SID'S JOTTINGS
• Torii Hunter said he can play next year, but the Twins right fielder, who hit his first home run as a 40-year-old Friday night against the Yankees, is not interested in any contract negotations until the season is over. Incidentally, Torii Hunter Jr. is expected to be a starting wide receiver for Notre Dame this fall.
• Now that University of Minnesota officials have made it clear the new Gophers track stadium will not be on the Les Bolstad Golf Course, the odds are very high that it will be built on the open land where the grain elevators are located across from TCF Bank Stadium.
• How active is Gophers football coach Jerry Kill in the offseason? He made 22 public appearances over June and July, including speaking at one of the highest-ranked high school clinics in Texas. And another indication of his popularity and knowledge is that he spoke at an Alabama clinic last year.
• The Gophers lost their first in-state 2016 football recruit in Breck wide receiver Ramaud Chiakhiao-Bowman, a student with a 4.0 grade-point average who decided to go to Northwestern. The latest GPA numbers available for the Wildcats football team come from the 2013 season, when their players had a GPA just over 3.0, while the Gophers' GPA for 2014 was exactly the same.
• Construction will begin shortly on the Gophers baseball batting cage at a cost of $1 million, with $500,000 contributed by Twins star and former Gophers pitcher Glen Perkins and another $500,000 coming from Dick McCullough, who played for the 1964 NCAA champion Gophers. … Longtime Gophers pitching coach Todd Oakes, who had a setback in his bout with cancer, is now completely healthy and coaching again. … Patrick Casey, a grandson of former Twins public address announcer Bob Casey, joined the Gophers staff as a volunteer assistant.
