Unless there is a dramatic change of plans, word in major league baseball circles is that the Twins will choose Vanderbilt junior right-handed pitcher Kyle Wright with the No. 1 overall pick in Monday’s first day of the amateur draft. The Twins are believed to have settled on Wright several weeks ago.

Scouts figure that Wright, 21, at worst will be a No. 3 or No. 4 starter in the big leagues.

Wright is the safe pick for the Twins. Some scouts also say Southern California high school phenom Hunter Greene, 17, despite a fastball that reaches 100 mph, has little concept of a breaking ball. And that Hunter could be at least four years away from the majors.

Wright, who breezed through Southeastern Conference opponents this season, could be ready for the major leagues as early as a year from now. He also, as the No. 1 pick, could expect a signing bonus in the $6 million to $7 million range.

Opposing SEC coach Dave Van Horn of Arkansas said of Wright, in Bleacher Report: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better college arm, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years. He’s tremendous.”

Burnsville right-handed pitcher Sam Carlson will be chosen by the Chicago Cubs with the No. 30 overall pick in Tuesday’s draft, Baseball America projects. And the Twins will use the No. 35 pick on Puerto Rican outfielder Heliot Ramos, who at 17 is the second-youngest player in the draft.

If Carlson is chosen late in the first round, he’ll become the first Minnesota high school pitcher to go that high. And he could expect a signing bonus of slightly more than $2 million.

The top Gopher expected to be drafted is pitcher Lucas Gilbreath, a junior from Westminister, Colo. Gilbreath could be picked in the fifth or sixth rounds — that would be worth a bonus in the $250,000 to $300,000 range.

Other draft prospects from the Gophers include pitchers Brian Glowicki from Downers Grove, Ill., and Toby Anderson from Nampa, Idaho; outfielders Alex Boxwell from Coon Rapids and Jordan Smith from Eden Prairie; and first baseman Toby Hanson from Delano.

Smith was among players invited by the Twins for a pre-draft workout at Target Field on Saturday.

The Gophers, by the way, will have two incoming freshmen whose teams this spring won their respective high school state championships: pitcher Patrick Frederickson from Gig Harbor, Wash., and pitcher Josh Culliver from Creighton Prep in Omaha, Neb.

Also committed to Minnesota in a strong recruiting class is Woodbury’s Max Meyer, who pitched and hit his team to the state tournament. Meyer is also an infielder. As a pitcher, his fastball records at between 87 mph and 92 mph, and he has a hard slider.

Zach Raabe, son of former Twin-Gopher infielder Brian Raabe, the Bethel University baseball coach, is a hard-hitting junior infielder at Forest Lake High and committed to the Gophers for 2018.

Former Gophers left-handed pitcher D.J. Snelten, who is from The Lakes, Ill., and received a $140,900 signing bonus from the San Francisco Giants as their ninth-round pick in 2013, the other day was promoted to Triple-A Sacramento.

Brady Ervin, an unpretentious standout basketball forward for the 2011 University of St. Thomas men’s basketball team as well as a safety on the Tommies’ football team, is a contestant on TV’s current “Bachelorette” show.

Speaking of St. Thomas, which has built a nationally prominent Division III football program, 6-foot-2, 210-pound QB Michael Frankl is transferring in from Iowa State. That makes three ex-Division I QBs transferring to the Tommies in two years. One of them, Gabe Green from Southern Mississippi (Brett Favre’s alma mater), has switched to wide receiver. St. Thomas also has Gophers transfer QB Jacques Parra.

Minnesota hockey icon Lou Nanne on Friday was to have a hip replaced at Mayo Clinic.

Nanne, 76, has also had both knees replaced and surgery for a shoulder rotator tear. His last year as a NHL player with the North Stars was 1978.

Among those sad to hear of Jimmy Piersall’s death last week was Bobby “Rocky” Johnson, the former major league infielder from Edina.

“Jimmy was a good ballplayer and good teammate,” Johnson, 81, said.

Johnson, who resides in St. Paul, and Piersall were teammates in 1962 with the Washington Senators. Piersall, who died at age 87, was the eccentric all-star outfielder who authored “Fear Strikes Out,” about his mental struggles as a player.

Said Johnson, “When we were with Washington, some guy was ragging on Jimmy in the stands during batting practice, and Jimmy went up there after the guy. Cops were coming in from every direction.”

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“He was the best outfielder I ever saw at being able to deliver the ball to the infielder when there was going to be a play at home on a relay situation,” he said. “If he threw the ball to you and I was playing shortstop and had to go home, I’d catch it basically barehanded because it was so soft, but always right at the letters. So all I had to do was turn and gun.”

Piersall’s lifetime average was .272, the same as Johnson’s.

“We got along real well,” Johnson said.

New president at the posh Spring Hill Golf Club in Orono is 1980 U.S. Olympic gold medal hockey standout Rob McClanahan, replacing former Gophers football coach Glen Mason.

