Charley Walters: Could Vikings upgrade McCarthy’s backup? Could it be Cousins?

It’s just a thought, but depending on what the Vikings see in training camp, it wouldn’t be surprising if there’s an upgrade at backup quarterback. The team would not be expected to go into the regular season in Chicago on Sept. 8 without a reliable backup to J.J. McCarthy, who has had two knee procedures within nine months.

McCarthy’s backups — Sam Howell, Brett Rypien and Max Brosmer — will get opportunities to prove themselves in preseason games against the Texans and Patriots, as well as in a pair of scrimmages against the Patriots.

Should the Vikings feel a need to upgrade, the most interesting name is Kirk Cousins, the backup to Michael Penix Jr. in Atlanta. That would, though, be a complicated transaction — the money and whether the Falcons would do it.

Cousins, the ex-Viking who turns 37 on Aug. 19, is guaranteed $27.5 million this season. A trade for Cousins would depend on how much of his contract Atlanta would be willing to absorb.

>> Howell’s contract is for $1.1 million, Rypien’s $1.195 million. Brosmer’s deal is for $850,000. McCarthy is playing this season for $4.97 million.

>> Hockey luminaries on Tuesday at the Herb Brooks memorial golf tournament at St. Paul’s Keller course — where Herb would play — included Brooks’ 1980 Olympic gold medalists Mike Eruzione, Neal Broten, Rob McClanahan, Mike Ramsey, Dave Christian, John Harrington and Buzz Schneider. The late Bobby Suter was represented by son Ryan, the former Wild defenseman recently retired.

Brooks’ son Danny brought Eruzione in from his home in Winthrop, Mass., and he was an entertaining luncheon speaker. It was Eruzione, chosen by Herb Brooks to captain the 1980 team, scoring the winning goal in the stunning 4-3 upset over the powerful, veteran Soviet Union national team in Lake Placid, N.Y. The Americans were almost exclusively college players, averaging 22 years of age. The Soviets averaged 26 years of age.

I asked Eruzione, now 70, how his historic winning goal has changed his life.

“It’s given me opportunities to do things I couldn’t have imagined, places I’ve been, people I’ve met,” he said. “I haven’t changed — still live in my hometown, been with my wife for almost 50 years. I stay pretty grounded with my buddies back home.”

Eruzione can command as much as $25,000 for speaking. The USA victory over the Soviets and the gold medal championship is considered by many the greatest upset in sports history.

“I think it is, and I say that with total respect for all other sporting events,” Eruzione said. “For us, it wasn’t Boston, it wasn’t Minnesota, it wasn’t Chicago. When you put a USA jersey on, there’s no greater feeling. I’ve always said, other than being a police officer, a fire fighter or somebody in the military, there’s no greater feeling than to put a USA jersey on.

“(The Olympics) is a different event because you’re playing for your country, not playing for a city or a town. Plus, there’s what was happening at the time with the Soviets (Cold War) and the country.

“We could use a 1980 right now, let’s put it that way. We were part of an event that rallied the country without even knowing about it.”

>> How accurate was “Miracle,” the 2004 movie starring Brooks and his 1980 team?

“It was good, a little Hollywood here and there,” Eruzione said. “Kurt Russell was amazing as Herb, although he was a lot friendlier in the movie — Herb was more intense. They softened up Herb in the movie.”

Also at Keller for dinner on Tuesday was Patti Brooks, Herb’s widow.

“I was in heaven seeing all the boys that I’ve loved before,” she said.

>> August 11 will be the 22nd anniversary of Herb’s death in a car accident in 2003. He was 66 and is memorialized at Roseville’s Roselawn Cemetery, where his gravesite is the most visited among more than 50,000 interments. Visitors respectively place hockey pucks on his gravestone.

>> Ramsey, the former Gopher from Minneapolis Roosevelt, was the youngest Olympian on Brooks’ team at 19 years old. He’s 64 now and retired after playing in 1,070 NHL games.

>> The Brooks tournament honored the famed St. Paul Funk family for its decades-long contributions to hockey.

>> Also last week, former Olympians McClanahan, Schneider, Bob Paradise and Craig Sarner lunched at Tom Reid’s Hockey City Pub.

>> It was 21 years ago that Paul Molitor from St. Paul was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame. He was in Cooperstown, N.Y., for last Sunday’s inductions, which included Ichiro Suzuki. Molitor was Suzuki’s hitting coach in Seattle in 2004, when the Japanese native set a major league single-season record of 262 hits.

