It took a little something from everyone on Saturday.

There was Ty France, Friday night’s hero, driving in a pair of runs to pull the Twins within a run after Harrison Bader had homered earlier in the fifth inning. There was Jorge Alcala, preserving a one-run deficit by throwing a shaky but scoreless sixth, retiring the heart of the Royals’ lineup. There was Kody Clemens, flipping his bat after connecting with a Michael Wacha fastball to the tie game up in the sixth. There was Jhoan Duran, stranding the bases loaded to in the ninth to preserve the tie.

And finally, there was Carlos Correa and Ryan Jeffers, both fresh off the bench, drawing walks in the ninth to set the stage for Brooks Lee, who made walk-off winners for the Twins for the second straight day. The Twins beat the Royals 5-4 on Saturday afternoon at Target Field, using a Lee single to capture their second win in as many days over their division foes.

“I just tried to get something out over the plate, stick with my approach and hopefully good things happen,” Lee said, “And it did. I mishit that ball, too, but I think with a good approach and a good swing, it took care of itself.”

Lee, called the day a “roller coaster,” starting it 0 for 2 at the plate. He said he kept reminding himself that he had a few more opportunities later on.

He did, and he made the most of them, finishing the game with hits in his last three at-bats. It was the first walk-off of his career.

“He’s really developing as a hitter in a lot of ways. Huge moment. I mean, that’s just beautiful,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Walk-offs, you know we’ve had two in a row here, but they don’t happen that often. And you remember every one of them. They’re very special to the players, as they should be. You win the game for your team out there, it feels really good.”

While Lee put the finishing touches on the Twins’ 16th win in their last 18 games, this one was a collective effort.

The Twins (29-22), who were quieted by Wacha for the first four innings of the game, finally broke through in the fifth. Bader’s home run got the Twins on the board, and after Willi Castro was hit by a pitch and Christian Vázquez singled, France brought them both home, making it 4-3 at the time.

Clemens pulled the Twins even with the Royals (28-25) an inning later with his fourth home run of the season.

“You’ve got to keep it close,” Baldelli said. “If you give yourself a chance by keeping it close, things can work out. And we’re confident offensively even if we’re not rolling, we still feel like we’re about to get rolling and that’s what we saw as the game went along.”

The Twins had fallen in a hole in the third when starter Zebby Matthews, making just his second major league start of the season, allowed a two-out single to Maikel Garcia with the bases loaded, scoring a pair of runs. Matthews struck out a career-high nine batters in his outing, which lasted four innings. He walked just one and while he said he needs to be more efficient to pitch deeper into starts, he called it a “good step” from his last start.

After his departure, he made way for Justin Topa, who gave up a pair of runs in the fifth inning. But after that, Twins pitchers shutout the Royals, allowing the offense to climb back in.

“We’re in every game. We’re down 4-0 early and it doesn’t feel like it,” Lee said. “Our offense is going to start clicking at some point during the game and we’re going to put up big numbers.”

And on Saturday, they did.

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Larry Suggs, the father of NBA guard Jalen Suggs, remembers a man coming up to him during an AAU basketball practice for middle schoolers and asking him a peculiar question.

“Hey,” the man said, “where’s that awkward white kid that you always had on your basketball team?”

Suggs was confused.

“The kid that was not very good,” the man clarified.

Suggs pointed at one of the only white players in the gym.

“No, not that kid,” the man responded. “That kid over there is pretty good.”

“No, that’s Chet,” Suggs said. “It’s the same kid. He just grew taller, and now he can knock down 3s.”

The man was stunned.

Years later, Chet Holmgren — that “awkward white kid” from Minneapolis who just turned 23 years old this month — is now the second- or third-best player on an Oklahoma City team heavily favored to win the NBA title, with a chance to secure a Finals trip by beating his hometown Timberwolves.

Quite a leap for a guy that current Orlando Magic guard Jalen Suggs once said came from “the bottom of the bottom.”

“He didn’t even know what basketball was,” Jalen joked.

Much less how to play it.

“I always tell people, ‘He was the worst kid in your classroom at basketball,’ ” Larry said.

