Article: Diamond Awards A Big Success

[John Bonnes]

The Diamond Awards were held last night at The Depot in Minneapolis, including dinner, a silent auction, and an award ceremony and a big night of fund-raising for the University of Minnesota’s battles with neurological diseases.

 

The centerpiece of the event is the award ceremony. Hosted by Dick Bremer, the Baseball Writer’s Association of America presents awards to Twins players, coaches and Midwest supporters. This year that included Brian Dozier, Ervin Santana and Joe Mauer. It also included Byron Buxton, who couldn’t be there to accept the award due to weather-related travel problems, which provided one of the more amusing moments of the night.We had heard prior to the ceremony that Buxton would probably not be able to make the event to due difficulties traveling, but during the presentation of the award, we heard that they were holding out hope he might be able to make it on time. He did not, so they did what they usually do when a player cannot make the award ceremony: they record a short video, usually from their home or with a nice background, thanking everyone for the award. Buxton’s video came up, and there were immediate chuckles because the background was a window at a gate in an airport, overlooking a walkway to a plane that was absolutely not there.

 

There were more poignant moments as well. A video detailed a military veteran’s battles with ataxia, Kent Hrbek talked a little about his father’s battles with ALS, and there was an award to Rick “Stelly” Stelmaszek where the Twins announced that Field 5 in Fort Myers would now be named after him. There was also a ton of money raised for the University of Minnesota, including a silent auction item that included a pair of Super Bowl tickets that went for $13,000.

 

Twins Daily had two tables at the event, including Seth, Nick, John and their families, and hopes to continue to support the event even more next year. Look for details next year on how you can join us and put it on your calendar right now. If it holds true to its traditional date, it will be tentatively scheduled for January 24th, 2019.

 

Click here to view the article

[clutterheart]

Looks like Dozier's hair is in mid season form.  

[Doctor Wu]

My first thought was: Scott Diamond is back! Whatever happened to that guy?