With roots in Southern California, where the weather is notoriously perfect for baseball, Twins first baseman Ty France – in his first season in Minnesota after spending 2024 with Cincinnati – admitted there is a little more spring in the step when you come to work on a June morning with sunshine, low humidity and the thermometer headed for the 70s.

“Whenever you get a little bit of sunshine, it’s nice to get out there,” France said prior to Saturday’s game versus Toronto, admitting that recent road trips have offered better weather than what they experienced at home early in the season.

“The first month was a little bit of a grind, but we ran into some warm weather too, in Tampa, Sacramento, Seattle was nice,” France said. “But it’s nice coming home to this, for sure.”

First proposed in the late 1990s, the original plans for a ballpark to replace the Metrodome included a retractable roof similar to those in Seattle and Houston. When legislators and much of the voting public in Minnesota soundly rejected the cost of a retractable roof facility, the design of what eventually became Target Field was scaled back, and outdoor baseball – for better or worse depending on the whims of Minnesota weather – returned in 2010.

Some believe that April and May games at Target Field, when the weather can be colder than anywhere else in the majors, give the Twins a home field advantage. On a smaller scale, similar to what the Minnesota Vikings enjoyed for their first two decades, playing outdoors at Met Stadium, where the weather could be frigid late in the football season.

France said they play in any temperature, but admitted that short sleeves and sunglasses are ideal.

“It’s a more comfortable environment for us,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s necessarily an advantage, but once we get the opportunity to thaw out after the first month, it’s nice. I haven’t played here in the summertime, but I’ve heard the ball starts carrying a little better, and I’m looking forward to that.”

Lewis past slump

After snapping out of a brutal 0-for-32 slump at the plate during the Twins’ three-city road trip, Royce Lewis continues to do good things with his bat, going 3 for 3 with a walk in Friday’s loss to Toronto.

“I think he has looked good at the plate. I think he has looked more comfortable. I think his swing has been synced up really good,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Both his timing on his swing, and actually the swing itself, has looked a lot like the Royce you would see last year at times and the year before.”

Lewis, who scored a run in the Twins’ 6-4 loss, said he’s concentrating on what he can control at the plate, and leaving the rest to the hands of fate.

I can only control so much. Once the ball leaves the bat, it’s on God and it’s on those fielders where they’re playing. So I’ve just got to keep doing my thing and controlling what I can control, and looking for my pitch, which is key I think for any hitter,” he said following Friday’s game.

“If you’re looking for your pitch, and you’re focusing on every pitch of every at-bat which is tough to do sometimes, I know you wouldn’t think it, like ‘oh, you should be focused.’ Well, sometimes you just lose sight of your plan. You get homer happy or you swing too hard. Those are the little things that I’m trying to take care of right now. Just breathing and having fun.”

Whatever is working for Lewis, Baldelli wants to see it continue.

“It’s been a week, so we want to keep this going throughout the whole season,” the manager said.

Happy birthday “Buck-Ninety”

Tim Laudner, the former Twins catcher and current member of the broadcast crew, celebrated his 67th birthday on Saturday, noting that he and late Minnesota music icon Prince entered this world on the same day: June 7, 1958.

Born in Iowa, Laudner played high school baseball at Park Center, in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis and at the University of Missouri before making his major league debut with the Twins in 1981.

As a catcher on Minnesota’s 1987 World Series title team, Laudner was beloved for his local roots, and playfully teased for his light-hitting ways.

He batted .191 for the 1987 season with 16 home runs, prompting some fans to hang a banner from the facing of the Metrodome’s upper deck during the playoffs with Laudner’s number, declaring them members of the “Buck-Ninety Fan Club” in reference to his batting average.

In the clubhouse before Saturday’s game, Laudner joked about being the second most prominent Minnesotan – after Prince, who died in 2016 – but said that a fan once noted that for their careers, Laudner had more hits than the musician.

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There’s a reason that so many people are struggling to come to terms with that fact that Vikings legend Jim Marshall is gone.

Because of the way he lived, it almost seemed he couldn’t die.

The icon affectionately known as “The Captain” by his peers passed away last week at the age of 87 following a lengthy hospitalization. The original iron man in the NFL, Marshall played in 282 consecutive games during his career, most of them coming for the Vikings, all of them on the defensive line.

