Panic-time can wait, for Vikings
Maybe it’s not time to panic yet, because after all we still have another exhibition game to go before the National Football League begins its long run into winter. Exhibition games are, mostly, a joke. Each team works out its own schedule for developing all the elements necessary for a strong regular season, and mainly they don’t play the regulars so that they can take a long look at the potential of new players that might represent the future.
But if you’re a Minnesota Vikings fan, a serious cloud of concern hangs heavily over the club. Not panic, maybe, but definitely concern.
With one exhibition game left, Vikings fans have no idea if the third year of the Christian Ponder Experiment has a chance to be different from Years One and Two, or if the Vikings will try to masquerade as a contender by handing the ball to Adrian Peterson and playing good defense.
Frankly, I refuse to get too excited about any exhibition game. That means I kiss off the apparent ineptitude displayed by the Vikings in three exhibitions and trust their explanation that they aren’t playing Ponder much, and they didn’t play Peterson at all, because they didn’t want to risk any injuries to two such stalwarts.
Then I watch parts of a couple other exhibition games. I notice that nobody gets worked up when Aaron Rodgers doesn’t do much with the Green Bay Packers, but newcomer Vince Young steps in and wins the backup quarterback job with an impressive performance. And Detroit buries the vaunted New England Patriots 40-9, with ace quarterback Drew Stafford looking pretty good, and backup Kellen Moore looking sensational. Chicago looked pretty impressive, too, with Jay Cutler looking very good, armed with a newly replenished arsenal of varied receivers and running backs.
It was not just sarcasm when I projected a few weeks ago that the pressure on Christian Ponder to rise to the role of prominence is emphasized more because of the Vikings division — if Ponder plays his absolute best this season, he might still be only the fourth-best quarterback in the division, behind Rodgers, Stafford and Cutler.
With Ponder looking comparatively shaky, if not entirely lost, in sparse duty through three exhibitions, I now must amend that bleak prospect: If Ponder plays his absolute best this year, he might not be any better than sixth-best in the division — behind Rodgers, Stafford, Cutler, Moore and Young.
I really liked Vince Young when he played at Texas, showing immense skill and capability, and then stepping in with glowing prospects for more than adequate chances in the NFL. He didn’t really make it. In fact, he failed in two starting opportunities with different teams, then he sat out all last season with an injury, and lost his chance to run a team. Personally, I think he came into the NFL at the wrong time, at a time when teams had established offenses, and made any new prospect fit into that system, while Young didn’t. Nobody was about to turn an entire offense over to a guy who would just as soon run as pass, as if an exciting college style might work in the NFL.
Since then, of course, we’ve seen a startling transformation in the NFL. Robert Griffin III took over at Washington, Cam Newton got free reign at Caroline, Russell Wilson burst into the clear in Seattle, and Colin Kaepernick turned San Francisco upside down. All of them are spectacular quarterbacks, capable of game-breaking plays while running or passing with equal explosiveness, and pro football showed that with the right degree of open-mindedness, a new quarterback with a new outlook and a combination of flash and confidence can lift a franchise up from mediocrity to contention.
Perhaps the most intriguing of this fall’s prospects is at Green Bay. Aaron Rodgers is just fully emerging as a true superstar. No, he won’t make us forget Brett Favre, but he is the triggerman for a Packers team that should again be a division, conference and Super Bowl contender. But it seems to be a brilliant bit of strategy for the Packers to displace a fully adequate backup quarterbacking system with the potential of a mercurial alternative in Vince Young. We don’t anticipate Rodgers getting bogged down in any game, but his effectiveness might even be enhanced if the Packers can look at an occasional situation where Vince Young can jog onto the field for a play or two, passing or pitching or scrambling to break loose running in a way nobody wants to see Rodgers run. Then, with a well-qualified intern making the incision for a first down, the master surgeon comes back in and finishes the operation in the end zone.
Personally, though, I will be watching the Detroit Lions as often as possible, because I’ve been a Kellen Moore fan since he was back at Boise State, running the Broncos spectacular offense on that strange blue turf in Idaho. In those days, Boise State was one of the most entertaining college teams to watch. The game plan was always brilliant, and Boise State would come up with trick plays almost every time they got the ball — brilliantly conceived and executed trick plays that worked with astounding effectiveness. And Kellen Moore was that tall, lanky left-handed quarterback who ran the show.