Be like KD

Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren reacts after a play against the Minnesota Timberwolves during the second half of Game 2 of an NBA basketball Western Conference Finals playoff series Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)

So, how did Holmgren end up on a youth team with future NBA guards like Jalen Suggs and Tyrell Terry, and a slew of other future Division I athletes?

Larry knew Chet’s father, Dave Holmgren, played for the Gophers. He appreciated Chet’s willingness to listen and learn in their early conversations and, truthfully, Suggs believed in his own abilities to teach the game. Holmgren was an intriguing piece of clay he was eager to mold.

But it was a process. Suggs’ team always played four-plus years above its age group. That was no issue for many of the players, but it made life difficult for Chet, who at this point was the same height as everyone else but still in the process of learning the game.

“A lot of people would come and say, ‘Hey, I just think you should cut him, because he’s slowing everybody down,’ ” Larry recalled. “But they didn’t know his progression.”

Only Suggs did. He set benchmarks he wanted Holmgren to reach by certain points, and the student was hitting them all, progressing even a little ahead of Suggs’ schedule. While having a great idea of how tall Holmgren may eventually become given his dad’s height, Suggs had Holmgren play guard.

Holmgren and Kerwin Walton, who just finished his senior season at Texas Tech, were each tasked with getting up 250 jumpers before every practice in an effort to improve their shots and make them legitimately helpful to the players around them.

Suggs only settled for proper form. Learning how to shoot correctly and efficiently required reps. Suggs believed if he could teach Holmgren the same things he taught Terry and his own son, the possibilities were endless for the future 7-footer.

Even as he began to grow, Suggs had Holmgren running off flare screens and firing up 3-pointers.

“I said, ‘I think I can make you like KD,’ ” Suggs said, in reference to Kevin Durant.

All grown up

For years, many of the boys on Suggs’ AAU team were roughly the same size, right around or just above 6 feet, Holmgren included. But Suggs remembers a period of about a month in which Holmgren shot up 4-plus inches. It was part of a year in which Holmgren said he grew 8 inches in total.

Everything changed. Suggs noted the newfound “big man” had dibs on shotgun during travel to games. No longer could Holmgren share a bed with teammates in hotels, because he had to sleep diagonally to fit in them.

Holmgren had to take intermittent breaks from the sport because of growing pains. When he’d return to action, adaptations were made that included no bending down to touch the line on sprint drills and more bike work. Holmgren did physical therapy to adjust his movements and solve strength issues. Eventually, his body caught up to his bones.

“I kept working on it and some athleticism came,” Holmgren said in 2020. “Then it kind of just complemented the skill really well.”

‘He’s tough’

Holmgren is not an exact replica of Kevin Durant, by any means. While he shot 38% from deep this season, his offensive skillset isn’t quite as smooth or deep — though his capabilities are incredibly impressive for someone his size.

What makes Holmgren so special is the combination of the offensive skills he does have and the defensive force he imposes. Holmgren is one of the game’s elite shot blockers; he swatted 2.2 shots per game this season, while altering countless others.

Holmgren patrols the paint like few can, even while still being far more slender than most other NBA players at his position. Holmgren is listed at 7-foot-1 … and just 208 pounds.

You may be able to overpower Holmgren on occasion. But bully him? Not a chance.

In Game 2 on Thursday, Holmgren threw down a dunk, then shouted in the face of Wolves guard Donte DiVincenzo, which incited a technical foul. Watching at home from his couch, Suggs immediately started laughing.

“That a boy,” he said.

“He just has that raw emotion like that. He’s just always been like that. I’ve never told him to hold it back,” Suggs said. “I said, ‘You have to show your emotions, because I don’t want anybody to ever take advantage of you. And anything down around this basket is yours.’ ”

And no opponent could take it from Holmgren, no matter what their strength or mass advantages may be. The credit for that, Suggs said, belongs solely to the player. Holmgren first walked into the gym with the same mentality he possesses today.

“Pain didn’t really phase him,” Suggs said. “And being in a different, stressful environment didn’t (either).”

Suggs noted Holmgren was always running around the Minneapolis with “a whole bunch of minorities,” kidding around and playing basketball. Holmgren and Spring Lake Park’s Cole Ewald were often the only white kids in the gym.

