From a baseball standout, it’s no stretch to say that 6-foot-8 Saints outfielder Carson McCusker is the talk of the town(s).

The 26-year-old former independent league player, signed by the Twins as a minor league free agent in June of 2023, has hit nothing but rockets and tape-measure home runs this young season. As a result, the subject of “exit velocity” also pertains to his likely ascension from Triple-A baseball to the major leagues.

McCusker entered the weekend with six home runs, one off the lead in minor league baseball, and had 17 RBIs in 18 games. His exit velocity of 95.7 mph was second among Triple-A hitters.

Carson McCusker, 26, was drafted by Milwaukee out of junior college but transferred to Oklahoma State instead. Undrafted there, he played independent baseball in upstate New York before signing a minor league deal with the Twins. (Rob Thompson / St. Paul Saints)

While he has drawn comparisons to New York Yankees superstar Aaron Judge due to their similar size and ability to mash a baseball, McCusker’s mantle of home run hitter is a relatively new one.

“In indy ball I started to make a little leg kick and started seeing some power production from that,” McCusker said. “I was able to hit some balls harder, so I stuck with that. Ten months later, I got signed, and that’s when it kind of took off for me.

“I didn’t really understand how to be a power hitter before that. It took a while to figure it out.”

So much so that McCusker came close to giving up the game prior to his third season of playing for Tri-City (upstate New York) of the Frontier League.

“I was taking with family,” he said, “and it was like, ‘Do I really want to do this one more time? I’m 25; it’s probably time to get a real job.’ But I said I’d give it one more go.”

He signed with the Twins a few months later.

McCusker lettered in three sports in high school in Sparks, Nevada — baseball, basketball and tennis. He also wrestled. He played a year of junior college baseball in California, after which he was drafted by Milwaukee in the 26th round of the 2017 draft. He opted to sign with Oklahoma State instead.

McCusker played three seasons for the Cowboys but was not drafted a second time, leaving him looking for a place to continue his playing career.

Oklahoma State’s Carson McCusker (12) leads off of second during an NCAA baseball game against TCU on April 16, 2021, in Fort Worth, Texas. The outfielder was hitting .302 with six home runs and 17 RBIs in 18 games for the Class AAA St. Paul Saints through Thursday’s games. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

“Out of college — not getting drafted — I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” he said. “But I always felt that I could play this game at a higher level than what I’d been given the chance to do. So, I just gave myself a shot.”

McCusker had a tie to Tri-City in manager Pete Incaviglia, a former major league outfielder who played collegiately at Oklahoma State and kept close ties to the program. His time with Tri-City included some anxious — and frustrating — moments.

“My first full season I tried to make some swing adjustments and I was terrible,” McCusker said. “So, I had to navigate my way through that and make some more swing adjustments and figure it out.”

McCusker considers himself a student of the game, something he feels has played a big role in his current success.

“I’ve put in a lot of work the past couple of years trying to get stuff figured out,’” he said. “I feel like I’m starting to figure out how to go about my approach game by game, at-bat to at-bat. It’s been working out. I’m just trying to learn every single day. That’s the beauty of it, too — you never know everything with this game.”

McCusker appeared in 24 games with the Saints last season after beginning the year with Double-A Wichita. He batted .286 for the Saints, with four homers and 11 RBIs. He said the experience proved invaluable. His offseason was about learning “what to train on and how pitchers are going to attack you.”

As for his height, McCusker said he basically grew a couple inches every year in high school before adding another inch in college.

“They tell me I might sill be growing,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know, we’ll see.”

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By their own admission, Grand Avenue toy store owners Millie Adelsheim and Dan Marshall have never filed a lawsuit before, let alone one aimed at pausing international tariffs. Suing the White House struck them as an ambitious but appropriate place to start.

“We estimate about 85% of our toys are impacted by Trump’s 145% tariffs,” said Adelsheim and Marshall, the husband-and-wife co-owners of the Mischief Toy Store, in an open letter Friday explaining how they’ve been thrust into the front lines of an international trade war. “Every day, we’re getting notices of price increases from our suppliers. Several have left the US market altogether and many others have paused production. As a country we will be seeing huge price increases and shortages on every kind of consumer product — not just toys — in the near future.”

With the financial future of their shop and their industry on the line, Mischief Toy Store has joined with Stonemaier Games and four other board game manufacturers, a children’s clothing company called Princess Awesome, a metal treating company and an importer of fine art to file legal action against the U.S. government in an effort to roll back international tariffs recently imposed by the Trump administration.

The lawsuit — “Princess Awesome & Stonemaier Games, et al. v. Customs” — was filed Thursday in the U.S. Court of International Trade in Manhattan, with the 10 plaintiffs represented, free of charge, by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a non-profit Libertarian law firm.

‘A somewhat strange partnership’

Around St. Paul, Adelsheim and Marshall are known for backing progressive causes, making the group effort “a somewhat strange partnership for us. While we may disagree on other issues, we are all in full agreement on the need to check Trump’s abuses of power. He is not a king and we cannot allow him to act like one.”

The plaintiffs argue that the U.S. Constitution grants Congress, and not the president, the power to impose financial tariffs on foreign countries, and that the tariffs will be financially devastating to their businesses and industries. On Feb. 1, the president imposed tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China, citing the need to address illegal immigration and fentanyl importation. On April 2, he expanded the tariffs to almost every country, calling trade imbalances a national emergency that empowered him to take unilateral action.

He later paused most of those tariffs for 90 days, allowing time to renegotiate trade deals. While certain Trump policies have gained a following with segments of the American public, about 6-in-10 Americans polled have said they disapprove of the tariffs, according to the Pew Research Center, and a majority of the population has taken a skeptical view of the president’s overall handling of the economy.