Moore’s greatest skill seemed to be an ability to loft passes that were more perfect than high-velocity. He’s lob the ball over safeties who were scrambling to get into position. There were those who wrote him off as a pro because he didn’t have Rodgers-style bullet capabilities. I always thought that his keen ability to find a target and put his passes where only those receivers could get them would make him one of those quarterbacks who only needed a chance to play in order to excel.
For his whole college career, Moore had to play out there in Boise while other teams refused to play Boise State. College football has long had its ridiculous pecking order, where the powers-that-be made sure that no odd newcomers penetrated their realm. It still holds for the Southeast Conference, which has a lot of good teams and might be the best conference in the country, but which also protects its turf by buying off the decision-makers at ESPN with a sinister partnership that assures ESPN of top games to broadcast and perpetrates the illusion that no team from anywhere else should be elevated to the Bowl Championship game. So the routine came about that nobody wanted to play Boise State, so then they could look at Boise’s 11-0 record and say, “They don’t play anybody,” while making sure they couldn’t play a tougher schedule. When they did get a chance, Boise State blitzed even strong teams, which made the other powers more reluctant to play the Broncos.
When Moore’s senior year ended, I thought he would become a great pro quarterback, but he was not a super-high draft pick. Detroit got him to sign a contract, and he quietly played in the shadows. I think he was No. 3 with the Lions while learning the system, but time passes, and now he’s not only No. 2, but he’s capable of stepping in to help Stafford and the long-suffering Lions be a true contender.
Coming back to the Vikings, I’ve believed in Ponder’s future because he, too, is a smart player who knows what must be done, where his pass must go, and how to run an offense. Still, he showed very little except occasional bursts so far. Of the division’s quarterbacks, none has the built-in advantage Ponder has, which is the opportunity to hand the ball to No. 28, Adrian Peterson, for at least half the team’s offensive plays. That should make Ponder’s job easier, because opposing defenses have to psyche themselves up to try to form a posse to head off Peterson before he gets free. That means that Ponder can throw a play-fake at Peterson and should find multiple receivers open for a few pinpoint passes, which, in turn, should open up Peterson even more.
The problem, going into this summer’s exhibition season, is that Ponder rarely if ever showed the capability to get the ball to his receivers with the needed zip and mostly with accuracy. Soem spectacular lunging, leaping, one-handed catches are impressive, but the top quarterbacks on other teams are putting precision passes right on the chest, or into the hands, of top receivers. Sure, Percy Harvin went out with an injury last season, and I, like most Vikings followers, cut Ponder new dimensions of slack. This summer, the Vikings rounded up a new herd of receivers, and even took Joe Webb, the potentially great backup quarterback, and converted him to wide receiver.
With all that playing out, I found it alarmingly strange that the Vikings gave Ponder only two snaps in the first exhibition, and only two series in the second. Yes, you worry about any starting quarterback getting injured in an exhibition game, but Ponder is not a superstar being held out because we know he’s going to come in with Rodgers-style polish when the gun sounds. In the third exhibition, Ponder looked like an untested rookie trying to impress with a scattershot array of passes. That is, after dropping the football on his third play to give the San Francisco 49ers the ball on the Vikings 11. It was a tribute to the Vikings defense that they held the 49ers to a field goal on that sequence.
Matt Cassel didn’t look much better as backup, making it two poor performances after an impressive first game. Joe Webb is still there, and we were reminded of that when he outbattled a D-back to make a spectacular leaping catch for a touchdown. Oh yeah, we thought. There’s Joe Webb! Hmmm…He could be coming in as the ideal back-up QB, couldn’t he? Remember, he looked great in that role — sort of Minnesota’s Vince Young to Aaron Rodgers, stylewise — until last season. When things broke down, the Vikings gave Joe Webb his long-overdue chance, and he flubbed it. Played poorly. But failing in one big, pressure-filled chance isn’t much chance, compared to three years of anointed starting stardom for Christian Ponder. My thought is that using Webb as a ready back-up for Ponder might help make Ponder a better quarterback than he’s become.
