ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As the calendar neared September last year, the Twins started transitioning Louie Varland to a bullpen role they thought could best help them down the stretch and in the postseason. Almost a year later, the Twins are in a similar situation with Varland, once again preparing him to shift roles.

Varland joined the team in Florida on Tuesday and was officially added to the roster on Wednesday morning to give the Twins bulk innings against the Rays.

Mired in a stretch of 13 straight games, the Twins added Varland for what is essentially a spot start to give each of their starters an extra day of rest. Having him come out of the bullpen — with Ronny Henriquez starting the game — allowed them to continue helping him adjust to coming on in relief, which he did in his last Triple-A outing with the Saints.

“Lou’s going to probably be pitching in some different roles as the season goes on,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

It’s possible that the Twins would have made this transition slightly earlier had Joe Ryan and Chris Paddack remained healthy. Instead, the Twins tapped into their starting pitching depth with rookies David Festa and Zebby Matthews.

They’ve kept Varland stretched out in case anyone anyone in the current rotation — Pablo López, Bailey Ober, Simeon Woods Richardson, Matthews and Festa — gets hurt or is unable to go.

“You know that you have to hold onto good arms, guys that can start for you and go out there and give you five or six innings in a ballgame,” Baldelli said. “You have to have those guys and you can’t deplete your organizational staff, your depth, of those guys to move guys to the ‘pen early on.

“Is it possible that if things went a little bit smoother that he could have found his way into different roles earlier? I do think it’s possible.”

The Twins liked what they saw from Varland down the stretch last year with his stuff playing up out of the bullpen — in seven regular games, he gave up two runs in 12 innings pitched (1.50 earned-run average), striking out 17 — and could utilize him similarly this year.

While the Twins have not said what they expect his role to look like beyond Wednesday, it seems likely he will stick in the big leagues because optioning him will require them to wait 15 days before bringing him back.

Lewis starts at second

Royce Lewis made his first career start at second base on Wednesday, days after he shifted over there late in a game for the first time.

Lewis has expressed some apprehension about making the move midseason, but the Twins speak often about their desire for their players to be versatile, and challenging them by putting them into different spots. Baldelli said he doesn’t expect to see Lewis over there most games, but this is a next step after all the early work he’s put in over there.

“We’re not asking him to go out there and be the Gold Glove Award-winning second baseman this year,” Baldelli said. “We’re just asking him to go out there, work hard, pay attention, improve and make the plays that he’s expecting himself and we’re expecting him to make. I think that would be a great start for him.”

Briefly

Max Kepler remained out of the starting lineup on Wednesday as he deals with left knee soreness. He was scratched from Monday’s lineup and has not appeared in the series in Tampa Bay. The Twins held their annual fantasy football draft on Tuesday night at their team hotel. Starter Bailey Ober grabbed San Francisco running back Christian McCaffrey with the first overall pick. Vikings superstar receiver Justin Jefferson went to Lewis with the No. 4 pick. … Pablo López will start the series finale for the Twins against Tampa Bay.

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A man was sentenced Wednesday to serve a total of 45 days in jail and three years of probation for pointing a pellet gun at two South St. Paul officers, prompting one to fire off a shot at him.

Demetrious Roosevelt Royal (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)

Nobody was hurt in the May 31 incident, which happened at an apartment building garage in the 200 block of Grand Avenue West.

According to the criminal complaint, officers responded to the apartment building about 10:15 p.m. after a woman requested help in removing someone from her home. She said she was outside, then disconnected the call.

Officers did not see anyone outside the apartment building, so they went inside and walked toward the garage entrance. When an officer opened the garage service door, he saw a man, later identified as 54-year-old Demetrious Roosevelt Royal, pointing a handgun at him and another officer.

“The handgun had a red laser attached to it and it was pointed directly at the officers,” the complaint reads.

The officers ran out of the line of fire and slammed the door behind them. They took up positions of cover outside the garage.

About 30 seconds later, as the officers were airing the situation and requesting backup, Royal emerged from the garage through the overhead door. An officer saw the red laser briefly pointed in his direction, prompting him to fire one shot in Royal’s direction. He was not struck.

Officers ordered Royal to drop the gun. He raised his hands above his head and hit the ground. While face down, Royal slid a black object across the ground toward the officers. It was later determined to be a battery-powered red laser device that can be attached to a firearm.

Agents with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension searched the garage and found a Co2-powered pellet handgun inside a storage tote, which was otherwise empty. The pellet handgun was capable of having a flashlight or laser attached to it.

In an interview with law enforcement, Royal, of South St. Paul, admitted to having the laser but not the pellet gun, the complaint says.

In June, Royal pleaded guilty to one count of felony threats of violence after reaching an agreement with the prosecution that included no prison time.

Dakota County District Judge Christopher Lehmann on Wednesday stayed a one-year prison sentence for three years and gave him a 45-day jail sentence, with credit for 13 days he’s already served in custody.

The BCA in June identified the officer who fired his handgun as Dylan Naffzinger, saying he had 1½ years of law enforcement experience. The BCA is investigating the shooting and will present its findings without a charging recommendation to the Dakota County Attorney’s Office for review.

Royal does not have a criminal history in Minnesota beyond traffic offenses, court records show. However, prosecutors said Royal has eight out-of-state criminal convictions going back to 1989, including assault-displaying a weapon, possession of a stolen vehicle, burglary, robbery and domestic assault.

