The Third Annual Diamond Awards took place Thursday night at the Depot in downtown Minneapolis. This year’s event was a little strange because many of the award winners (Torii Hunter, Carlos Silva, Matt Garza) are no longer with the team. But it still was a fun event and made everyone look forward to spring training that much more.

I want to thank everyone who participated in the event. Here are some highlights:

Phil Miller of the St. Paul Pioneer Press delivered an enjoyable introduction of the Bob Allison leadership award, given to Mike Redmond. He pointed out that most of Redmond’s conversations with Ron Gardenhire last season took place with him lying on the ground after being injured, and Gardy hovering over him going, “Can you play?”

Tony Oliva won the Twins Alumni Community Service Award, which was presented to him by Rod Carew. It led to a wonderful exchange between two great men.

Gotta give props to Michael Cuddyer, who did his research and pulled off good interviews with new Twins Brendan Harris, Delmon Young, Adam Everett, Mike Lamb and Craig Monroe. Not an easy task.  

I hammed it up big time as I presented awards to Johan Santana for being the Twins’ pitcher of the year as well as the winner of the Carl R. Pohlad Award for outstanding community service. (Gardy accepted the awards on Johan’s behalf).

I brought my cellphone up the stage and had someone call me with trade updates during my speech. “Hank Steinbrenner just called, the Yankees are back in trade talks for Johan Santana,” then a few seconds later I pretended to get another call. “The Yankees have just pulled OUT of trade talks.”

I then implored the Twins’ triangle of authority - Bill Smith, Terry Ryan and Mike Radcliff - to get something done. Some people felt it was over the top, but I had to get my shot in for the Twins ruining my offseason with Santana developments.

The best part of the night: We raised over $500,000 for Ataxia, ALS and Parkinson’s research. Once again, thanks to everyone who helped make this a great event.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 10:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.