Anyway, Vikings fans, three exhibition games don’t mean we should panic. We have a fourth exhibition this week…then we can panic.
SENIOR MOMENTS
Maybe they should change the name of the MSMABA. That stands for Minnesota Senior Men’s Amateur Baseball Association, a wordy title that stands for the Over-35 group of teams I’ve been involved with for over 25 years. I argued at the beginning that it should be MSBA, for Minnesota Senior Baseball Association, because that would be simpler. But maybe “Senior Moments” would be the ideal name.
With the painful demise of the SeaFoam Hawks to something more of a rebuilding hopeful team for the future than a contender, we have depended form a few years on a bit of an upsurge at state tournament time to make the long winter easier to endure before trying again. This past season, we had a diversity of talent. When we had all our top players on the field, we could compete with anybody; when we didn’t, we couldn’t. My guys would always say it was still fun, to which I would counter that it can be fun while winning, also.
When it came time to schedule the two-weekend state tournament, I made one request of the league. If we were going to be scheduled on Friday, could we get the late game, because we had three players who were working late and would miss the earlier game? The result: We were scheduled for 6:30 p.m., the earliest game, in Prior Lake, with Interstates 35W and 494 under construction, and the likely alternative of Hwy. 169 closed down to one congested lane. That meant we had to play without the left side of our infield, including two of our top three hitters, and we got hammered 10-0 by New Hope, a good team.
We had to come back and play an early game on Saturday, against the K-Town Outlaws from Kensington. We were missing a half-dozen players because of the hour, so we were down to nine players. I played second base, and I moved Sam, our first baseman, to right field, and played Jay, our backup relief pitcher, to first base. Mike, our first-game pitcher, played shortstop, and Matt, our left-fielder, went to third base for my son, Jack, who was stuck at work. You could call it a makeshift lineup, and I was something less than confident.
But Gary pitched a masterful game, and we played our best game of the season — winning 6-2 and outhitting K-Town 15-3. Unbelievable. Personally, it has been a tough season for me, after years of being comfortable making big plays that might help us win, to the realization that I might make a misplay that costs us a game. But on that hot afternoon, I hit two fastballs squarely to left for my best two hits of the season, and Jay, at first base, hit three shots among our 15.
That brought us back all flushed with confidence for this past weekend, where we had our top guns back, to face an Edina team we had beaten early in the season. This time, their big left-hander screwed us into the ground with a great curveball, and we were unable to make up a late deficit, losing 5-3. Mike Snow, back on the mound, pitched one of his best games of the season, giving up only four hits, but we wasted his effort.
In the world of bracketing, we wound up playing our final game Sunday against K-Town, and it was a disaster that started manifesting itself over Saturday night. Around midnight, I got a text message from former Gopher hockey star Jay Moser, our shortstop and No. 3 hitter, saying he had wrenched his back, couldn’t move, and wouldn’t be able to play the next day. I was counting on him to back up Gary, our pitcher, then I got a text from Gary, who said he was injured working on a rock wall late Saturday, and definitely would be unable to play, let alone pitch Sunday. With Jack, our third baseman and next in line to pitch, facing an important meeting at work, we were in bad shape for our finale. Mike, our speedy center-fielder, was solid, as was Sam at first base. Matt and Huck, our top two rookies, were also set, as was big Steve, who has become a good catcher while constantly begging for the chance to pitch, and Derek, who faces a weekly battle with his wife whether he should be freed to play.
As I drove from Duluth to Shakopee for the game Sunday morning, I was almost constantly on the phone. I was about a half-hour from Shakopee when Jack informed me he could get free to play, but he was in Oakdale, on the far east end of the Twin Cities, and he had damaged a suspension piece on his car and couldn’t drive it that far. I immediately called our players already in the dugout and told them to start without me, and I turned abruptly to go pick up Jack.
Negotiating construction highlights on the roads to Shakopee, we missed the start of the game, and our team, playing with eight players, was trailing 4-1 when we arrived. Jack ran onto the field and took third base, while I hauled the equipment belatedly to the dugout. With no warmup, Jack got up twice and got two hits. I went in at second base, and got up twice without two hits. We lost, 6-1. Most impressively, Mike Snow said he felt fine, instead of exhausted, and pitched all the way for the second day in a row. Again he gave up only four hits, and for the second day in a row we wasted his effort.