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After going through its inaugural season with only team colors differentiating its six teams, the Professional Woimen’s Hockey League will shift this season to nicknames and mascots, senior vice president for hockey operations Jayna Hefford said.

Known as Minnesota, Boston, Montreal, New York, Ottawa and Toronto since the PWHL was formed last fall, the league’s six teams will soon have names.

“Excited to let you know that we will have team names and logos that will be coming out very soon,” Hefford said Wednesday during a news conference introducing new Minnesota general manager Melissa Caruso. “That’s something that our team has been working incredibly hard on and I can’t wait to be able to share those with all of our fans.”

When those names will be announced remains to be determined. So, too, does the start date for a second season and team schedules, which Hefford said will include more neutral site games than last season.

The league played two games at neutral NHL arenas last season — at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena and Pittsburgh’s PPG Paints Arena.

“We haven’t identified yet exactly where that will be,” Hefford said. “I would like to think at some point we’ll be able to expand our market reach outside of North America for particular neutral site games, but nothing has been confirmed at this date.”

X marks the spot

Minnesota played 11 home games at Xcel Energy Center last season and is expected to make the X their its in Season 2, as well.

“We don’t expect any changes for the upcoming season,” Hefford said, and Caruso said they also expect to seal a lease deal that would keep the team practicing at TRIA Rink.

Expansion talks

According to the PWHL, the league’s average attendance over 72 regular-season games was 5,448 per game. That rose to an average of 5,562 after the first nine postseason games.
The success has the league discussing expansion, although it doesn’t yet have plans to do so.

“That was one of the most pleasant surprises of Year 1, was how quickly we started talking about expansion, and various groups and markets that want to have teams,” Hefford said. “So, it’s been something talked about for a number of months now.

“We don’t have immediate plans, but we certainly are having discussions about what this league will look like in the next two years, five years, 10 years, and certainly expansion would be a part of those discussions.”

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By JAMIE STENGLE

DALLAS (AP) — Newly emerged film footage of President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade speeding down a Dallas freeway toward a hospital after he was fatally wounded will go up for auction later this month.

Experts say the find isn’t necessarily surprising even over 60 years after the assassination.

“These images, these films and photographs, a lot of times they are still out there. They are still being discovered or rediscovered in attics or garages,” said Stephen Fagin, curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which tells the story of the assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

RR Auction will offer up the 8 mm home film in Boston on Sept. 28. It begins with Dale Carpenter Sr. just missing the limousine carrying the president and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy but capturing other vehicles in the motorcade as it traveled down Lemmon Avenue toward downtown. The film then picks up after Kennedy has been shot, with Carpenter rolling as the motorcade roars down Interstate 35.

“This is remarkable, in color, and you can feel the 80 mph,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of the auction house.

The footage from I-35 — which lasts about 10 seconds — shows Secret Service Agent Clint Hill — who famously jumped onto the back of the limousine as the shots rang out — hovering in a standing position over the president and Jacqueline Kennedy, whose pink suit can be seen.

“I did not know that there were not any more shots coming,” Hill said. “I had a vision that, yes, there probably were going to be more shots when I got up there as I did.”

The shots had fired as the motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in front of the Texas School Book Depository, where it was later found that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor. The assassination itself was famously captured on film by Abraham Zapruder.

After the shots, the motorcade turned onto I-35 and sped toward Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy would be pronounced dead. It was the same route the motorcade would have taken to deliver Kennedy to his next stop, a speech at the Trade Mart.

Carpenter’s grandson, James Gates, said that while it was known in his family that his grandfather had film from that day, it wasn’t talked about often. So Gates said that when the film, stored along with other family films in a milk crate, was eventually passed on to him, he wasn’t sure exactly what his grandfather, who died in 1991 at age 77, had captured.

Projecting it onto his bedroom wall around 2010, he was at first underwhelmed by the footage from Lemmon Avenue. But then, the footage from I-35 played out before his eyes. “That was shocking,” he said.

He was especially struck by Hill’s precarious position on the back of the limousine, so around the time that Hill’s book, “Mrs. Kennedy and Me,” was published in 2012, Gates got in touch with Hill and his co-author, Lisa McCubbin, who became Lisa McCubbin Hill when she and Hill married in 2021.

McCubbin Hill said it was admirable that Gates was sensitive enough to want Hill to see the footage before he did anything else with it. She said that while she was familiar with Hill’s description of being perched on the limousine as it sped down the interstate, “to see the footage of it actually happen … just kind of makes your heart stop.”

The auction house has released still photos of the film footage but is not publicly releasing the portion showing the motorcade racing down the interstate.

Farris Rookstool III, a historian, documentary filmmaker and former FBI analyst who has seen the film, said it shows the rush to Parkland in a more complete way than other, more fragmented film footage he’s seen. He said the footage gives “a fresh look at the race to Parkland,” and he hopes that after the auction, it ends up somewhere where it can be used by filmmakers.

Fagin said the assassination was such a shocking event that it was instinctive for people to keep material related to it, so there’s always the possibility of new material surfacing.

He said historians had wondered for years about a man who can be seen taking photos in one of the photos from that day.

“For years we had no idea who that photographer was, where his camera was, where these images were,” Fagin said.

Then, in 2002, Jay Skaggs walked into the museum with a shoebox under his arm. He was the photographer captured in the photo, and in that shoebox were 20 images from Dealey Plaza before and after the assassination, including the only known color photographs of the rifle being removed from the Texas School Book Depository building, Fagin said.

“He just handed that box to us,” Fagin said.