It’s a beautiful day and it’s hard to realize that summer is half over. The Twins have played over half their season and games seemingly are becoming more important as they head toward the stretch.

From the stories I’ve read it sounds as though all-star Joe Mauer has a real support group with his entire family including his grandfather, tailgating and traveling to his games. Speaking of grandfathers, both our grandsons had a great year in their respective leagues in Alaska. Hunter did very well even though one of the younger players in his advanced league and Tracy won “The Hammer Award” named after Hank Aaron, in his league. Their teams are already done and I suppose Alaskans are now thinking about upcoming hunting and fishing. One of these short summers I’ve got to get up there and see them play.

Much like fishing, baseball can be a theme that runs through a family. Some families are fortunate in having a business to pass on from parents to children. In the lack of that, other activities may take their place. This appears to have been done in the Mauer clan as grandpa Jake taught grandson Joe how to hit.  Maybe the Twins should hire grandpa Jake as their batting coach.

Our Twins continue to be maddeningly inconsistent. First their hitting, then their pitching. They have five good starters, then they don’t, as they are either injured or ineffective. The team comes off winning a number of series including one with the division-leader Detroit, got a few games above .500, then lost three straight games to the New York Yankees. The Yankees not only swept the series, they swept the season. If the Twins had just won three of those seven games, they would be nearly eyeball-to-eyeball with Detroit.

There might be one bright spot about the Yankee losses. If it’s true about the law of averages, the Twins will sweep the New Yorkers in any postseason play. Talking about the law of averages, General Manager Bill Smith of the Twins is due for a good player trade.

Turning to pro basketball, Timberwolves, new President of Basketball Operations, David Kahn, has brought national attention to the Timberwolves for his moves on the NBA draft day.

He’s shaking up the player’s tree or as Red Barber used to say, “he’s tearing up the pea patch.”

From the moment Kahn was hired  and given overall authority by owner Glen Taylor you knew Kevin McHale was done. Kahn couldn’t have McHale looking over his shoulder, ready to replace him at a moments notice. It would have been foolish to keep McHale on Kahn’s part and to further reinforce his decision it turns out that McHale had contacted a couple of the players about his situation. Yep, it’s better  to make a clean break and look forward to the coming years.

On NBA draft day there was much talk about Kahn’s drafting of two point guards, Jonny Flynn and Ricky Rubio, the 18-year-old sensation. Why in the world would he draft two point guards was the cry. I think Kahn is dumb like a fox. Rubio won’t be over here for two years because of his two-year current contract. Jonny Flynn will by that time be one of the elite guards in NBA or not. Rubio will then be valuable to either step in for Flynn or possible trade bait for a top future draft choice.

Kahn did get rid of two good players in his trade of Randy Foye and Mike Miller, but they haven’t proved to be winners and Kahn’s pretty much starting from scratch, not from McHale’s blueprint. One thing about all of Kahn’s maneuvering; it can’t hurt the team much.