“They adapted very early to the physicality and to the different social and economic situations that a lot of us were in growing up in in the inner city,” Suggs said.

When Holmgren was in high school, a college coach called Suggs to ask if the big man was tough. Suggs’ response was, “He hangs out with a whole bunch of brothers in the inner city. What do you think?”

“Alright, I gotcha,” the coach said. “He’s tough.”

A new standard

Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren (7) shoots against Minnesota Timberwolves center Naz Reid (11) during the first half of Game 1 of an NBA basketball Western Conference Finals playoff series Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)

Holmgren has brought Suggs’ vision for the forward to life, and put it on display for all to witness on the game’s biggest stages.

When Holmgren was young, Suggs told the player the heights he believed he could reach: To be the best American-born white player since Larry Bird. At first, that seems like a bar too high to realistically hit.

But consider today’s NBA, where Holmgren is contending with the likes of guard Tyler Herro and Austin Reaves for that distinction (Cooper Flagg won’t join this discussion until he’s selected No. 1 overall in next month’s NBA Draft). And, if you were a franchise aiming to contend for a title, Holmgren would be your top choice of those three players.

“On U.S. soil, who’s the baddest white boy in the NBA?” Suggs asked. “It’s Chet Holmgren. He walks it, he talks it, he backs it up, he’s got the swagger, he’s funny. He’s got all the metrics.”

“And,” Suggs added, “he’s got a great chance to win the championship.”

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A courtesy rendering of the newly imagined Redwood Park in Apple Valley, which will include an inclusive playground area, pickleball courts, a basketball court, as well as a new community pool and pool house with community meeting spaces, and other amenities. The park and pool will be fenced off for the entire year, with the goal of reopening in spring 2026. (Courtesy of Confluence and the City of Apple Valley)

Lisa Hiebert says the first question at her first parks committee meeting in 2019 was about inclusive play: “Could we someday build an adaptive playground in Apple Valley for kids of all abilities and needs?” they were asked.

That concept is moving toward reality this summer, as construction work transforming Apple Valley’s Redwood Park is underway, a nearly $16 million investment that includes a new inclusive playground area, pickleball courts, basketball court, pool and pool house with community meeting spaces and other amenities.

The park and pool will be fenced off for the entire year, with the goal of reopening in spring 2026.

Funding for the work comes from a voter-approved citywide parks referendum in 2023, a two-question ballot measure that asked residents to issue more than $73 million in bonds to fund updates to Apple Valley’s parks, recreation facilities and trails. The second question asked voters specifically to approve $6.5 million in bonds to replace the Redwood Community Pool.

The state of Minnesota also appropriated $1.4 million in state bonding funds specifically to use for the inclusive playground.

The Redwood Park renovations are maybe the most visible of the efforts, but renovations are planned at more than 40 neighborhood parks over the next few years.

Hiebert, who served on the Apple Valley Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee before becoming a city council member this year, said one word comes to mind when asked to describe all of the park renovations already underway across town: “Exciting.”

“This really is a transformational parks bond referendum,” she said.

The city has already finished minor renovations to the newly branded Splash Valley Water Park, formerly known as Apple Valley Family Aquatic Center. Work is also underway to retool the fields at the Hayes Youth Athletic Complex.

Community input

The inclusive playground area at Redwood Park will be the first such playground in Apple Valley.

While older playgrounds with sand or wood-chip surfaces are prohibitive for those using a wheelchair or a walker, the planned adaptive playground will have a rubberized bottom that removes that barrier. Playground equipment such as swings and ramps also are designed for people living with disabilities.

The desire for the playground emerged during some 40 community outreach meetings that city staff held in developing a master plan for the park.

During those meetings, Apple Valley Parks and Recreation Director Eric Carlson said it became clear what residents wanted, and didn’t want, to include in the eventual referendum plans.

He echoed Hiebert’s thoughts.

“These improvements are going to be exciting. Everyone can come and gather, no matter what their abilities are,” Carlson said. “They are going to be comprehensive, and they are necessary, based on the age of the infrastructure.”

