Charley Walters: Carl Pavano could get into Cy race – Pioneer Press

It’s a long shot, but Twins starter Carl Pavano, with a strong finish, could pitch himself into Cy Young Award consideration this season. And a huge free-agent contract next season.

Pavano is 12-6 with a 3.26 earned-run average and five complete games. There have been no talks about a contract extension for Pavano, 34, whose salary this season is $7 million. A new deal could reach $30 million over three years.

Their names are pronounced the same, though they are spelled differently: Jon Rauch and John Rausch.

Both are right-handed relievers for their respective baseball teams. But Jon Rauch is 31 years old with a 90-mph fastball. John Rausch is 69 years old with a fastball in the low 70s.

Jon Rauch pitches for the Minnesota Twins in the American League.

John Rausch pitches for the Burnsville Bulldogs in the Minnesota over-35 amateur league.

“They call me ‘the closer’ at work,” John Rausch said.

Rausch works in finance for the city of Burnsville.

“People ask me, ‘Do you have to work part time because (Twins general manager) Bill Smith doesn’t pay you enough?’ ” Rausch said. “I just laugh it off.”

Rausch, 6-1, 215 pounds, hasn’t allowed a run in his past 10 innings and seven games for the Bulldogs. Lately, that’s better than the Twins’ Rauch.

Rausch figures his best pitch is the slider. He also changes speeds and has good control.

“And I can throw BBs when I have to,” he said.

Rausch tried out for

the Bulldogs in 1988.

“I called the coach and told him I wanted to try out,” he said. “The coach asked me how old I was. I told him 48. He said they were kind of looking for some younger players.

“That coach has been retired for at least 15 years now.”

Rausch, who has Bulldog teammates younger than his children, has no plans to retire from the mound.

“I’m going to quit when I can’t throw faster than how old I am,” he said, “Baseball’s the greatest game in the world. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”

That necklace Twins reliever Jesse Crain wears while pitching contains liquid titanium that in theory relaxes his shoulders. Crain doesn’t know for sure that it works, but just in case, he’s had two of the bands intertwined around his neck.

Crain said teammate first baseman Justin Morneau, who is on the disabled list trying to recover from a concussion, wears a titanium elbow sleeve.

“Maybe he should put it on his head,” Crain said.

New Timberwolf Michael Beasley, 6-9, on what position he plays: “I play whatever you want.”

Miguel Sano, whom the Twins signed last year out of the Dominican Republic as a 16-year-old for $3.1 million, looks like he might be worth the investment.

Sano is hitting .288 with seven extra-base hits, including two home runs, in just 14 games as a third baseman at rookie league Fort Myers.

Meanwhile, Oswaldo Arcia, 19, an outfielder from Venezuela, is hitting .384 with 26 extra-base hits, including nine homers, in 31 games for the Twins’ rookie league Elizabethton club. More than half of Arcia’s hits have been for extra bases.

And Eddie Rosario, 18, an outfielder from Puerto Rico, is hitting .360 with 11 extra-base hits (including two homers) in 23 games for rookie league Fort Myers.

The Seattle Mariners have traded former University of Minnesota Big Ten most valuable player Jack Hannahan to the Boston Red Sox.

Hannahan, 30, from St. Paul, was batting .228 with five home runs and 30 RBIs in 63 games for the Mariners’ Class AAA Tacoma club. The Red Sox will give up a player to be named or cash for the former Gophers slugger.

Boston is the fourth organization for Hannahan, who in 2001 as the third-round draft pick of the Detroit Tigers received a signing bonus package of nearly $500,000. The left-handed hitting utility player has played in the major leagues for the Tigers, Oakland A’s and Seattle.

The Red Sox, who will send Hannahan to their Class AAA Pawtucket club, have been in search of left-handed hitting third basemen.

Hannahan’s parents, John and Annie, who live in Highland Park, at the start of this season bought four tickets in the first row behind the third base dugout and two first-row tickets in the Legends Club, at a cost of nearly $500, for the July 31 Twins-Seattle Mariners game at Target Field, just in case Jack was with the major league club.

When it became apparent that Jack wouldn’t be with the Mariners for the trip to Minnesota, the Hannahans put the tickets up for sale on eBay. Two minutes later, they sold.

“What a way to market stuff,” John Hannahan said.

Admirers of Steve Winfield, including baseball hall of famer and younger brother Dave, gave one testimonial after another at his 60th birthday party the other day for the quiet humanitarian work the St. Paul resident does.

KSTP-TV sports anchor Joe Schmit, 52, who has been undergoing chemotherapy treatment the past three months for lymphoma, is back from a checkup at Mayo Clinic with good results. “I feel fine,” Schmit said.

Plans are for Spencer Tollackson and Mike Grim to return to Gophers men’s radio broadcasts next season.

More than 700 youngsters registered for Gophers men’s basketball coach Tubby Smith‘s summer camps, the next of which begins Monday at Eden Prairie High School. Meanwhile, nearly every session of University of St. Thomas’ assistant Johnny Tauer‘s camps was full this summer.

Ubiquitous local sportscaster Eric Nelson points out in Minnesota Score magazine that the Twin Cities is one of just three markets in which NBA and NHL teams did not make the playoffs last season. The others are Toronto (Maple Leafs and Raptors) and New York (Islanders, Rangers and Knicks).

