Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING NEWS: 8.25.25

Aug 25

A newsy weekend!

It’ll be the Twins and Phillies in next year’s Field of Dreams game in Iowa. Tickets will be expensive and scarce, but that’s a must do for a guy who wrote a college thesis on the movie.

You’ve got to be happy for Tommy Fleetwood, who won his first PGA event in his 164th start. Oh, it was a big one, The TOUR Championship. He was no scrub of course, with 30 top five finishes and six runner up finishes before holding off the PGA’s best yesterday.

Love having the U.S. Open back, kicking off one of my favorite two week stretches in sports.

Prep football starts this week locally.

State Fair for work today.

Vikings Add Wentz as No. 2 QB Heading into Regular Season

The NFL’s pre-season may not tell teams what they have, but it tells teams what they don’t have. In the Vikings’ case, that was clearly a veteran No. 2 back-up quarterback.

Hours after a 1-2 pre-season, one that showed Sam Howell wasn’t the answer, the Vikings held a tryout for veteran Carson Wentz and quickly signed him as their No. 2 signal caller behind a second-year, first-round QB who’s played a total of two pre-season games and is coming off a significant knee injury.

If the Vikings turn to Wentz, things have gotten bad, but Kevin O’Connell has a way of resurrecting these aging veteran quarterbacks. The Vikings become Wentz’ sixth team in six years. He’s been purely a backup the last two and a half seasons.

But it’ll give the Vikings time to develop Max Brosmer, who’s officially made the team as a No. 3 quarterback. The former Gopher had an incredible camp, did great work in pre-season games.

The VIkings did inquire about Adam Thielen, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens there.

Season opener is one week from tonight at the Bears on Monday Night Football.

Phee Returns in Lynx Win

Napheesa Collier is back, and that isn’t a good thing for the rest of the WNBA. The MVP candidate returned after a seven-game injury absence with 32 points and nine rebounds, leading the Lynx past the Caitlin Clark-less Indiana Fever, 97-84.

Collier hit 11-of-16 field goals as the Lynx shot 57 percent from the field

The Lynx are six games up on Atlanta with seven to play. A regular-season championship is all but certain. Minnesota hosts Seattle on Thursday with an 18-1 home regular season mark.

If the season ended today, the Lynx would play theFever, and you have to think Clark would be back by then.

Rossi Signs 3-Year Deal with Wild

Turns out no news was good news.

Things had gotten quiet on the Marco Rossi front, and on Friday he signed a three-year, $15 million contract with the Wild. Rossi had originally turned down a five-year, $25 million contract, so it’s good for the Wild they still got him for the same AAV, while not giving more term to a guy that couldn’t play higher than the fourth line in the playoffs.

Rossi has bulked up this off-season, which should help his ability to play grittier hockey in March and April.

Next up? A Kirill Kaprizov contract that’ll lock him down long term

Loons Earn First-Ever Win in Salt Lake

Joaquin Pereyta, rumored last week to be headed overseas in a massive money deal for the Loons, is still in the Minnesota kit and scored an insurance goal in a 3-1 win at Real Salt Lake on Saturday. In typical Loons fashion, they gave up much of the play but still scored more goals than their opponent.

The Loons won for the first time ever in Salt Lake. Their 14 wins are one off the team record. Their 50 points are in second place in the West and just three ahead of the team record, one they could equal when they host Portland this Saturday.

Twins Lose Twice in Chicago; Promote Jenkins to Saint Paul

The Twins’ freefall continued, as they lost two of three at the White Sox, AKA the worst team in the American League.

The bigger news happened off the field, as the Twins promoted their No. 1 prospect, Walker Jenkins, to Triple-A Saint Paul. He hit .309 with seven homers in Double-A Wichita.

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