A rendering of the future pool house at Redwood Park in Apple Valley. The new pool and pool shelter will include areas with different depths, allowing for lessons at different swimming levels, and also a diving board and climbing wall. (Courtesy of JLG Architects and the City of Apple Valley)

The Redwood pool complex was built about 60 years ago. Some of the first buildings in what later would become Apple Valley were built on that same site – aerial images from 1953 show farm buildings surrounded by farmland and prairie.

Apple Valley Mayor Clint Hooppaw said many longtime residents at community meetings talked about their positive memories at the Redwood pool, which was a quieter, different environment than the Splash Valley Water Park across town.

“That to me was a sign that residents wanted to see the next generation have those experiences. It was not about what they want, but about what is good for the whole community,” Hooppaw said.

Apple Valley bases its swimming lesson programming at the Redwood Pool, and the new pool will include areas with different depths, allowing for lessons at different swimming levels.

Pedestrian crossing

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The city’s master plan for Redwood Park also includes a pedestrian tunnel under County Road 42.

The tunnel is not part of the Apple Valley parks referendum work, but would be part of eventual road improvements by Dakota County. That work with Dakota County Transportation staff continues, and community meetings are being held this summer. The pedestrian underpass is currently part of county design proposals.

The tentative project schedule for renovating County Road 42 involves finalizing the engineering and design through 2026 and beginning construction in 2027, according to Dakota County.

The 36 trees planted last week at Boutwells Landing senior living community in Oak Park Heights have a big job: To help revitalize the state’s elm population.

The American elm trees, each about 2 years old and 4 to 6 feet tall, were cloned by University of Minnesota researchers to be resistant to Dutch elm disease, a fungal disease that killed millions of elm trees around the world.

In the late 1970s, there were 1.3 million American elms with diameters greater than 21 inches in Minnesota. Dutch elm disease killed 95 percent of them, leaving behind fewer than 60,000 big elms, according to U researchers.

Ryan Murphy and Ben Held, co-investigators on the U’s disease-resistant elm selection and reintroduction program, want to revive the population. On May 16, they got some help from Boutwells Landing residents David Lime, 84, and Neal Kingsley, 87, both U.S. Forest Service veterans, who participated in the three-hour planting project.

Soon after Lime moved to Boutwells Landing three years ago, he pitched the idea of starting a nursery in the southeast corner of the 100-acre property to help offset the loss of ash trees from emerald ash borer.

Boutwells Landing officials expressed interest, and Lime, who worked for 20 years in the Forest Service’s experiment station on the St. Paul campus and later taught at the U’s College of Forestry, started looking for places giving away trees and people who were researching trees “where we could invite them to plant some trees on our property,” he said.

Lime connected with Kingsley, and the two met with Rob Venette, director of the Minnesota Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pests Center at the U of M and research biologist with the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station. He connected them with Murphy and Held.

“It was just one of those things where they had space, and we were looking for places, and it just was the right connection,” Murphy said.

Hardy elms survived

Dutch elm disease is caused by a fungus that can be spread by a bark beetle or through two trees that have interconnected roots. Beetles reared in infected trees emerge from the diseased wood carrying spores, which they then deposit into healthy trees by feeding on the young twigs. The fungus triggers reactions that block the tree’s vascular system, which prevents it from getting water and nutrients normally, and it becomes wilted, leading to rapid death, Murphy said.

Fortunately, Dutch elm disease didn’t kill every elm tree in the state. Some very hardy “survivor” elms were left behind.

“Oftentimes, they’re the only elm tree left in an area where everything else has died,” Murphy said.

Said Venette: “It’s just a matter of a random mutation that happens to occur in these trees. In general, the species as a whole is highly susceptible, but it’s just these very lucky individual (trees) that have natural resistance.”

Researchers are using the “survivor” elms from around the state – identified by forestry officials, arborists and private landowners – to grow Dutch elm disease-resistant trees.

Here’s how it works: Researchers visit the “survivor” elm in the wintertime and take the branch tips and then grow a tree genetically identical to that elm. “You take that tissue from that twig, and you graft it onto a rootstock,” said Murphy, who also manages the U of M’s Urban Forestry Outreach & Research Lab, which provides education about trees to communities around the state.

