I’m expanding.
More Charley Walters coming your way.
I’m expanding.
I’ve spent 50 wonderful years at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and am looking forward to my 51st next month with a column every two Sundays.
I’m also introducing a couple columns a week online on the publishing platform SubStack, on which I’ll write news for subscribers to DontPrintThat.com.
I’m a pretty good snooper and have a private phone collection of more than 3,000 telephone numbers accumulated over decades.
For me, SubStack will be exciting. My objective, as it is with the Pioneer Press, is to be the first media source with news. I hope it’s worth a modest investment for you.
As a youngster growing up in Northeast Minneapolis, I became infatuated with newspapers. My mom and dad were avid newspaper readers, and I vividly recall them sitting at the kitchen table in the morning or in a living room chair in the evening, mentioning out loud newsy items they came across.
“Look at this,” my dad would say.
Along came TV’s “Adventures of Superman.” I became captivated by Clark Kent, the unassuming Daily Planet newspaper reporter. Forget that he was the fictitious Superman who could “leap tall buildings at a single bound!” — it was the reporter bit that enthralled me.
What an interesting job, I figured.
I have a framed picture of Clark Kent, played then by George Reeves, in my office. Clark’s at his desk, phone in his ear, at his typewriter, searching for news.
That’s what I do.
So when my parents one Christmas — I probably was in the sixth or seventh grade —gifted me a small typewriter, I began reporting. I reported on the neighborhood kids’ baseball games. We would play pickup ball all day long during the summer at the nearby park, sometimes a dozen or so of us.
At the local dime store, I bought typing and carbon paper and a plastic stencil, with which on top of the page I launched my “Neighbor News.” It was a couple pages of results and descriptions of our neighborhood games. The next morning I delivered them inside the screen doors of the players’ homes.
I loved being a kid newspaper guy.
I became sports editor of our high school paper, the Edison Record, and won a couple Minnesota High School Press Association writing awards. As a student at the University of Minnesota Journalism School, I covered sports for the Minnesota Daily.
Along the way, as an 18-year-old at a Minnesota Twins tryout camp at Metropolitan Stadium in 1965, I was offered a $100 signing bonus and $400 a month to pitch in Thomasville, N.C.
I accepted immediately.
Four years later, at age 22, I was pitching for Billy Martin in the major leagues with the Twins.
In between minor league off-seasons, I completed my journalism degree at Minnesota. I know I say this immodestly, but while at the Pioneer Press I’ve won the annual Minnesota National Sportscasters and Sportswriters award 25 times, besides other reporting awards.
Sorry for the braggadocio, but not even Clark Kent has done that.
With Vikings training camp to begin next week in Eagan, the way it looks now, the only way that J.J. McCarthy becomes the team’s starting quarterback is if Kyler Murray flops and a better alternative can’t be found.
Who knows if Murray will have difficulty understanding Kevin O’Connell’s system, or if doesn’t execute the offense well in training camp. Even then, depending on how O’Connell feels, the Vikings could even try to make a trade for (just guessing) Mac Jones, the 49ers backup QB.
Even if Murray flops, there’s no guarantee that the Vikings give the starting job to McCarthy, who would have to show significant improvement from last season, when he was inconsistent. It will be interesting to see if he’s improved.
Jones, 27, has one contract year left for $4.2 million, which is very affordable. However, it would probably cost the Vikings a second-round draft pick to get him. Also, if the 49ers were to give Jones up, they would have to figure out his replacement. Jimmy Garoppolo, 34, who wouldn’t be a great choice for the Vikings, is available as a free agent.
Trading McCarthy could be worth a fourth-round draft pick for the Vikings. Bottom line: Murray had better be impressive in camp. Stay tuned.
Timberwolves basketball operations president Tim Connelly didn’t seem pessimistic nor optimistic but hopeful when I asked him Tuesday if he felt free agent LeBron James’ interest in signing with the Wolves is real.
“We’ve been told the interest is sincere,” Connelly said, adding he personally believes it’s real. “Absolutely. We’re honored to be a team he’s entertaining. We would be overjoyed if he came here and helped us win a (championship) ring.”
Best bet, though, seems that James’ decision will be between Miami (which recently acquired Giannis Antetokounmpo) and, surprisingly, Philadelphia.
If Cade Tyson, the Gophers men’s basketball team’s leading scorer last season, ends up with a fifth year of college eligibility as part of a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA, theoretically he could return to the Gophers this year, or another Division 1 school. That’s if the Gophers would have enough NIL money left.
Tyson’s college market would seem to be in the $1.5 million range, more than he could make in the NBA G League or in Europe. The case is expected to be expedited soon.
There was hardly ever any doubt that the Twins would take Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey with their No. 3 overall pick in baseball’s recent draft. In fact, chances were good, even had the Twins had the No. 1 overall pick, they would have taken Lackey. The Pioneer Press reported in early June that the Twins were zeroing in on Lackey.
Woodbury’s Kent Meyer, 57, father of Miami Marlins All-Star pitcher Max, the former Gopher, achieved a bucket list goal while in Philadelphia for Tuesday’s All-Star Game. Kent, with wife Kathy filming, ran up the 72 stone “Rocky Steps” outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as did Rocky Balboa in the Academy Award-winning movie, then triumphantly raised his arms alongside the bronze Rocky Statue.
Overheard
Wolves coach Chris Finch, comparing his team’s development to improving in golf: “Going from an 18-handicap to an eight is pretty easy, just put the time in. You go from an eight to a seven, and a seven to a five, it’s gets harder and harder because the margins are tougher and tougher. And that’s where we are.”
Read more of Charley Walters in his biweekly column in the St Paul Pioneer Press and at TwinCities.com
Charley Walters… a MN Sportswriting Legend! Great to see him join the “Stack” with this fun first story, and that we’ll still get to enjoy his P-Press column as well. Keep It coming, Shooter!