rising senior at Edina who also is quarterback on the school’s football team. FULL LIST: https://fluence-media.co/mnhockey0619
WHAT ABOUT THE WILD? Via PuckPedia. The Wild traded their first-round pick to Columbus for defenseman David Jiricek and a fifth-round pick. They’ll also have picks in the second, fourth and sixth rounds. DETAILS: https://fluence-media.co/wild0619
PROSPECT RANKINGS. Via NHL.com. https://fluence-media.co/nhlprospects0619
PWHL’S MINNESOTA TIES: Via Ian Kennedy at Hockey News. Two Gophers and a Minnesota Duluth player are among the 16 taken in this two-round mock draft, including forward Natalie Mlynkova, who Kennedy has going to the Frost with the sixth pick. Other on his list are Minnesota forward Ella Huber (Toronto, 11th pick) and UMD defender Nina Jobst-Smith (Montreal, 12th). Kennedy also has the Frost taking Russian defender Vita Ponyatovskaya, who played at Yale, with the 14th pick.
BUT LEADING THE LIST: Cornell defender Rory Guilday, who played for Minnetonka, is projected to be taken fifth overall and headed for Ottawa. VERBATIM: “Guilday fits Ottawa's plans in a lot of ways. She's big and will make this team more difficult to play against. Guilday is like a ‘Lee Stecklein-lite’ and we all saw how valuable Stecklein was in playoffs (for the Frost).” DRAFT PROFILES: https://fluence-media.co/pwhl0619
WATCH THE DRAFTS: PWHL on YouTube | NBA on ESPN | NHL on ESPN (Thursday), NHL Network (Friday)
LYNX STRIKE IT RICH: The final week of the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup tournament was filled with swerves and ended happily for the Lynx. First off, they won the Western Conference spot in the finals thanks to help from expansion Golden State, which upset Seattle after the Storm had ended Minnesota’s unbeaten run and took over first place. Then, Indiana shocked New York, the Liberty’s first loss of the season, and won the Eastern Conference spot. For the Lynx, that means a bonus home game on July 1 for the Cup title against . . . Caitlin Clark. Considering last year’s games against Indiana filled Target Center, that’s quite a windfall. Tickets go on sale next week.
POOR PAIGE: Via USA Today. The Dallas Wings are 2-11 and don’t appear to have much chemistry, maturity or defense. VERBATIM: The good news: Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers is back after missing three games with a concussion. She even dropped 35 points in her return. The bad news: Even with Bueckers, Dallas is a mess. Perhaps there was no larger indictment of the state of the Wings than this week's loss against the Aces. The Wings gave up a brutal 17-2 run to end the game after leading Vegas before the fourth quarter. Making matters worse, a clip of head coach Chris Koclanes and guard DiJonai Carrington in a back-and-forth exchange about a potential challenge with the game on the line went viral, leading to more scrutiny. But it doesn't stop there. MORE: https://fluence-media.co/paige0619
REEVE’S WORDS: Via Kent Youngblood at Star Tribune. Reeve talked about Saturday’s shootings before the game against Los Angeles, another example of the team being responsive to events outside of basketball. VERBATIM: “I was thinking about the era, the political era, when the term ‘politically correct’ actually [meant] kindness and thinking of others, when that became weaponized. When inclusion is weaponized. It’s a time now, more than ever, that we need to stand in that. And inclusion is the path. It’s obviously been met with a lot of resistance and I guess that’s the way of the world.”
MORE: “The coaches and players didn’t talk about it before the game. They waited until it was over. Reeve described the players as being in shock. ‘I asked them to be careful, but to use their voices.’ Now is the time, more than ever. It’s not the time to be afraid.’’ https://fluence-media.co/lynx0619
GRANDMA’S WEEKEND: Via Jamey Malcomb at Duluth News Tribune. About 9,000 runners will run Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth on Saturday, with 8,000 more in the Garry Bjorklund half-Marathon and another 1,500 signed up for the William A. Irvin 5K on Friday. Among the 18,500 runners will be a half-marathon participant from South Carolina who has run 82 races of 13.1 miles or more and finished all but one. He’s run them to raise money for dementia research — and without training. STORY: https://fluence-media.co/runner0619
MORE: Race day weather | Tour the course | Track a runner, race results
COOL HONOR: Via Jorden McPherson at Miami Herald. When the Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup on Tuesday night, they made sure that the seven players who’d never been on a championship-winning team had the first chance to carry the cup around the ice. First among them was former Gophers player and St. Cloud native Nate Schmidt, who has played for five NHL teams over 12 seasons. VERBATIM: “It was awesome. I had no idea that it was going to be me. He looked me and he said, ‘Hey, the guys that haven’t done it before, we’re going to take a back seat to you guys.’ It means a lot.” MORE: https://fluence-media.co/cup0619
COLLEGE HOCKEY IN EUROPE? Via Brad Elliott Schlossman at Grand Forks Herald. The North Dakota Fighting Hawks are looking to take their first overseas trip since 1982. VERBATIM: “UND has been exploring the possibility of competing in the 2027 Friendship Four tournament in Belfast, Northern Ireland. No contract has been signed and nothing has been finalized. But UND has made significant progress on it over the last several months, according to multiple sources. The Friendship Four is a regular-season tournament held annually on Thanksgiving weekend. It is played at the home of the Belfast Giants, who compete in the top United Kingdom-based league. Their arena seats about 11,000. Three former UND players suited up for Belfast last season — Jordan Kawaguchi, Grant Mismash and Gabe Bast.” MORE: https://fluence-media.co/und0619
LESNAR WINS TITLE: Via Stephen Douglas at Sports Illustrated. No, not Brock Lesnar, the wrestler and MMA fighter. it’s his daughter. Mya Lesnar of Colorado State won the NCAA outdoor shot put championship. The Alexandria High School graduate won the NCAA indoor title in 2024. VERBATIM: "It was awesome. Sometimes I get a little too serious. There's a time and place for that, but I think I just decided today, my last collegiate meet, I'm just going to have fun. Trust the process and yeah... get it done." MORE: https://fluence-media.co/lesnar0619
JUST A THOUGHT: It’s Juneteenth. Given MLB’s propensity for special-occasion jerseys and caps, wouldn’t it be good if teams wore uniforms representing Negro League and barnstorming teams of the 20th Century today and through the weekend?
Thanks for reading. More fun and thoughts next week.
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HOW TO WATCH ALMOST ANYTHING
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