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The cloned trees are then planted back in the landscape either at the St. Paul campus or at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chanhassen “to confirm that they really are resistant, and that they weren’t just lucky and got missed by the bark beetles,” Venette said.

Once the tree is propagated, it can take five to seven years to get to a size where it can be inoculated with the pathogen, Murphy said.

“We then drill a hole into the main stem of the tree, inject the tree with concentrated spores of the fungus which causes the disease, and wait to see its effect,” he said. “To find one resistant cultivar, it could easily take 10 years.”

If the tree survives inoculation with the fungus, researchers will then propagate more of them and plant those at different test sites around the state “because we have more evidence to suggest that they are truly resistant,” he said.

Multiple sites

Robert Venette, from left, Ben Held, Ryan Murphy, Kyle Rue, Johannes Dufault and Neal Kingsley gather to plant elm trees in a field at Boutwells Landing senior living community in Oak Park Heights on Friday, May 16, 2025. (Courtesy of Boutwells Landing)

The resistant elms are being planted at Boutwells Landing, Nerstrand Big Woods State Park, Elm Creek Park Reserve and in the Minnesota River Valley.

Researchers plan yearly follow-up visits to assess the tree performance; the trees are expected to grow several feet each year, Murphy said.

Fifteen more trees will be planted in a forested area at Boutwells Landing that was impacted by emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that attacks and kills ash trees. Ash trees were planted in many urban forests in Minnesota to replace elm trees decimated by Dutch elm disease, Venette said.

“It’s all part of growing a more diversified urban forest,” he said. “We’ve nearly come full circle.”

The research project at Boutwells Landing is expected to last somewhere between five and 10 years “because we really are trying to understand how well these trees get established and what factors might be affecting their survival and growth,” Venette said.

The $226,000 research project, funded by the Minnesota Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pests Center, started in January 2024. An earlier U of M research project on developing Dutch-elm resistant trees received $234,000 in funding from the center and was completed in 2023. The center was formed in 2014 to coordinate the U’s research into invasive insects and land-based plants. It is funded by the state’s Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources. The center, which has four employees, has an annual budget of $330,000.

Engaging people in science

Officials were thrilled when Murphy and Held proposed the project, said Heather Koop, the Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pests Center’s associate program director.

“When we can get a piece of research to that point of implementation, that’s the gold standard for us … that’s how we really like to measure our success,” she said. “So often we see research that is done that never really gets to that next stage. Because this is all publicly funded, we feel very strongly that this research needs to be in the public realm, and people need to understand it and how to use it. Hopefully, they’ll apply it, and hopefully, we’ll see better management options available for different invasive species.”

Another plus: The project “engages people in science,” she said. “You have these folks who are super-eager to help us out, and that just makes me really happy.”

In addition to having a few retired foresters, Boutwells Landing has “a very rich community of folks who are interested in science,” Venette said. “They reached out and asked about opportunities to engage in collaborative work related to trees, and we just happen to have this project that was a nice fit.”

Researchers worked with teens from the Green Crew, the youth program of the Izaak Walton League’s Minnesota Valley chapter, to plant trees in Bloomington on Earth Day 2023, so it was fitting to work with seniors on the Boutwells Landing project, Venette said. “It really shows the breadth of interest in this kind of work,” he said.

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Lime, who walks or drives past the new trees at least once a day, said the project is giving staff and residents at Boutwells Landing a chance “to learn about the role of science in helping solve serious natural-resource problems” and how they can help bring American elm trees back to the Minnesota and Upper Midwest landscape, he said.

“The idea is that if we can re-establish them in Minnesota, maybe we can do it in other states,” Kingsley said. “Bringing them back would be great because they were beautiful.”

Although Kingsley knows he may not be around to see whether the experiment was a success, he said he is happy to have played a part.

“My grandfather built fishing schooners, and I remember as a kid growing up seeing a ship that my grandfather helped build,” he said. “It was nice. Maybe my grandkids or great-grandkids will say, ‘See that tree? Bamp helped plant that.’ That would be kind of nice.”