As former teammates and others have pointed out, the resumé seems to demand enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That never happened in his lifetime. Instead, Marshall has been immortalized in a different way, his legacy living on in those who had the privilege of coming into contact with him.

In the wake of Marshall’s death, the Pioneer Press tracked down some of his former teammates and asked them for their favorite story about the man who put fear into quarterbacks as a founding member of the Purple People Eaters with fellow defensive end Carl Eller and defensive tackles Gary Larsen and Alan Page.

Maybe it’s fitting that Eller couldn’t think of a favorite story considering he played with Marshall longer than anybody. They spent spent so much time together, he said, that it was simply too hard for him to pick a singular moment.

“Most of my time in the NFL was with him,” said Eller, 83, who played with Marshall from 1964-79. “All I can do is reminisce about all the good times we had.”

Here’s what some others had to say about Marshall.

‘All of a sudden an ambulance pulled up’

It was standard practice for the Vikings to have players check into a nearby hotel the night before any home game at Met Stadium. On a particular occasion, former Vikings running back Chuck Foreman remembers checking into the hotel and being told that Marshall was in the hospital.

“We didn’t think he was coming to the game,” said Foreman, 74, who played with Marshall from 1973-79. “Why would he if he spent the night in the hospital?”

That notion was dispelled shortly after the players arrived at Met Stadium the following morning.

“All of a sudden, an ambulance pulled up and he got out,” Foreman said. “He came into the locker room, got dressed, and went out and played in the game. He was relentless. There was never any quit in him.”

Those are the types of tales that used to have teammates joking that Marshall was secretly a part of the Navy SEALs on the side.

“You didn’t want to mess with him,” Foreman said. “You know what I mean?”

Not that Marshall was deliberately intimidating. He demanded respect without even raising his voice.

“I don’t think there will ever be another person like him,” Foreman said. “I think when God molded him, he said to himself, ‘I’m only going to use this mold once.’ ”

‘I wanted to impress him every game’

When he was abruptly traded in 1976, former Vikings receiver Ahmad Rashad remembers feeling like his world was being turned upside down. Luckily for Rashad, he was greeted by Marshall upon his arrival in Minnesota.

“He accepted me and made me feel like a part of the team,” said Rashad, 75, who played with Marshall from 1976-79. “He welcomed me with open arms and became a very dear friend right off the bat.”

They developed their own way of communicating on the sideline.

“He would always come up to me and matter of factly go, ‘Come on Ahmad,’ ” Rashad said. “I can still hear him saying that in my head.”

The words were used strategically by Marshall over the course of a game. He always seemed to save them for when the Vikings needed a big play. It was almost like he knew that it would inspire Rashad to step up and make something happen.

“I wanted to impress him every game,” Rashad said. “I knew if I could impress him, I was doing a pretty damn good job because he was hard to impress.”

‘He beat me fair and square’

There was an annual tradition when the Vikings used to hold training camp in Mankato. All of the rookies were required to put on a show of some sort, former Vikings tight end Stu Voigt said, and the performance always took place inside Gage Hall on campus.

“We would sing and dance and make a fool of ourselves,” said Voigt, 76, who played with Marshall from 1970-79. “Then came the beer chugging contest.”

The rules were straightforward. You cracked open a bottle of beer and raced Marshall to the bottom. No room for any gray area.

As a product of the University of Wisconsin, Voigt fashioned himself as a pretty good beer drinker.

“It’s kind of a rite of passage down there,” he said. “I had some practice.”

Not enough to compete with Marshall.

“He sits down and makes that bottle of beer disappear in a matter of seconds,” Voigt said. “He finished and I was only about halfway done with mine.”

It was a humbling experience for Voigt as he realized it was best not to challenge Marshall in anything.

“He beat me fair and square,” Voigt said. “I thought it would be a contest. It wasn’t even close. Even in stuff like that he reigned supreme.”

As special as Marshall was for the Vikings on the field, Voigt said his folklore extended off the field, as well.

“There was a rumor going around that he was training to fight Muhammad Ali,” Voigt said. “That’s the kind of guy he was. There are all of these fables about him. He was a larger-than-life character.”

