Sid Hartman: Here's hoping for Neshek's return

Talk about tough breaks. You read and hear about lots of athletes' careers being cut short because of injury.

You hope that isn't the case with Pat Neshek.

A local kid makes good with the hometown team, his future looks bright with chances to make a lot of money, and this happens.

Yes, the news that the Twins righthander from Park Center High School in Brooklyn Park will likely be out the rest of the season after tearing a ligament in his elbow, with his future career a question mark after that, is a tough break for both the 27-year-old and the team.

Neshek was 7-2 last year with an impressive 2.94 ERA. He is 0-1 with a 4.72 ERA this season but remained one of the best setup men in the game.

Neshek won't need surgery but will have to rest his arm for three months.

"It's a lot for one day; last night we didn't know what happened. It's nice to know, but it's bad news, but I guess it's better than having to have surgery," he said after Friday night's game. "So, I guess you can look on the bright side of things. There's a little bit of good out of it, too."

At the end of the 2007 season he had some shoulder fatigue, but this injury has nothing to do with that one.

"Last year was in a different spot; this is a totally different spot," Neshek said. "It's something that's never really caught my attention or has bothered me ever before.

"... [Dr. Dan Buss, the Twins physician] went over the MRI with me and it looked pretty clear what I had to do. It looked like a little tear."

Speaking only a few hours after learning of the diagnosis, Neshek said: "I'm just still kind of in shock right now. It's just a little stiff. It's really not too painful. It's just the nagging stiffness in there, that's how I best describe it."

He is confident his career won't come to an end. "No, definitely not, no," he said. "I'm pretty confident. I'm pretty good with adversity, and I've never, ever had a major injury though. But I like the odds, if they say 80 percent. That's going through a pretty wide scope of athletes in high school. ... We're going to rehab the heck out of it."

But knowing this young man well, nobody will work harder to get back on the mound.

Last Sunday, Gophers men's basketball coach Tubby Smith received a an honorary doctoral degree during the University of Kentucky's spring commencement. But where did Tubby and his wife, Donna, spend some of their off time while in Lexington?

On May 1, they were attending the spring graduation of 84 middle school students who had completed 10 weeks of training in Tubby's Clubhouse/Dell TechKnow Program, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. It's a 40-hour course in which students learn about and work on computers, keeping them when the program is over.

This is one of 60 community projects that the Smiths, through their Tubby and Donna Smith Foundation, spent $2.3 million to help fund in Lexington while he was Wildcats coach. And the Smiths have already started similar programs here.

And Tubby Smith received another award on April 30 when he was inducted in the Kentucky Hall of Fame in Louisville. He also made his annual trip to the Kentucky Derby, betting on Denis of Cork, who finished third.

The story has been told many times how the Twins decided not to keep the injury-prone Ortiz, instead deciding to give more at-bats to righthanded-hitting Matthew LeCroy. Now Ortiz has become one of the great hitters in the game, finishing in the top five in AL MVP voting each of his five years in Boston, hitting .302 over that time while averaging 42 homers and 128 RBI per season. Even though he is off to a slow start in 2008, entering Saturday hitting .241, his seven homers and 28 RBI would still be leading the Twins.

Twins lefthander Glen Perkins' previous start at the Metrodome before Saturday night's 5-2 loss to the Red Sox came on March 6, 2004, when the Gophers beat No. 14 Nebraska 3-1. He gave up one run in six innings as part of the Dairy Queen Classic. Perkins went 9-3 with a 2.83 ERA and 113 strikeouts as a junior with the Gophers that year, and he was drafted 22nd overall by the Twins that summer.

It's hard to believe that Red Sox outfielder J.D. Drew began his professional baseball career with the St. Paul Saints. Drew was drafted No. 2 overall by Philadelphia in 1997 but never signed with the Phillies, instead hitting .341 with 18 homers and 50 RBI for the Saints in the Northern League. The following year, he was taken fifth overall by St. Louis, and he hit .386 with nine homers and 33 RBI in 30 games with the Saints before the Cardinals finally signed him.

Twins lefthander Dennys Reyes, who finished last season on the disabled list, didn't play winter ball. He said he feels good this year, and he has a 0.00 ERA through 10 1/3 innings after getting three outs Saturday. "I feel 100 percent," he said. "You know I worked the rehab first. It was something that I needed to work at, and that's what I did. I did the rehab, and that's what brought me back. ... I've been lucky so far."

The Gophers have offered a football scholarship to Matt Garin, a 6-4, 220-pound defensive end from Eastview.