Kirk Triplett, a 23-year PGA Tour player who was in town last week for the Dave Thomas Wendy’s adoption fundraiser golf tournament, opined on several topics.

On Minnesota native Tom Lehman, 51, who is playing on the PGA Tour as well as the Champions Tour: “His game is timeless. He’s played a long time and still plays the same style. For him, it’s about being competitive with a chance to win golf tournaments, and he’s going to have that more often on the Champions Tour than the regular tour.”

On former Gophers golfer John Harris, 58, who has been negotiating with his alma mater for the director of golf position: “I always thought college golf coaching would be a very, very interesting job. Looking from the outside in, that looks like it would be a fabulous way to be part of the game, and hanging out with young people keeps you young.

“Golf is not just a Southern game anymore. A lot of these kids are very coachable and have unbelievable raw talent. As a tour player, a guy with John’s experience, if you can get them to save a shot or two here and there, and you do that as a team . . . this is what Mike Small‘s done at the University of Illinois. He’s a former tour player who’s taken an Illinois program that was just average, and now they’re a top 10 program in the nation.

“There’s no reason you can’t do the same here.”

On Deephaven’s Tim Herron, who shot a 63 in the second round of this weekend’s Canadian Open: “I’ve played a lot with Tim over the years. He’s struggling with access to tournaments right now. If he would play more events in a row, he’d find his game a little bit quicker. He’s always been the kind of player who plays his way into a good streak. It’s hard when you only get in every couple of three weeks.”

Ex-Twins minor league manager Ken Staples goes into the Minnesota State High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame Oct. 30 at the Ramada Plaza in Minneapolis.

Ben Kinne, 22, a former Cretin-Derham Hall and current Bemidji State junior hockey forward, suffered an apparent stroke while working out Friday but is recuperating at United Hospital. “I feel good,” he said Saturday.

Popular St. Paul sportsman Jerry Hurley, who sold more mozzarella cheese to pizza shops and Italian eateries in the Twin Cities than anyone, died the other day at age 88 of complications of a fall at home.

Rain prompted former Twin Paul Molitor’s baseball clinic with fellow hall of famers Ozzie Smith and Bruce Sutter at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, N.Y., Friday to be moved beneath the ballpark’s grandstand.

St. Paul’s Dave Wilkie, 61, a former Las Vegas world blackjack champion and three-time Las Vegas blackjack tournament winner, won a 2010 Harley-Davidson motorcycle in a blackjack tournament at the Ho-Chunk Casino near the Wisconsin Dells the other day. Wilkie, a 17.6 handicap golfer at Highland National who is considered the luckiest man in St. Paul, has scored three holes in one, including an ace at Luck (Wis.) Golf Course.

Senior vice president for group sales Ethan Casson has left the Timberwolves to join the San Francisco 49ers’ pursuit of a new stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

New Wild center Matt Cullen‘s recent “Cully’s Kids Celebrity Weekend” fundraiser in Fargo, N.D., raised more than $385,000 for children’s health care, the charity reports.

The University of St. Thomas’ basketball and volleyball teams, after having to play off campus last year because of arena construction, this year move into the school’s $52 million athletic facility that includes a swimming complex and a 10,000-square-foot weight room.

Sioux Falls Pheasants leadoff hitter Joe Anthonsen of Cottage Grove has been selected for a second straight season to play in the American Association All-Star Game on Tuesday in Wichita, Kan.

If you were raised in St. Paul’s Frogtown, and even if you weren’t, you’ll enjoy reading Alex Leibel‘s “In Those Days” book of recollections from his childhood.

Minnesota Lynx guard Lindsay Whalen, after shooting just 31.3 percent in her first 11 games this season, is shooting 45.1 percent in her past eight games.

Longtime Indian Hills member Chuck O’Hearn, the golf club’s oldest active member at age 86, with two knee replacements and a 16-handicap, shot an 83 the other day at the Stillwater course. O’Hearn has shot his age or better a dozen times this year.

DON’T PRINT THAT

Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Dan Haren, 30, rumored to be among Twins’ trade talk subjects, has the Twins listed among teams to which he cannot be dealt without waiving his no-trade contract clause.

The Twins seem to like Oakland A’s starter Ben Sheets, but he is 4-9 with a 4.53 ERA, 32 years old and just went on the disabled list with an elbow strain.

SI.com on expectations that Vikings quarterback Brett Favre won’t show up for the start of training camp in Mankato this week: “There doesn’t appear to be any good reason for him to not be there, other than he can get away with it.”

Twins starter Carl Pavano says he has no plans to grow his mustache into a handlebar style. “Can’t get it to grow that long,” he said.

Washington Wizards coach Flip Saunders was influential in former Minneapolis Community and Technical College basketball coach Jay Pivec‘s hiring by Dakota County Technical College.

Former Gophers catcher Scott Stein, son of late Gophers legendary trainer Snapper Stein of Richfield, died Thursday after a long battle with cancer.

The Big Ten is the cleanest men’s basketball conference in the country with regard to recruiting, according to an ESPN.com survey that promised confidentiality to 20 high-profile coaches representing six power leagues.

Joe Crede, 32, whose season with the Twins last year ended with back problems, still hasn’t found another major league job but could try again in spring training next year.

OVERHEARD

Timberwolves President David Kahn on new point guard Luke Ridnour, 29: “I’ve liked Luke since he was a Duck at the University of Oregon. He’s a pass-first guard.”