Speaking of Sports

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

•  Up and down season for the Twins — The Minnesota Twins have had an excellent season so far this year (until this past weekend), despite the fact that they keep playing different players all season, most of which I had never heard of before the start of the year.  With only about 23 games to go, the Twins were 4 1/2 games back of the Guardians as of Monday morning after being swept by Cleveland.  The Guardians are 5-5 in their last 10 games, but the Twins are only 2-8 and the Chicago White Sox are 7-3 to move into second place, 2 1/2 games back.

None of the Central Division teams will make it as a wildcard team so the Twins will need to win the title if they want to advance to the playoffs.

Minnesota plays Cleveland five times over its final 23 games, and also has six games left against Kansas City, six against the White Sox and three versus Detroit so the Twins have a fairly-easy schedule as they battle with Cleveland and Chicago for the division title.

•  It’s Melrose theme week — It’s been great getting out the last few weeks covering a full load of sports.  In fact, this past week, I had a chance to cover soccer, volleyball, girls tennis and football, and that was after covering the Breakfast on the Farm event last Monday. 

It was a great night for football and the Laker fans did a great job showing their support. 

This week, the theme is “Melrose” as the Lakers’ football team hosts Melrose, Friday; the volleyball team plays at Melrose, Tuesday; the soccer team hosts Melrose, Thursday; and the Gators host Melrose for a meet at Minnewaska Area, Tuesday.  In addition, the girls tennis team hosts Melrose next Thursday, Sept. 22 and the cross-country teams run at the Melrose Invitational, Tuesday, Sept. 20.

•  PCT football contest — Don’t miss out on the Pope County Tribune football contest this fall.  Week two of the 8-week contest can be found on page 3B of this week’s paper.

We’re making it easy.  You can mail, drop off, or e-mail your picks to the PCT and the top two pickers will earn $15 and $10 each week.  You can’t win unless you enter.  And, it’s free.  Just send me an e-mail.

•  U.S. Open tennis — I’m a big professional tennis fan and I especially enjoy watching the Grand Slam events.  My favorite player has been Roger Federer for the past 20 or so years, but I’m beginning to think he might not be able to play at the level he’s accustomed to when he returns from an injury.

In fact, the U.S. Open, which just finished up this weekend, did not have one of the top 3 (Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic) in the final four.  That doesn’t happen very often, but it too, might be a sign of the times.  Looking back, since 2003, when Roger Federer won the Wimbledon title for the first of his 20 Grand Slam titles,  Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have combined for 62 out of the next 76 Grand Slam titles, including this year’s U.S. Open.

That’s unreal when you think about and what is also unreal is how long they have been playing at such a high level.  Without a doubt, they are the three top men’s tennis players of all time.

At one time, I thought Federer’s 20 Grand Slam titles would never be matched, but Djokovic also has 20 titles now, and Nadal passed them both this past year and now has a record 22 titles.