On a day when Minnesota fans were in line hours before first pitch to get their hands on a Byron Buxton bobblehead giveaway, the Twins leadoff hitter put on a show worthy of being immortalized in sports memorabilia form.

Buxton, one of two Twins bound for Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Atlanta, went 5 for 5 and became the first player in Target Field history to hit for the cycle. He capped off the rare feat with a seventh-inning home run to deep, straightaway center field as Minnesota trounced the Pittsburgh Pirates 12-4, winning for the sixth time in its past eight games.

Buxton singled in the first, tripled in the second, hit a ground-rule double in the third, singled in the fifth and homered late, becoming the first Twin to hit for the cycle since Jorge Polanco did it in an April 2019 game in Philadelphia.

“Feels good. Obviously I’ve got my teammates there. The support they have amongst us in that dugout is pretty incredible. I think that was a big reason to note,” Buxton, who missed a game earlier in the week after taking a pitch off the hand. “They kept me going. ‘Buck, you’re going to do it today.’ They told me that. It was just one of those where you have to believe in yourself that you’re going to do it. I think all of those guys in there believe in me more than I believe in myself sometimes.”

Opener Cole Sands pitched two perfect innings before a trio of relievers came on to finish the game. Travis Adams (1-0) got his first major league win with four innings of work. Kody Clemens, Matt Wallner and Willi Castro also homered for the Twins, who improved to 47-48 with the win. Justin Topa struck out two Pirates in the ninth to close the game.

“Obviously the hitters are better here. So just being a little more precise with executing my pitches and knowing where I can miss and not miss,” said Adams, who was making his second major league appearance. “And I think just to be a little more aggressive with hitters, I had a little better mentality, and results were better.”

Pittsburgh starter Matt Burrows (1-3) was hit hard early, and lifted after 1 1/3 innings.

While Sands needed just 19 pitches to cruise through the first two innings, Burrows had two Twins on base in the first inning, then hit a serious snag in the second. With one out, Burrows walked Royce Lewis with control problems, and followed by hitting Ty France with a pitch. Next up, Clemens sailed the first pitch he faced deep into the right-field seats for a 3-0 lead.

Buxton, who had led off the game with an infield single, tripled just beyond the reach of Pirates center fielder Oneil Cruz, and came home when Willi Castro’s swinging bunt died between the mound and the plate for a 4-0 lead. Following a walk of Trevor Larnach, Castro came home on Ryan Jeffers’ single to right, which chased Burrows from the game.

The first batter faced by Pittsburgh reliever Genesis Cabrera, Brooks Lee, dropped a double down the left-field line to score Larnach for a 6-0 lead before the Pirates got out of the inning. In total, the Twins sent 11 to the plate in their half of the second inning.

They touched Cabrera for three more runs in the third.

Adams, on in relief of Sands, pitched a perfect third but encountered turbulence in the fourth. With one out he walked Andrew McCutchen, then allowed a single to Bryan Reynolds for Pittsburgh’s first hit of the game. Nick Gonzalez hit a hard grounder to third, but Lewis misplayed the ball and McCutchen scored on the fielding error.

Adams’ initial pitch of the fifth became a souvenir when Jack Suwinski popped it into the second deck in right field. It was Suwinski’s first homer of the season and made the score 9-2.

Buxton came up for the fifth time with two outs in the seventh and blasted an Andrew Heaney pitch 427 feet over the park’s deepest fence. He left the game but not before coming out of the dugout for a curtain call prompted by the fans.

“One of the hardest things to do in our game is to try to hit a home run and then proceed to hit a home run,” said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, who noted that he was taking two of the bobbleheads home — one for himself and one for his daughter. “You only maybe, if you’re lucky and play a long time and you’re a great player, only maybe get a couple of opportunities to complete a cycle. And do it by hitting a home run when you need a home run? I don’t know. I’ve never seen it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. Wouldn’t doubt if I never see it again. Unless he does it tomorrow.”

Buxton became the 12th Twin ever to hit for the cycle, and the first to do so in a home game since Michael Cuddyer did so in May 2009 versus Milwaukee at the Metrodome.

“It’s special. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous before the game started, just knowing it was bobblehead day. Obviously, you want to come out and do something good,” Buxton said, after becoming just the second player in baseball to record a cycle this season. “So, to be able to come out on bobblehead day and have a day like this is something I won’t forget. Obviously, it’s the first one. So, cherish it and move on tomorrow.”

The series concludes on Sunday with the first pitch scheduled for 1:10 p.m. Minnesota will send right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson (5-4) to the mound to face Pirates right-hander Mitch Keller (3-10).

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While full-out splash and dazzle musicals can make for a memorable night at the theater, there’s something uniquely rewarding about being in a small room with one or two people, listening to them unspool their stories. At such times, theater can provide an intimate human connection that nothing on a screen can match.

If such an experience sounds appealing, I strongly recommend Artistry’s involving little production of “Love and Baseball.” It’s a small, sweet play about a man and woman who drift in and out of one another’s lives over the course of a few years, navigating changes in the dynamic between them, which could land them in friendship, romance or a bitter feud, depending upon their decisions.

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Artistry’s take on Jerry Montoya’s deft hybrid of comedy and drama is a tremendously well-executed show that features two finely crafted and disarmingly natural performances. It invites your emotional investment in the perseverance and happiness of these two individuals over the course of the play’s 90 intermission-less minutes. And you don’t have to care a bit about baseball to enjoy it. But if you are a fan, there’s even more to like.