I thought it seemed pretty hot, which I attributed to anxiety, then I heard the temperature was an all-time record 97 degrees in Shakopee, with a heat index of 115.
My plan was to hang it up after this season, to turn over the equipment and the anxiety to some younger player, closer to the scene in the Twin Cities. After we were done, though, a half dozen players said how much they were looking forward to next season, and pleaded with me to continue. I didn’t commit. But like an unspecified addict, after a terrible year hitting, I had gotten three hits in two tournament games — more than I attained all season. Nothing makes next year look better than that.
Amateur Baseball can have Gordie Howe Moment
By John Gilbert
It was my personal Gordie Howe Moment.
There are those who think Gordie Howe was the greatest hockey player in history, and his achievements as a no-compromise, tough, determined and high-scoring right wing with the National Hockey League’s Detroit Red Wings is the stuff that makes the Hall of Fame work. Gordie, however, just did what he wanted to do on the rink. He played by his own rules, his own code, and anyone violatimg it would pay swiftly and surely.
But Gordie Howe would be just as quick to say that all his accomplishments were fun, and nice to be stored in his memory, but his greatest thrill came after he retired from the Red Wings, when he came back to play in the rival World Hockey Association for the Houston Aeros, only because of the opportunity, at age 50-something, to play with his two sons, Mark and Marty. They were good players in their own right, Mark an outstanding winger and Marty a very capable defenseman.
I had the opportunity to write about Gordie Howe in both incarnations, when he played in that red Red Wings jersey, and when he played with his sons with the Aeros. I thought it was really neat what he did, particularly that he was capable of being a solid player at age 50, and that he could play on the same team with his two sons, sharing ice time, sharing the bench, the dressing room, and the trips to faraway cities.
Impressed as I was, it took a lot of years before it truly hit home how big a deal it was until, on a different level, in a different world, I got to experience something similar.
My lifelong love of baseball started as a youth player, long before my long and acquired affair with hockey, as a writer, came to be. The baseball connection was from my dad, of course. He had played third base for the Brooklyn Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds long before I was born, although he was never pushy about trying to make me play.
When Jack, the first of our two sons, came along, I couldn’t wait to play catch with him, and to toss rubber balls to him that he could swat back at me with a tiny bat. I made sure he felt comfortable swinging left-handed. I like to hit left-handed, but, like my dad many years ago, I’m right-handed. My dad always said he regretted I didn’t swing from the left side because he thought I had a naturally fluid swing that way. My urging of both my sons, Jack and Jeff, was more pragmatic. Probably 90 percent of the pitchers you face at any level are right-handed, and their curveballs are much easier to hit if they’re breaking toward you than sweeping away, out of reach. And left-handed hitters get a two-step head start to first base, which might make the difference in turning 10 percent of all ground balls into singles, or at least into threats.
It also was an objective of mine to push every player on all the teams I coached to play defense in a fundamentally sound manner — two hands on every catch, turn to the inside when making a double play, leave your fingers inside your glove rather than the faint-hearted trend of poking a finger outside the back of the glove for protection from owies. And, even short tosses should be overhand. Also, I was a senior in high school before I became confidently aggressive swinging, so I stressed being aggressive to these players. Starting at age 9 and on up — don’t take strikes; if you swing at a head-high pitch, you might be surprised how far you can hit it; and I won’t criticize you for swinging at a ball out of the strike zone, but if you take a strike, we’ll talk.
Both Jack and the younger Jeff became good baseball players, and solid hitters, but they also were very good hockey players — clever and creative playmakers and also tough, when the situation demanded it. It left some indelible memories, because I coached those teams.The first team I ever coached in hockey, in fact, was an “in-house” Bantam team after Jack had gotten cut from the traveling team tryouts. So did a neighbor kid named Joe DeLisle. Whenever they played together, they happened to fit together like a hand in a glove, and while I always balanced lines, I played those two together because they scored in amazing quantities and both could score and they enjoyed setting each other up.