“When he stopped listening to me, he started hitting,” quipped Molitor, who played in the Brooks tournament on Tuesday.

>> At Cooperstown, Molitor sat next to fellow Hall of Famer Joe Mauer from St. Paul on stage during induction ceremonies. Hall of Famers Dave Winfield and Jack Morris from St. Paul also attended.

Mauer, by the way, finished a respectable 19th in the recent American Century celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nev.

>> Among honored attendees at the New York Yankees’ 77th Old-Timers Day on Saturday at Yankee Stadium will be widows Jill Martin (wife of Billy Martin), Diana Munson (Thurman Munson) and Kay Murcer (Bobby Murcer).

>> Look for ex-Gopher Nate Schmidt to make an appearance with the Stanley Cup from the Florida Panthers’ recent championship at his native St. Cloud later this month.

>> New season ticket sales and renewals for Gophers men’s basketball are trending higher than at anytime in recent years. Ten Big Ten victories in the 18-team league could get the Gophers into this season’s NCAA tournament.

>> Last weekend, goaltender Carter Casey, 17, from Grand Rapids, declined offers from Wisconsin, Denver and North Dakota to accept a full tender from the Gophers. He’ll play a year or two in Canada, then play for Minnesota. It was coach Bob Motzko’s and assistant Ben Gordon’s recruiting sincerity that swayed Casey to the Gophers.

>> Jake Guentzel of the Tampa Bay Lightning and his dad, Utah Mammoth scout Mike Guentzel, are among partners in a former sports training facility being converted into a hockey rink for youngsters in Woodbury.

Meanwhile, Jake and Lightning teammate Ryan McDonagh from St. Paul were among eight golfers playing golf the other day at posh 2027 Ryder Cup Adare Manor in Ireland, courtesy of a trip the Lightning gave to honor McDonagh for having played in his 1,000th NHL game last season.

>> “Crazy” George Schauer, the legendary Williams Arena halftime entertainer during the Bill Musselman Gophers basketball era, died the other day. His funeral was in Dallas, Texas.

>> Condolences to the family of Stu Anderson, who, for Johnson High in the 1954 state hockey tournament against South St. Paul, scored a record three first-period goals in two minutes, seven seconds. A linemate of Herb Brooks, Stu recently died at 88 in Oconto Falls, Wis., where he had been a teacher and golf coach.

>> Happy birthday: The Minnesota State Amateur golf champion in 1953, Henry Ernst, who became a legend at Midland Hills Country Club, still plays every Tuesday and turned 100 last week.

Meanwhile, Ruth Glarner, the 103-year-old matriarch at Somerset Country Club, is playing weekly and, by the way, shooting her age.

Over at Mendakota Country Club, a remote-controlled robot is picking up driving range balls during an experimental period.

>> Benilde-St. Margaret’s grad Easton Breyfogel, the 2023 Mr. Minnesota Baseball Award winner, hit .244 with five home runs as a sophomore outfielder at Arizona this spring and .222 in the Cape Cod League this summer.

>> At last year’s Perfect Game national high school baseball scouting combine, 24 pitchers had fastballs clocked at 95-mph or better.

>> Cretin-Derham Hall’s class of 1991 is in the final phase of a $180,000 fundraiser that includes honoring late Raiders’ beloved three-sport Hall of Famer Jenny Haigh by naming the school’s soccer scoreboard after her.

>> Former Vikings straight-on style kicker Jim Christopherson on today’s NFL kickers: “When the first sidewinder kicker came into the league, they called him a freak. In this day and age, a straight-on kicker would be a freak.”

Don’t print that

>> From a formerly prospective Twins investor after the team’s recent salary dump of 10 players: “I don’t get it. I don’t see how they can ever get back to winning.”

Besides the purchase price, lots of cash calls will be anticipated for a new owner.

>> The Twins, averaging 22,518, rank 25th of baseball’s 30 clubs in attendance.

>> Best bet now is that Kirill Kaprizov, who is in Russia visiting family, will end up accepting a five-year rather than maximum eight-year contract from the Wild in the $18 million per season range.

> Look for an announcement soon that a minor league baseball team is headed to Blaine, which the other day was chosen for a Scheels sporting goods store, with the first pitch planned for 2028. The franchise will be part of the independent American Association and owned by True North Sports. The ballpark will be in the same Blaine development as the Scheels store.

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>> Carlos Correa, 30, traded to the Astros last week, earlier this season told the Pioneer Press he would retire from baseball after his Twins contract ended in 2028.

