What a weekend it was to be at Target Field!
Twins ace Joe Ryan got the 2-1 pitcher's duel win over National League All-Star starter and Cy Young candidate Paul Skenes in front of a sellout crowd, followed by a one-hour concert from still-jacked 50-year-old Nelly in front of a still-amped throng.
While Happy Hour host John Gaskins attended that, his Nobody's Listening Anyway co-host Matt Zimmer had the fortune the next day of witnessing Byron Buxton hit a 427-foot home run to complete the cycle on Byron Buxton Bobblehead Day.
These awesome experiences, plus Buxton's appearances in Monday's Home Run Derby and Tuesday's MLB All-Star game, lead off a midsummer's daydream full of baseball and football conversation from the Gateway Lounge in Sioux Falls.
Is Buxton one of the very best players in all of baseball? Can we enjoy this joyride he is on or is it still bittersweet considering so much of his talent has been squandered via injuries?
Meanwhile, the Sioux Falls Canaries have six players in their league's All-Star game next week, with two of them up-and-coming local talents from Augustana (Jordan Barth) and USF (Josh Rehwaldt), the latter who Zimmer things should have gotten a call to join an MLB operation by now.
While baseball is in midseason form, Alabama coach and USF player/coaching alumnus Kalen DeBoer stopped in Sioux Falls last week for a few speaking engagements before heading to Atlanta for SEC Media Days this week. Zimmer walks through his takeaways, including the connective tissue of DeBoer's 67-3 tear while head coach at USF to year two leading Fresno State, Washington, and now the Crimson Tide.
Meanwhile, you can watch and hear Happy Hour's one-on-one with DeBoer from last May here.