We surprised everybody, including ourselves, by losing only one game that whole season, and I remember that loss better than most of the ones we won, because it was a bitter, nasty game played outside on the opposing rink. It started snowing, hard, and our foe wouldn’t clear the rink. So I directed our dads to shovel off from the blue line in, but only on the end we were going to shoot at. Then the other side’s parents thought it might be a good idea to shovel the rest.
We lost that game by a goal, and the main reason was because Jack set up Joe DeLisle for a good scoring chance, and one of the opposing players cross-checked Joe from behind, dropping him to the ice. Jack didn’t hesitate, charging to Joe’s aid and flattening the kid. Typically, the young kid refing had missed the first play, but he couldn’t miss Jack’s steam-rolling retaliation, so he threw him out of the game. Sorry, but I couldn’t have been prouder of my kid issuing the proper amount of justice, even though we lost by a goal. After the season, we faced the same team on an indoor rink in the league playoff championship. game. We beat them 8-3. Once again it was a rough and nasty game, especially after we got ahead. At one point, we were two players short, and Joe DeLisle scored two short-handed goals while we were two men short. Funny how you remember such things, 30 years later. (Yes, it was that Joe DeLisle, who later played and became captain at UMD.)
Because both Jack and Jeff loved hockey so much, they let their baseball go, which I understood, although I was disappointed because both of them were better hitters than I ever was, with awesome hand-eye coordination. By around then, I had found this 35-and-over senior men’s league and resumed playing myself. Great fun, and when you’re nearing 50 and you hit a fastball square on the barrel, you’re 18 again. We had some good teams, and some great teams, and a few bad teams, but I always tried to make sure we had good guys on the team, cohesive and united in playing hard as possible, but for fun.
Even though I hit well on those teams, it was a definite thrill when Jack got old enough to play with us. He’s now one of our best hitters and plays third base in a manner that would have made his grand-dad proud. My play is tapering off, and it’s a battle to get in any kind of shape, and to get my arm back to strength after I injured it. I’ve shifted to second base for the shorter throw, and often I realize our team is best off if I do my managing from the bench while younger and quicker guys fill my position.
Younger son Jeff is living out in Washington state these days, although my wife, Joan, and I still hold out hope that he’ll get serious and move back to Minnesota. He does visit, and this summer he said he’d love to play on our team. I made the move of putting his name on our roster and when he came to visit, he did reserve one Friday night for us. He put on SeaFoam Hawks No. 22, and a new pair of spikes, and rode with us to Waconia for a game.
We’ve had a tough year, although when we have the right players, we’re solidly competitive with most teams. Waconia has a very good team, and after thinking about the options, I put Jeff, who hadn’t played for over a decade, at first base, I played second, while Jack was at his usual third base. We got behind 5-1, but we battled back, and we played solid defense. Jeff caught a ball and doubled a runner off second. And later, looking as good as he had ever looked as a 15-year-old when his team won the championship, Jeff smacked a single to center to drive in a run. We lost 5-3, but it was a good game. Jack and I failed to get a hit — rare for him, not for me — and Jeff got the only hit for the Gilbert Clan that night.
Later, Jeff said how big a thing it was for him to play a game with us, and how he might not get many more chances to play with his ol’ dad, ever.
I thanked the team for a great effort, and especially for allowing me to indulge myself for the chance-of-a-lifetime to experience a “Gordie Howe Moment.”
It was heartfelt from me, and it was actually pretty emotional. The spell was broken, though, when one of my players honestly said: “Who is Gordie Howe?
Nissan Driving Itself Into Future
Future Nissan Leaf equipped for driving and parking itself.
By John Gilbert
NEWPORT COAST, CALIF. — One of the more common questions consumers ask automotive journalists is that, given the impressive expansion of innovative driving controls on contemporary cars, how long will it be before we have cars that will drive themselves?
That answer is a lot sooner than any of us might have expected, based on a visit to Nissan 360, a complete introduction to all the new cars and trucks that will be coming out for 2014 in all 170 countries of the world where Nissan sells vehicles. The show started in late August and lasts into September of 2013 to attract waves of auto journalists from all over the world, as a celebration by the Japanese company for its 80th anniversary of building cars.
