Boys volleyball will be a high school sport in Minnesota, and other sports news of note

CATHY WURZER: Hey, it's time to talk sports. Who best to do that than Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson, our Minnesota Now sports team? Wally is the founder of Minnesota Score Magazine and the co-host of 10,000 Takes sports show. Eric Nelson is the other host of that show and the Vikings reporter for CBS Sports Eye on Football program. Hey, guys. How the heck are you?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Very good since the snow has melted.

ERIC NELSON: Yeah. Great to be on, as usual, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Only took how many months? Anyway--

ERIC NELSON: [GROANS]

CATHY WURZER: Ay-yi-yi.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Eight.

CATHY WURZER: I know. I know. I don't even want to think about it. So let's talk about something fun, shall we? The Twins wrapping up their three-game series with San Diego, right?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Yes, this afternoon, as a matter of fact, at Target Field. They're still in first place in what is the mediocre American League Central Division, but the Twins are having their issues. There's no question. They will wrap up a series this weekend with the Chicago Cubs, so the Cubs come to town tomorrow. And they'll be in here Saturday and Sunday as well.

But even though the Twins starting pitching has been very good, Minnesota has struggled to hit the baseball, particularly the last couple of weeks. On Wednesday, the Twins trying to fix some of that-- they sent Jose Miranda back to Triple-A St. Paul. He will play for the Saints now for a while.

Miranda was really a guy that they had counted on to be in the center of their lineup, was really good last year as a rookie, but has fallen on hard times, both defensively and offensively, this year. So he goes back to Saint Paul. They activate Kyle Farmer. Now, you'll remember, Farmer was the guy that got hit in the face with a baseball back in April.

But he has bounced back. And really, it only turned out to be lacerations. But when you saw that play, it was frightening. But he's back, and that's good news for the Twins.

CATHY WURZER: Say, Eric, help me out here. Carlos Correa got booed by fans? What's going on there?

ERIC NELSON: Yeah. Yeah. CarCo, number 4-- Carlos Correa, who, in some ways is now the face of this team, Cathy. He signed a six-year, $200 million deal in the offseason to come back to Minnesota after flirting with San Francisco and the New York Mets. But those deals caved in because of injury concerns with the Mets and the Giants. But going into the game Wednesday night against San Diego, Carlos Correa's batting average-- 185. I mean, that's anemic.

He was 0 for 5 in the Tuesday loss to the Padres. Now, look, most people around the game of Major League Baseball are not pushing any panic buttons with this guy. They believe he will heat up and will be just fine by the time the season gets into the mid stretch, and then we hit the home stretch.

In fact, we talked to Tony Gwynn Jr., who's the radio analyst for the San Diego Padres and the son of Tony Gwynn Senior, one of the greatest hitters ever. And he promised us that Carlos Correa would be fine as this season continues. Now, the other thing with the Twins is Byron Buxton, who certainly is a fan favorite. He's an incredible talent.

He's what they call a five-tool guy. He can do it all. But right now he's only being used as a designated hitter. The Twins have put him in bubble wrap. They're afraid of him getting injured, which has been a problem in his career.

And they don't want to put him out in center field, where he's a gold glover. He's a human highlight film in center field. I think a lot of fans would like to see Buxton not only hitting, but playing defense in the outfield as well.

CATHY WURZER: Human highlight reel-- kind of describes you guys. Anyway--

ERIC NELSON: Jesus.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Blooper reel.

CATHY WURZER: Maybe. OK, from Twins to the Vikings-- do we know who the Vikes are going to play next season already?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Yeah, we already know who they play. We just don't know when. And we know where they play, too. So the Vikings will host-- and if you're trying to figure out which teams you want to go see at US Bank Stadium, of course, the Packers, Bears, and Lions-- they always come in here once a year.

But they'll also get the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs, the Chargers, the Saints, the Buccaneers, and the 49ers. We also know the road game, but we'll find out tonight the complete schedule as to when they play each of these teams. Typically, of course, we get the Bears on the last game of the season. It's usually been at US Bank Stadium. Last year it was actually in Chicago.

The other part of the NFL's revealing the schedule, you're going to find out a few more things about the NFL this year-- that there are some changes. The NFL will have a game on Black Friday this year. Teams can play more than one Thursday Night Football game.

