Minnesota Twins: Television broadcast continues good additions with Justin Morneau
By Nate Palmer
The Minnesota Twins recently welcomed back the recently retired Justin Morneau as a special assistant. He will also join Dick Bremer for some TV broadcasts.
The Minnesota Twins and their television broadcast has often had a former player sit in the color analyst’s seat. While Dick Bremer’s voice has been a consistent voice giving play-by-play the person serving as color analyst has changed from time to time.
Most recently the voice giving the analysis of the game and circling people in the stand has been former Twins pitcher Bert Blyleven. What has been a nice twist to the Twins Fox Sports North Broadcast has been the addition of other former Twins players when Blyleven has been given time away from the booth. Those players have included Torii Hunter, LaTroy Hawkins, Roy Smalley, Jack Morris and now enter Justin Morneau.
Morneau made his retirement official on January 17th and the Twins also announced that Morneau would also be joining the front office as a special assistant before he added this announcing venture to his resume. He spent 10 seasons with the Twins which was highlighted by his 2006 American League MVP season.
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During that 2006 season, Morneau hit .321/.375/.559 and hit 34 home runs, 37 doubles and 130 RBIs. This may be blasphemous, but what was very exciting about that line is it still stands as maybe the best statistical season by a Twins power bat since Harmon Killebrew wore a Twins uniform.
What will always mark Morneau’s career with the Twins was the unfortunate events of 2010 that resulted in a career-altering concussion. He thankfully was able to regain his hitting form, but just not for the Twins. The Twins would trade the slugger to the Pittsburgh Pirates and he would then land in Colorado where he won the 2014 National League batting title with a .319 batting average.
As Morneau steps out of the batter’s box and into the booth, he seems set up to do very well in that role. Here is a peek at how he does behind the mic in an interview from Tuesday nights Minnesota Wild game.
As alluded to in the video, if this version of the Twins ends up setting the franchise up for a similar run as the Twins of the early 2000’s Morneau could add some interesting commentary on the TV broadcast. Morneau also just flat out seems very comfortable behind that mic which will hopefully create some great in-game moments for fans.
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As Morneau heads to spring training, I can’t help but wonder if he might be able to help a young hitter like Max Kepler develop further into a great left-handed hitter and then be the voice to break down some of Kepler’s best hits in 2018.