Few vehicles in those 80 years compares to the Leaf, Nissan’s all-electric subcompact, which has now sold 74,000 units worldwide to become the top-selling electric vehicle (EV) in the world. But no other Leaf can compare to the model I climbed into on the “Autonomous Driving” course, designed as part of a revised layout at the abandoned El Toro airbase.
When it comes to drives-itself vehicles, there are models from Lexus and Ford and Lincoln that will parallel park themselves in no-touch fashion. But Nissan goes well beyond that with the autonomous Leaf. I was instructed to climb into the passenger seat by a polite Japanese engineer, who sent one of his young associates to sit in the driver’s street, but to carefully fold his arms to avoid touching any controls or pedals. Another engineer was in the back seat. The engineer himself stood off to our right, as we were positioned on the right side of two parallel rows of parked cars, simulating a shopping center parking lot, with cars filling all available slots.
Our man clicked the key fob, and — no-touch — we were moving forward, then turning left to drive down between the two double lanes of parked cars. As we slowly moved along, a driver pulled an SUV out of a slot on our left and drove away. We approached and passed that slot, as our Leaf pulled wide to the right, then it deliberately backed up in a smooth arc, backing perfectly into the opened slot and stopping perfectly.
Autonomous Drive means no-hands driving and parking.
I suggested that if you lived in an apartment building with a similar parking lot, you could stop at the door, grab your computer bag and a couple bags of groceries, and go inside, pausing to click the fob — and sending the Leaf away for find an open parking slot and park itself. He said that would be easily possible. Not bad for wintertime.
When the fob was clicked again, from 200 feet away, our Leaf left the parking slot and circled around to the left, arriving on a larger road-course for another test. Away we went, making the curve and heading back along the left of a row of parked cars. A motorized image of a person suddenly zipped out from between two of the parked cars, right into our path. It was too close for braking, but without hesitation the Leaf swerved to the left, around the wayward pedestrian, then veered back into our lane and continued on. Read more
Passat TDI Top-Rated for MPG, Power
U.S.-built Passat has choice of engines, but the 2.0 turbo-diesel is the gas mileage king.
By John Gilbert
There might be a more comfortably spacious method of getting exceptional fuel economy than the new Volkswagen Passat TDI, but offhand I can’t think of any. A few small hybrid compacts and subcompacts might get similar gas-mileage figures, but the Passat is a roomy and luxurious sedan that ranks with the best full-size cars for comfort and performance, with the TDI model sending it off the scale for fuel efficiency.
The Passat can be selected with a 5-cylinder or V6 gas engines, but the TDI designates the redoubtable 2.0-liter, 4-cylinder Volkswagen turbo-diesel, which has impressive thrust from its powerful dosage of torque, and it just happens to cruise right about at the peak of that considerable power range.
That makes it difficult to avoid stabbing the gas pedal for bursts of available torque for passing and lane-changing, but if you can restrain your foot, you can get astronomical fuel economy figures — well beyond the EPA estimate of 40 miles per gallon highway.
Passat models run from the low $20,000 range up to mid-$30,000s, and the turbo-diesel stands alone, available in two different models. The more basic SE model TDI Passat starts at $26,295, while the fully-trimmed SEL starts at $33,895, loaded as my test-car was.
The new Passat, styled specifically for American buyers, is built in the new Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is just as new as the redesigned sedan.
We had an interesting discussion going about cars on a radio talk-show I conduct in Duluth, Minnesota (KDAL am610). It’s always fun to leave politics, terrorism, and even sports to frequently focus on cars, and as I was discussing selected new cars that reach and surpass 40 miles per gallon, a thoughtful and articulate caller made an interesting comment: “Why aren’t modern cars any better than they were in the 1960s, when a lot of cars could get over 40 miles per gallon?” he said.
I interrupted the man to say: “Name four.”
Stylish rear houses enormous trunk to go with Passat’s roomy interior.
“Well, more than 40 years ago I had a couple of cars that could get over 40,” he said. “One was a Volkswagen Rabbit that would get 50 or 55 mpg, and another was a Volkswagen Dasher, that also got over 40…”
I interrupted to ask: “I’ll bet those were turbo-diesels, right?”