‘He was always up to something’

Some of the best stories about Marshall sound like they couldn’t possibly be real.

All a part of his mystique.

There was the time he crashed his hang glider into a light pole in Bloomington. There was the time he got stranded in the mountains of Yellowstone National Park during a blizzard. There was the time he accidentally shot himself in the stomach.

Wait. What?

Allow former Vikings tight end Jerry Reichow to explain.

“That actually happened,” said Reichow, 91, who played with Marshall from 1961-64. “He got hit right in the belly.”

After hearing a news report at the time that somebody on the Vikings was involved in an incident, Reichow remembers thinking to himself that Marshall was probably involved in some way, shape, or form.

“It was always him,” Reichow said with a laugh. “He was always up to something.”

As he let himself go down memory lane, Reichow started to laugh on multiple occasions, gleefully recalling how Marshall always lived life to the fullest. The joy that Marshall exuded was infectious to everybody around him.

“He was our leader and everybody loved him,” Reichow said. “I can’t put it into words what he meant to us. He wasn’t just a good guy. He was a great guy.”

‘I didn’t know what I was getting myself into’

The race covered the 80 miles or so from Mankato to Bloomington, and usually started with Marshall firing a pistol into the air. That served as the official start as the Vikings made their way to preseason games at Met Stadium as fast as they could.

To cut down on the need for speed, former Vikings head coach Bud Grant used to have state patrol line Highway 169, pulling over anybody traveling a little too fast for their own good.

The only issue was that Marshall was above the law. That’s something former Vikings running back Rickey Young found out the hard way.

“I remember somebody told me to ride with him,” said Young, 71, who played with Marshall from 1975-79. “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.”

Never mind that the state patrol was handing out tickets to some of their teammates. They never stopped Marshall. They would just wave him along.

“I’m sitting there in the passenger seat like, ‘Please God. Let them stop this guy. I need to get out of this damn car,’ ” Young said with a laugh. “We were driving like 90 mph the whole way to Met Stadium.”

They pulled into the parking lot so early that the concession stand workers were just getting there.

“I swear my fingernail marks are still in the side of his door of his Mercedes Benz where I was holding onto the leather for dear life,” Young said. “I never rode with him again after that unless I was driving.”

That didn’t stop Young from building a close friendship with Marshall. They stayed in touch regularly long after they were done playing. As the memories came flooding back, Young found himself getting choked up.

“It seems like I’ve known him forever,” Young said. “Now that he’s gone, I’m starting to realize it wasn’t long enough.”

‘We were all lucky to have known him’

As he reflected on his time as Marshall’s teammate, former Vikings cornerback Bobby Bryant kept going back to the work itself.

“He practiced like he played,” said Bryant, 81, who played with Marshall from 1968-79. “He made sure that everybody brought it.”

The secret sauce for Marshall was the way he always struck the perfect balance between telling it like it is and leading by example. No wonder the nickname “The Captain” stuck long after he retired.

“He personified it,” Bryant said. “They don’t make very many like him anymore.”

Though it was easy to be awestruck by Marshall from afar during his prime, Bryant recalled how that feeling dissipated shortly after meeting him. Whether it was a simple handshake or a deep conversation, Marshall’s superpower was his ability to connect.

“He had a way about him that made everybody feel like they were his friend,” Bryant said. “We were all lucky to have known him.”

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Vikings legend Jim Marshall was a champion for young people. Now fellow Vikings legend Alan Page is honoring Marshall’s legacy through an expansion of coverage for scholarship recipients.

In the wake of Marshall’s death, the Page Education Foundation announced that those that receive the Page Grant can use it to cover the full cost of attendance starting this fall. Previously, the Page Grant only could be used to cover the cost of tuition.

In a release, Page noted how Marshall believed in lifting up others throughout his life, adding, “Expanding this grant is a way we continue to honor that belief and ensure the next generation can rise.”

The expansion specifically allows scholarship recipients to use the Page Grant for college expenses including housing, meals, transportation, books and childcare.

“In the face of shifting national conversations about equity in education, we’re choosing to stay grounded in our mission,” executive director Amanda Moua said in a release. “This expansion ensures our scholars receive support that truly meets the realities they face in college today.”