In the past, there was only one Thursday Night game per team per season, but now that changes. And not every team will play a primetime game. So Eric's favorite part of NFL football-- Thursday Night Football-- could be coming twice to your favorite team or more.

ERIC NELSON: Yeah, it's clearly one of the worst ideas in the history of the National Football League-- a league that preaches, Cathy, players' safety. And yet they're going to make these guys play on a Sunday and turn around and play again on a Thursday. There's not one player in the NFL who wants to play on Thursday. It's been forced upon the NFL fandom.

And it's not going away because Amazon Prime is forking out millions to the NFL to televise the game. So yeah, Wally's right. I'm not happy about that. And I'm also sad about the news we found out earlier this week that Joe Kapp, who led the Minnesota Vikings to their first Super Bowl-- we lost Joe at the age of 85.

And I think Joe Kapp had the greatest single season of any quarterback in the history of the purple. If you go back to '69, they were 12 and 2. They only played 14 regular season games then. Minnesota beat the LA Rams at the old Met. It was a frigid day.

And then the following week, they ran over Wally's Cleveland Browns on the skating rink known as Metropolitan Stadium. It looked like it was going to be a magical season until they faced Kansas City in Super Bowl IV. And they were huge favorites, but they got blown away by the Chiefs. And thus, that was the beginning of what we all know now as Purple Pain.

But Joe Kapp, Cathy, to me-- tough, a team guy. He turned down the team MVP in 1969. He says, I don't deserve this. It's 40 guys for 60 minutes. It's not my trophy. And the other thing about Joe Kapp-- the only guy ever to play in a Rose Bowl, a Super Bowl, and a Grey Cup, which is Canada's version of the Super Bowl.

CATHY WURZER: Joe Kapp was my dad Fritz Wurzer's favorite Viking back in the day. And when I saw that he passed of Alzheimer's, I felt so bad. And the first thing I thought about was, I wonder what-- I thought about, I wonder if we should call Bud Grant and ask for a comment.

And I thought, oh, my gosh, Bud's gone, too. So yeah, I know. Say, some good news-- and this is huge news, actually, for folks who love boys volleyball in the state of Minnesota, Wally.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Yeah, absolutely. The state high school league, they have an annual assembly that gets together once a year, and they vote on changes for the upcoming year or two in high school sports. Well, this time, on Tuesday, they officially made boys volleyball a sanctioned varsity sport. It's the third time that it's been on the ballot at their annual meeting.

Last year it missed it by one vote. You need a 2/3 vote of the 48 voters to get it approved. They finally got it through, and it's really important. This is a very diverse sport.

53% of the players who play boys volleyball are of color. There's a huge Hmong population that plays the sport. And so it finally gets through. It will start as a varsity sport not this coming school year but the following year.

So it's been a club sport, and so there's tons of players. Over 2,000 players have been playing it as a club sport for the last several years. Now it becomes an official varsity sport as of 2024-2025. And I know a lot of people are happy about this one.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, it's good-- that's really great. I'm glad to see that they finally got that done. Say, before we go, I believe, Eric, that the Loons-- didn't they get a shootout win recently?

ERIC NELSON: They did. Major League Soccer runs this US Open Cup in the middle of their regular season. And so Minn U did get the shootout victory over Philadelphia Tuesday night. So they're off to the second round of the US Open Cup.

Philadelphia is a good soccer club. They were the runner-up in MLS last year, losing to LAFC basically on penalty kicks. So the one thing about Minnesota United, though, in the regular season-- the Loons are struggling. And they're going to go down to Kansas City and face Sporting KC in an MLS match on Saturday.

They've had trouble scoring goals. And they are getting Emanuel Reynoso back. He had some issues, but he's back. And their goalkeeper, Dayne St. Clair, who played for the Canadian World Cup team and was an all-star last season, has basically kept them in a lot of matches that they may have lost by a bigger score. So Minnesota United fans are hoping this team can get back on track down there in Kansas City.

CATHY WURZER: All right. We covered a lot of ground, as always, guys. Thanks a lot. Talk to you next week.

ERIC NELSON: Sounds good.

CATHY WURZER: There's Wally Langfellow, Eric Nelson. Wally's the founder of Minnesota Score Magazine and the co-host of 10,000 Takes sports talk show. Eric is the other host of that 10,000 Takes show, and he's also the Minnesota Vikings reporter for CBS Sports Radio's Eye on Football.