Marshall, in an interview Friday, said kids aren’t playing with analog toys as much as they used to, given growing interest in video and digital pastimes. For some vendors and suppliers, the tariffs will be a final nail in the coffin.

“We source American-made toys as much as we can, and one of our American suppliers is going out of business — Two Bros Bows,” he said. “Kids don’t play with analog toys like they used to, and they’re not buying American. We’re the last toy store in St. Paul. If all those things go up by 200%, it’s going to be really hard to stay in business.”

Board game company

Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Stonemaier works with Chinese firms to manufacture the popular card-driven board game “Wingspan,” which would be heavily impacted by a 145% tariff on imported products from China.

For the board game company, that amounts to a $14.50 tax for every $10 spent manufacturing the game, which adds up to a looming payment of nearly $1.5 million, according to a written statement from Stonemaier.

“We will not stand idle while our livelihood — and the livelihoods of thousands of small business owners and contractors in the U.S. — are treated like pawns in a political game,” said Jamey Stegmaier, co-founder of Stonemaier Games, in the statement.

Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include XYZ Game Labs, Rookie Mage, Spielcraft and TinkerHouse Games, as well as Quent Cordair Fine Art, the KingSeal kitchen supply company and 300 Below, a cryogenic processing company.

Similar cases

Similar cases have been filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance in the Northern District of Florida, Tranel Law in District of Montana and the Liberty Justice Center in the Court of International Trade, according to the Pacific Legal Foundation.

“This might put us at risk,” wrote Adelsheim and Marshall, the Mischief Toy Store owners, in their open letter Friday. “Who knows how Trump and his minions will respond … We’ll be doing everything we can to keep things as normal as possible.”

The Grand Avenue shop owners were previously associated with Peapods Natural Toys, which closed in 2015 after 16 years in operation in St. Paul.

“We’d also like to make it clear that we’ve always supported American-made toys and we stock them when we can,” they wrote. “Those of you who remember Peapods will know that we specialized in Made in the USA toys, held a Minnesota Toy Fair to promote local toymakers, and even founded the Handmade Toy Alliance to support small batch US toymakers. The steady loss of US and EU toymakers was one of the main reasons we closed Peapods back in 2015. Tariffs cannot and will not reverse this trend.”

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By The Associated Press

Pope Francis’ image seemed to be everywhere Friday as the world mourned his death in Rome at the age of 88.

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Artists created murals and graffiti memorializing him, including one in Buenos Aires, Argentina in which the soccer-loving pontiff is depicted alongside player Lionel Messi.

Vendors in Indonesia sold keychains and fans bearing his image. A message board to the late pope was covered in writings from the Catholic faithful outside a parish in Quezon City, Philippines: “Thank you for the love, compassion and hope,” one message read.

World leaders streamed into Rome for Francis’ funeral on Saturday. The cardinals then will meet in a conclave in the coming weeks to elect his successor.

This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

The world will bid a final farewell this weekend to Pope Francis, who leaves behind a legacy shaped by his efforts to revitalize the Church—from addressing clerical abuse to expanding dialogue around climate change, migration, and inclusion.

The Argentine pontiff died at the age of 88 on Monday from a stroke that resulted in a coma and irreversible heart failure, according to the Vatican’s top doctors.

It came after Francis —who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed when he was younger — was admitted to Gemelli hospital on February 14, for a respiratory crisis that evolved into double pneumonia. He spent a total of 38 days there before he was released to recover in his apartment, and he made his final public appearance on Easter Sunday, delivering a blessing and greeting followers from his popemobile as he looped around St. Peter’s Square.

Until his funeral this weekend, Francis’ body, adorned in his papal vestments, will lie in state at St. Peter’s Basilica.

Here’s how to watch:

When it the Pope’s funeral?

Pope Francis’ funeral is in Vatican City on Saturday at 10 a.m. local time, which means American viewers will have to tune in during the early hours of the morning — 4 a.m. ET, 3 a.m. CT, 2 a.m. MT and 1 a.m. PT — to catch the mass. It is slated to be held in St. Peter’s Square or inside the Basilica, depending on the weather.

Where to watch Pope Francis’ funeral:

The majority of major television network across the United States will be airing the funeral, including, NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC. Some streamers are also slated to air coverage of the service live, among them  Peacock, Paramount+, Disney+ and Hulu.

International viewers should also be able to watch the proceedings with popular broadcasters, like BBC in the United Kingdom as well as Globo News and CNN Brasil in Brazil. And those in Canada should be able to watch on CTV and CBC while Spanish viewers can catch the ceremony on Televisión Española

The Vatican said it will also provide live coverage on  the Vatican’s news channel, which has also been streaming much of the rites this week.

What to expect at the funeral — and who will be in attendance:

The service, which will be led by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the college of cardinals, is expected to draw dignitaries from 170 foreign delegations — including at least 50 heads of state and 10 reigning sovereigns — as well as tens of thousands of ordinary people hoping to pay their respects.

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President Trump and first lady Melania Trump are slated to be among those in attendance, as are former President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden.

The ceremony on Saturday will begin with a procession, held only after the Pope is sealed inside his coffin on Friday, marking the end of the public viewing period. It will, however, be significantly more humble than those held for popes past; Francis last year simplified the rules for papal funerals and requested a simple wooden casket for his own burial.

What happens after the funeral?

After the mass, the Vatican said the pope’s body “will be taken into St. Peter’s Basilica and then to the Basilica of St. Mary Major,” bout 2.5 miles away. He chose it as his burial site because it is where he prayed before and after each trip out of Rome, as well as in challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most live coverage will end when the burial begins.

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