He answered that they were, and I pointed out that those early VW turbo-diesels weren’t exactly the norm for car engines, but their high mileage included steady puffs of noxious smoke and foul-smelling exhaust, just like other diesels of that era. There also were no emission-controls on those cars, either. While they and a few other gas-powered cars, including the Mitsubishi Mirage (Dodge Colt), and early Honda Civics, could get lofty fuel economy figures, they were offset by the majority of mainstream cars with mileage in the low-teens for mpg, and high-performing cars got gas mileage in single digits. Read more
Duluth Huskies become summer sensation
Huskies closer Nate Carter retired the sixth straight Waterloo batter to finish a 5-2 playoff victory.
By John Gilbert
Minor league baseball can be colorful, and when it is an independent league for college players, it can be as unpredictably exciting as baseball can get, at any level.
With two weeks to go in the short summer season of the Northwoods Baseball League, the Duluth Huskies were locked in a battle to try to outdistance three other contenders for the dubious honor of being the second-best team in the North Division behind Waterloo. Flash-forward and the Huskies just finished a meteoric surge to reach the playoffs, capped by shocking Waterloo’s record-setting season champs in two straight games.
The result is a nine-game winning streak that thrusts the Huskies into the championship playoff series.
It shows what a little momentum, consistently balanced hitting, and a monster relief pitcher named Nate Carter can do under pressure. Carter, a 6-foot-3 junior fireballer from Florida Southern, was flat amazing in the two-game sweep against Waterloo, squelching the most high-pressure threat he’s faced all season for the 5-2 victory Monday night at Wade Municipal Stadium. Then he did it again, adding the extra challenge of a little self-induced pressure, to help the Huskies cling to a 2-1 victory in the second game of the best-of-three divisional playoff Tuesday night.
Lakeshore was trying to eliminate Madison in the Southern half playoff, after romping 15-0 in the first game. The Huskies don’t care, undoubtedly, because they go up against either one in the playoff final. From here on in, the traffic signals are all green and the road is downhill for the Huskies, whose captivating run has become a sensational sports story for the Twin Ports this summer.
Through the last two weeks of the regular season, the Huskies seemed to be in the unenviable position of trying to become the second-best team to the Waterloo Bucks, but an interesting detail played into the Huskies hands. Waterloo had won the first half of the league, and when the Bucks proved to be the class of the league by also winning the second half, it meant the rules for the divisional playoffs were enacted: Whichever team finishes second by combining the first and second halves would get to advance to face the Bucks. It looked like the Huskies might not be able to take second in the second half, but if they could keep winning, they could claim second place overall.
Duluth hit its stride and kept winning through that final week. The Huskies rattled off seven straight victories, good enough to outdistance St. Cloud, Mankato and Willmar for second place in the second half — and more importantly, second overall. It seemed a small reward to get into that playoff, because the potent Bucks were waiting. Waterloo had just finished setting a Northwoods League record of 51 overall victories atop the league. So sure of themselves were the Bucks that they eased into the playoffs by losing their last two games.
Dangerous, at this point, to think you can go into a short playoff series with your foot off the gas, especially when the Huskies were speeding along on their best hot streak of the season after finally getting everything into top gear.
The heroes are everywhere on this Huskies team, whether you like hitting, clutch hitting, defense, or pitching — particularly relief pitching in the final innings.
Let’s go back to Monday night. Perfect night, little chilly after the sun disappeared over the hill behind us. Clay Chapman, named pitcher of the year in the league, started for the Huskies, but was nicked for a run in the top of the first and another in the fourth, for a 2-0 Waterloo lead. Waterloo starter Drasen Johnson was throwing bullets, and the Huskies bats were fortunate to get some late-hit deflections to the opposite field, while striking out seven times in seven innings.
Trey Vavra watched his first of two singles go through the Waterloo infield.
The Huskies got a run in the fifth when Chris Bono glanced one off the second baseman’s glove, then Kyle Teaf singled to center. With runners on first and third, Trey Vavra’s grounder was mishandled on a double play exchange and Bono scored.
In the top of the seventh, A.J. McElderry relieved Chapman, who had given up only three hits, and McElderry, a left-hander, struck out two and got a fly ball. The last of the seventh proved to be a fateful turnabout. A walk, a sacrifice and another walk put Brad Wilson and Teaf on, and Conor Szczerba virtually willed his hit to get through to center field, with Wilson sliding across the plate with the tying run.