It’s easy to understand why the Twins dumped Correa and his ridiculous contract on Houston, but inexplicable why they moved established closer Jhoan Duran, 27, who is under team control through this season and the ensuing two seasons, for two unproven prospects.

>> That was golf hall of famer Davis Love III, who captained the 2016 USA Ryder Cup team that won at Hazeltine National, at the Chaska course the other day to launch a par-3 course he designed that will be called Aerie.

>> A little birdie says new Gophers men’s basketball coach Niko Medved called University of St. Thomas officials, offering to play the Tommies in the first game of their new arena this fall, but St. Thomas instead will be hosting Army. Previous Gophers coach Ben Johnson had declined to play the crosstown Division I team.

>> Add the Phoenix Suns to the Detroit Pistons as potential teams for Johnson’s next employment.

>> Former Gopher-Timberwolves assistant Ryan Saunders will be top assistant for the Memphis Grizzlies.

>> Look for Treasure Island Center to pull out of its Wild practice facility partnership now that Xcel Energy Center naming rights are going to Grand Casino.

>> Don’t think the City of Bloomington, the former home of the North Stars, isn’t eager to pursue the Wild, which hasn’t made much progress toward an arena remodel in St. Paul.

>> Since the introduction of name, image and likeness (NIL), word is there’s a different look to the Gophers football players parking lot.

>> Favored prep players for this season’s Minnesota Mr. Basketball: Iowa State 6-3 commit Christian Wiggins of Wayzata and 5-11 Gophers commit Cedric Tomes of East Ridge.

>> Hulk Hogan, who died of an heart attack recently, lived in an apartment complex in Bloomington from 1978-83 while wrestling in the AWA.

>> If Twin Byron Buxton finishes sixth through 10th in AL MVP voting, he’ll receive a $3 million bonus.

>> Two Target Field fans were so excited about Buxton after he hit for the cycle against the Pirates recently that they paid $80 apiece for Buxton bobbleheads outside the stadium. Meanwhile, a local memorabilia collector at a Twins-Pirates game acquired Paul Skenes’ career strikeout ball No. 295 in a trade with a Target Field fan for an autographed Royce Lewis ball.

Skenes, the All-Star Game NL starter, was able to get his 300th strikeout ball from a fan for a Skenes’ autographed ball and signed balls by ex-Twins Kent Hrbek and Torii Hunter.

>> Simley High grad Michael Busch of the Cubs, under contract for $780,000 this season, is projected to receive a $663,000 pre-arbitration bonus based on his current production (.275, 21 home runs and 61 RBIs). Louie Varland (3-3, 1.98 ERA), traded last week by the Twins to Toronto, is in line for a $257,000 bonus.

>> Viking Justin Jefferson did not make Yahoo Sports’ NFL All-Quarter Century (2000-2024) wide receivers team, which instead chose Randy Moss, Calvin Johnson and Terrell Owens.

>> P.J. Fleck and Mark Coyle, at nine years, are the longest tenured football coach-athletics director combo in the Big Ten.

>> Disgraced ex-Gophers athletics director Norwood Teague has surfaced in a marketing capacity in North Carolina.

>> Big Ten football officials this season received an increase in pay to $5,500 a game.

>> In 2022, the Twins traded Brent Rooker to the Padres in a package that included Chris Paddack. Today, Rooker, 30, now with the A’s, this season has hit 23 homers with 63 RBIs while batting .274. Paddock, 29, traded last week to the Tigers, is 4-9 with a 4.77 ERA.

>> Four players from St. Paul neighborhoods — Paul Molitor, Dave Winfield, Joe Mauer and Jack Morris — are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. An argument for a fifth St. Paulite from the same neighborhoods — Tim Tschida — can be made for inclusion in the Cooperstown, N.Y., shrine, which includes 10 umpires.

Tschida, 65, retired after nearly 30 years as a major league umpire and crew chief, worked three World Series, three league championships, nine division championship series and two All-Star Games. On Thursday, he’ll receive the Jimmy Lee Lifetime Achievement Award prior to the St.Paul Saints game at CHS Field.

Overheard

>> Twins manager Rocco Baldelli on what makes All-Star pitcher Joe Ryan different from other over-the-top motion right-handers: “Big, strong guys who throw right over the top and show you the ball, (batters) have seen a million of those guys. It doesn’t matter unless you’re elite, elite, elite, they can hit that stuff. But Joe has a super low to the ground release point. He can throw 93 miles per hour right down the middle and they miss them.”