Brewster's recruits heavy on potential

Tim Brewster came to Minnesota as the football coach with a reputation as great recruiter, a factor that overrode his lack of experience as either an offensive or defensive coordinator.

On Wednesday, Brewster marched out his second recruiting class, and you have to be impressed on paper with the outstate recruits and also the fact that he got all of the blue-chip recruits in the state except for receiver Bryce McNeal of Breck, whose family ties in the South led him to choose Clemson.

How good will this recruiting class make the 2009 Gophers in the new stadium?

"I think we're going to continue to improve as a football team," Brewster said. "That's what you've got to do is, you've got to continue to improve and not take backward steps. I think we're going to take forward steps and the same improvement we made from last year to this year I think we're going to make next year.

"We won seven games this year, and we'd like to take the next step and win some more. ... We'd like to win a couple of more games and put ourselves in a position to compete for a championship. That's what we're about, that's what we're trying to do."

Despite the tough opening three games of next season -- at Syracuse, then Air Force and California here -- Brewster is confident he will have a better team than last year.

"I think our football team is becoming an excellent football team," he said. "I think that each year we're bringing in more talent -- we're bigger, stronger and faster as a football team. We've identified the areas in which we need to get better, and I think we're doing that."

He welcomes the tough schedule. "Yeah, very tough, and that's exciting," he said. "I'm excited about our schedule, and I think our team's excited about our schedule. Our kids want to play against tough opponents and have to really be in tough games. I think it's going to be extremely challenging, our schedule, but again, like I said, we're excited about it."

Old Yankees here Comedian Billy Crystal is a good friend of many members of the 1961 Yankees baseball team that included such greats as Bill (Moose) Skowron, Tony Kubek, Bob Turley and others.

Many of those Yankees have hearing problems, so Crystal arranged with his good friend Bill Austin of Starkey Laboratories, a major hearing-aid maker, to take care of them at the company's Eden Prairie plant.

So on Wednesday the first of three 1961 Yankees -- Kubek, Skowron and Turley -- were the first to arrive.

Kubek had an especially negative opinion of what baseball is today.

"Some baseball players don't respect the game," Kubek said. "There are too many teams and too many players and a lack of competition for the players who get paid too much."

Kubek, who now lives in Appleton, Wis., said he is so disgusted with the way the game is operated now that he doesn't follow it.

Skowron, who played for Austin in the Southern Minny League in 1950 before breaking into the majors, talked about his earnings compared to current major league earnings.

"I made less than $500,000 in three years in the minors and 11 years in the majors," he said. Top-paid star Alex Rodriguez makes that in about a week.

"We averaged about $8,000 for our share of the eight World Series we [played in], but the three M's -- [Roger] Maris, Mickey Mantle and myself -- still hold the record of 114 home runs in one year [1961].

Through Tuesday's games, former Gopher Julius John Swain, son of former Vikings defensive back John Swain, played football at Holy Angels and has signed to play at Northern Iowa. And John Swain has replaced Roger French as the coach at Minneapolis Henry. ... Brian Billick, the former Vikings offensive coordinator and coach of the Ravens, will speak at the Gophers spring football clinic. Incidentally, Billick is one of three former Vikings coordinators who have won a Super Bowl. Tony Dungy won with the Colts, and Mike Tomlin led the Steelers to this year's championship.

Former Gophers standout Thomas Vanek of the Buffalo Sabres and Bloomington native Zach Parise of the New Jersey Devils are tied for third in the NHL in goal-scoring with 29. ... Former Gopher Phil Kessel is the third-leading scorer for the Boston Bruins, with 24 goals and 19 assists in 45 games. ... Another former Gopher, Blake Wheeler, is tied for second in the NHL with a plus/minus rating of plus-28, and is tied for sixth in scoring for the Bruins with 14 goals and 16 assists in 51 games.

The Northern League, an independent minor league, announced Tuesday that an expansion team in Zion, Ill., will begin play in 2010. The team, whose ownership group includes actor Kevin Costner, will be the league's seventh team. Former Twins executive Clark Griffith is the league's commissioner.

Baseball America recently said Brad Hand, the Chaska native who was taken by the Florida Marlins in the second round of last year's major league draft, has the best curveball in the team's farm system. Hand pitched well in the minors after being drafted last season, going 3-2 with a 2.64 ERA and 46 strikeouts in 472/3 innings pitched.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that it is unlikely former Twin Doug Mientkiewicz will be back with the Pirates next year. ... The Texas Rangers signed another ex-Twin, Eddie Guardado, to a minor league contract on Tuesday and have invited him to spring training. Guardado was traded from the Rangers to the Twins last August.