At that point, J.D. Moore was brought in to relieve Johnson, who was still throwing bullets, and the Huskies appeared happy to see him leave. Trey Vavra singled to right, and Teaf came around to score to put the Huskies up 3-2. Moore then threw a wild pitch in the dirt, and Szczerba raced home to make it 4-2.
Brad Wilson slides home with the tying run for the Huskies, on a Conor Szczerba single in the seventh.
Kyle Teaf hot-footed it home for a 3-2 Huskies lead in the 3-run 7th.
But in the collegiate environment of the Northwoods League, no lead is safe. The Huskies have come from behind to win eight times after trailing past the seventh inning as an example, and the other side can do the same — especially when the other side is champ of both halves of the league. So when the Bucks got a leadoff singe in the eighth, Max Shuh, a bigger left-hander, relieved McElderry. He threw the ball away on a pickoff attempt, then walked the next hitter. Next, Shuh fielded an attempted sacrifice bunt and fired to third — but too late, and the bases were loaded.
Manager Dan Hersey went to the bullpen again and summoned Nate Carter. An accomplished closer, he was coming in with the bases loaded in the eighth, not the ninth. He struck out one Buck on a 3-2 pitch, then he struck out the next hitter, and got out of trouble with a fly ball to right, as the crowd of 1,100 roared their approval.
The Huskies, as if anticipating more trouble, added another insurance run in the last of the eighth when catcher Christopher Harvey blasted a one-out double to the wall in left, and after a strike out, Bono — who should win the award as the toughest No. 9 hitter in the league — lifted a high fly ball down the right field line. Waterloo’s first baseman, second baseman and right fielder all raced to the spot of re-entry and all arrived about at the same moment. The right fielder dived, heroically, but couldn’t quite hang on as he slid along the grass. It went for a double, and Harvey scored to make it 5-2.
That left the big challenge of the ninth still there, but Carter, good as he is, got the added boost of adrenaline from the crowd, which became more electrified with every pitch in the top of the ninth. Strikeout, strikeout, and a pop-up, and the Huskies celebrated wildly with their eighth straight victory.
It was a thoroughly entertaining game, but the thought lingered that going to Waterloo, where the Bucks have a solid record, could turn things back their way. A Waterloo victory in Game 2 would make Wednesday night’s Game 3 very tough indeed.
But shortstop and leadoff man Kyle Teaf scored a first-inning run on a grounder, and Jake Heissler took the mound with a 1-0 lead. Heissler was tough, shutting down the Bucks without a hit for the first five innings. In the sixth, Teaf got on again, and Michael Suiter singled him home for a 2-0 lead. Heissler gave up Waterloo’s first hit in the sixth, and went one out into the seventh before yielding the only Bucks run.
Suddenly it was the ninth inning, and all 51 of those Waterloo victories seemed distant, particularly after the Bucks had lost their last two regular-season games, then lost their third in a row for the first time all year in the first playoff game, and now they were trailing, at home, and facing Nate Carter, closer extraordinaire, in the last of the ninth.
For Carter, holding a 2-1 lead must have seemed too routine. So he walked one hitter, and hit another with a pitch. Not on the tying, but winning runs were on base, and Marcos Calderon came to the plate with two outs. Carter fired, Calderon swung, in a baseball ballet that was repeated 10 times. The first nine were foul balls by Calderon, but No. 10 was strike three, fired past him by Carter.
Huskies win 2-1, for their ninth victory in a row, and Waterloo met its…Waterloo with its fourth straight loss. Chalk up a couple more for momentum, keeping your foot on the gas when it matters most, timely hitting, great defense, and some outstanding pitching — plus that guy named Carter lurking in the bullpen, trying to invent creative ways to notch another victory for the Huskies.
The Duluth Huskies, unloved and unwatched except by a cult of about a thousand fans most of the season, are a great and captivating story. The playoffs have to be swift in the Northwoods League, so these guys can all get back to college, but the members of the Huskies team will remember this outfit, and its cohesiveness and resilience, for as long as they play ball. If you get a chance, you might still find a seat on the bandwagon, right out there at Wade Stadium.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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