In the Bloomington Center for the Arts’ cozy little Black Box, Katie Phillips has created a clever set that’s part living room and part baseball diamond, complete with on-deck circles and furniture in place of infielders. “Love and Baseball” plays out in three scenes, spaced in two-year intervals, beginning with philosophy professor Michele awaiting a friend’s arrival at his apartment when his roommate, filmmaker Will, barrels in and is startled to find her there.

Despite his palpable longing to turn on a playoff game involving his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers, Will engages her in conversation that subtly conveys a mutual attraction between these very different people, spiced with explanations of philosophical principles and, as the title would suggest, baseball. In Montoya’s well-constructed script, each of the three scenes includes Will telling a story from Major League Baseball lore that serves as a metaphor for if, and how, this relationship may progress.

It evolves into a finely spun tale that’s well worth experiencing. In his detail-oriented direction, Eric Morris has clearly impressed upon his actors that this is an opportunity to be seized with relish: a chance to shape a nuanced, life-sized character and travel in tandem with another to engage an audience in the experience of watching a relationship unfold before their eyes.

And the actors do marvelous things with their characters, particularly Kendra Mueller, who bears most of the emotional heavy lifting as Michele, a woman of both confidence and vulnerability who’s a grounded realist but also a flirtatious adventurer. As we watch Michele’s journey unfold, Mueller is magnetic, conveying joy, rage and heartbreak in a compellingly convincing portrayal.

Dustin Bronson’s Will is also captivating company, unpeeling for us the layers of a man who at first seems of almost stereotypical simplicity, but whose feelings for baseball may prove the key to what Michele wants in her life: a man capable of deep, devoted love.

Dustin Bronson and Kendra Mueller in Artistry Theater & Visual Arts’ production of “Love and Baseball,” a comedy about a possible relationship between a filmmaker and a philosophy professor that’s foiled and perhaps sparked by luck and timing. It runs at the Bloomington Center for the Arts through Aug. 2, 2025. (Courtesy of Alyssa Kristine Photography)

Similarly, Artistry’s production feels suffused with a love of the art of making theater. I recommend you catch it.

‘Love and Baseball’

When: Through July 28

Where: Artistry Black Box, Bloomington Center for the Arts, 1800 Old Shakopee Road W., Bloomington

Tickets: $50-$33, available at 952-563-8575 or artistrymn.org

Capsule: Richly rewarding, it’s an intimate little night at the theater.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

The grind of the busy portion of their schedule may be catching up to the Lynx.

Playing in their sixth game in 10 days, Minnesota came out flat defensively Saturday in Chicago, and wasn’t able to recover as it fell __ to the Sky.

It’s the second loss in three games for Minnesota, who’s played a pair of back to backs over the last week. The Lynx will play in Chicago again on Monday and host Phoenix on Wednesday before the all-star break.

Minnesota will surely hope to emerge out of the gates better defensively on Monday. The Lynx surrendered 29 points in the first frame in Saturday’s nationally-televised bout, and 28 in the second as Chicago built a 13-point halftime advantage on the strength of 57% shooting.

The lead grew to as many as 15 midway through the third before the Lynx began to battle back. A Napheesa Collier jumper capped a 19-6 run in which Minnesota held Chicago (7-13) to just three buckets over a six-minute span to pull the Lynx back within two early in the fourth.

Chicago went just 11 for 34 from the field in the second half.

But as was the case in the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s loss to Phoenix, Minnesota again went cold offensively late in Chicago.

A Courtney Williams jumper brought Minnesota to within three with 1 minute, 42 seconds to play, but that was the final time the Lynx (18-4) would score. The Lynx scored just eight points over the finals six-plus minutes, going 3 for 11 from the field with two turnovers in that time.

Angel Reese finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds, good for her eighth-straight double double. Kamilla Cardoso added 17 points and 15 rebounds, while Ariel Atkins paced the Sky with 27 points. Chicago, who’s now won four of its past seven games after a 3-10 start to the campaign, had 44 points in the paint and 28 second-chance points as the Sky out-rebounded Minnesota 45-28.

Interior defensive issues continue to be an issue for Minnesota.

Collier led Minnesota with 26 points and eight rebounds and climbed into the top five all-time in scoring in Lynx history in the defeat (3,236 points).

Kayla McBride added 17 points and Williams tallied 13 points, eight boards and eight assists. Minnesota shot sub-40% from the field.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he is considering “taking away” the U.S. citizenship of a longtime rival, actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a decades-old Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits such an action by the government.

“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Saturday. He added that O’Donnell, who moved to Ireland in January, should stay in Ireland “if they want her.”

The two have criticized each other publicly for years, an often bitter back-and-forth that predates Trump’s involvement in politics. In recent days, O’Donnell on social media denounced Trump and recent moves by his administration, including the signing of a massive GOP-backed tax breaks and spending cuts plan.

It’s just the latest threat by Trump to revoke the citizenship of people with whom he has publicly disagreed, most recently his former adviser and one-time ally, Elon Musk.

But O’Donnell’s situation is notably different from Musk, who was born in South Africa. O’Donnell was born in the United States and has a constitutional right to U.S. citizenship. The U.S. State Department notes on its website that U.S. citizens by birth or naturalization may relinquish U.S. nationality by taking certain steps – but only if the act is performed voluntary and with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship.

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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, noted the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the Fourteen Amendment of the Constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.

“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born U.S. citizen,” Frost said in an email Saturday. “In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”

O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to win his second term. She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage.

Responding to Trump Saturday, O’Donnell wrote on social media that she had upset the president and “add me to the list of people who oppose him at every turn.”