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By BEN FINLEY

To hear the Trump administration tell it, Kilmar Abrego Garcia smuggled thousands of people across the country who were living in the U.S. illegally, including members of the violent MS-13 gang, long before his mistaken deportation to El Salvador. In allegations made public nearly three months after his removal, U.S. officials say Abrego Garcia abused the women he transported, while a co-conspirator alleged he participated in a gang-related killing in his native El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia’s wife and lawyers offer a much different story. They say the now 29-year-old had as a teenager fled local gangs that terrorized his family in El Salvador for a life in Maryland. He found work in construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities before he was mistakenly deported in March.

The fight became a political flashpoint in the administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement. Now it returns to the U.S. court system, where Abrego Garcia appeared Friday after being returned from El Salvador. He faces new charges related to a large human smuggling operation and is in federal custody in Tennessee.

Speaking to NBC’s Kristen Welken in a phone interview Saturday President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back. “The Department of Justice decided to do it that way, and that’s fine,” he said. “There are two ways you could have done it, and they decided to do it that way.” Trump said it should “be a very easy case.”

In announcing Abrego Garcia’s return Attorney General Pam Bondi called him “a smuggler of humans and children and women” in announcing the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. His lawyers say a jury won’t believe the “preposterous” allegations.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said his return to the U.S. was long overdue.

“As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,” the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. “The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”

Gang threats in El Salvador

Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador’s capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or pork.

The entire family, including his two sisters and brother, ran the business from home, court records state.

“Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from ‘Pupuseria Cecilia,’” his lawyers wrote.

A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for “rent money” and threatened to kill his brother Cesar — or force him into their gang — if they weren’t paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S.

Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, court records state. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid them.

The family moved but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia’s sisters, court records state. The family closed the business, moved again, and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family in Guatemala, which borders El Salvador.

Life in the U.S.

Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found construction work.

About five years later, Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Prince George’s County, just outside Washington.

In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he and three other men were detained by local police, court records say. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing.

A criminal informant told police that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, court records state but Prince George’s County Police did not charge the men. The department said this year it had no further interactions with Abrego Garcia or “any new intelligence” on him. Abrego Garcia has denied being in MS-13.

Although they did not charge him, local police turned Abrego Garcia over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He told a U.S. immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released because Vasquez Sura was pregnant, according to his immigration case.

The Department of Homeland Security alleged Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on the county police’s information, according to the case. The immigration judge kept Abrego Garcia in jail as his case continued, the records show.

Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail.

In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released; ICE did not appeal.

Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice.

In 2021, Vasquez Sura filed a temporary protection order against Abrego Garcia, stating he punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt during an argument. The case was dismissed weeks later, according to court records.

Vasquez Sura said in a statement, after the document’s release by the Trump administration, that the couple had worked things out “privately as a family, including by going to counseling.”

“After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar,” she stated.

She added that “Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him.”

A traffic stop in Tennessee

In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect him of human trafficking, the report stated.

Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued.

Abrego Garcia’s wife said in a statement in April that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, “so it’s entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.”

The Tennessee Highway Patrol released video body camera footage this May of the 2022 traffic stop. It shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers and Abrego Garcia as well as the officers discussing among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking before sending him on his way. One of the officers said: “He’s hauling these people for money.” Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope.

An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the release that he saw no evidence of a crime in the footage.

Mistaken deportation and new charges

Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March despite the U.S. immigration judge’s order. For nearly three months, his attorneys have fought for his return in a federal court in Maryland. The Trump administration described the mistaken removal as “an administrative error” but insisted he was in MS-13.

His abrupt release from El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in the months-long standoff.

The charges he faces stem from the 2022 vehicle stop in Tennessee but the human smuggling indictment lays out a string of allegations that date back to 2016 but are only being disclosed now.

A co-conspirator also alleged that Abrego Garcia participated in the killing of a gang member’s mother in El Salvador, prosecutors wrote in papers urging the judge to keep him behind bars while he awaits trial. The indictment does not charge him in connection with that allegation.

“This is what American justice looks like,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in announcing Abrego Garcia’s return and the unsealing of a grand jury indictment.

Speaking to NBC’s Kristen Welker in a telephone interview President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back.

Abrego Garcia’s attorney disagreed. “There’s no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,” attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said.