Count Pro Football Hall of Fame ex-Viking John Randle among those who figure Matt Birk — six times a Pro Bowl center for the Vikings — is worthy of Hall of Fame election.

Randle is lobbying for election of former Vikings Chuck Foreman and Jim Marshall through Dan Fouts via the veterans committee.

By the way, Randle, 49, who has opened a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, is a 7-handicapper at Spring Hill.

Timberwolves point guard Tyus Jones operates Team 1 Tyus Top Flight Academy basketball camps for youth players.

Jake Sullivan, the former Tartan and Iowa State basketball star, will host a basketball-biblical training camp July 5-7 at North Central University. All proceeds will support Acts 2 Collective in Africa and the Minneapolis Fab Youth Organization in north Minneapolis.

Edinburgh USA head golf professional Don Berry, 55, who shot 67-68 at Baker National last week to win his fifth Minnesota Senior Open championship in the past six years, tried PGA Tour qualifying eight times and Champions Tour senior qualifying once.

But with priorities of a still-young family and his job at Edinburgh USA, he’s not considering another tour try. Berry, who has won the Tapemark championship at Southview Country Club seven times, in two weeks plays in the PGA Professional National club championship in Sunriver, Ore.

Forest Lake grad Matt Wallner, a center fielder who hit .345 with 19 home runs and 63 runs batted in in 64 games for Southern Mississippi, which finished 50-14, has been named Conference USA freshman of the year. Pitching, the 6-5, 228-pound Wallner was 2-0 with a 1.84 ERA and three saves, striking out 15 in 14 2/3 innings.

Southern Mississippi is the alma mater of Twins second baseman Brian Dozier.

Purdue, Tulane and Pepperdine are interested in defending state baseball champion Wayzata’s Will Oberg, a senior who is 7-1 pitching while hitting .320 with five homers. In the playoffs, Oberg hit .800 with two homers, a triple and three doubles.

St. Paul Central’s Alex Reeve, a softball and gymnastics standout with a grade-point average of 4.31 and headed to the University of Wisconsin, and Cretin-Derham Hall’s Denzel Fondungallah, a football, basketball and track athlete with a 3.41 GPA and headed to Augustana, are this year’s Winfield Awards winners. Each will receive $1,000 education stipends.

Two longtime WCCO-AM stalwarts, Steve Enck and Mike Lynch, are leaving full time. After nearly 33 years, mostly as a sports producer, Enck’s job was eliminated. Lynch will become a part-time weather reporter.

The Brodt family from Roseville — Jack, Vic, Kerry, Winny and Chelsey — will be inducted into the Herb Brooks Foundation Youth Hockey Hall of Fame on Friday at the National Sports Center in Blaine.

Vikings coach Mike Zimmer speaks at a Dunkers breakfast on Friday at the Minneapolis Club.

Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy, the ex-Gophers QB and current NBC Sports NFL analyst, will be in Isle, Minn., in two weeks at a lodge to conduct his NFL Coaches Fellowship weekend gathering that is attended by coaches from across the league. NBC Sports has broadcast rights to next season’s Super Bowl in Minneapolis.

Former Gophers wrestling coach J Robinson is conducting summer camps at Wisconsin-River Falls and in Iowa.

Hall of fame golfer Annika Sorenstam won’t be able to play in August’s 3M Championship Legends of Golf event at the TPC in Blaine because she is captain of Europe’s Solheim Cup team for the matches in Des Moines, Iowa.

Macalester College, which emphasizes academics as part of its student-athlete experience, has produced some noteworthy grads from its 2009-10 MIAC men’s soccer championship team.

Mark Mullaney from Robbinsdale Armstrong is a Georgetown Law graduate and now a public defender in Brooklyn, N.Y. Jacob Duscha from St. Paul Highland Park is a leader of operations in The Netherlands for healthcare software giant Epic Systems. Division III All-American Nate Juergens, after graduating from University of Minnesota Medical School, is beginning an internal medicine residency at the Kaiser Permanente healthcare company in Oakland, Calif.

While the Hobey Baker banquet was in progress recently in St. Paul honoring Will Butcher of Denver, three former Hobey Baker finalists — Chris Kunitz, Justin Schultz and Ryan Dzingel — were playing in Game 7 of the NHL’s Pittsburgh-Ottawa game.

Hamline University athletics director Jason Verdugo is among a handful of finalists for the Wisconsin-Whitewater AD job, gazettextra.com reports.

Don’t print that

Blockbuster thought: What about a Timberwolves trade package with the Bulls, who would get point guard Ricky Rubio and small forward Andrew Wiggins from Minnesota for Chicago small forward Jimmy Butler and the Bulls’ No. 16 overall pick in the June 22 NBA draft.

Then the Wolves could add Oklahoma City free-agent power forward Taj Gibson for a starting lineup of Karl-Anthony Towns at center, Gibson at power forward, Butler at small forward, Zach LaVine at shooting guard and point guard Dennis Smith, who would be acquired with the Wolves’ No. 7 pick in the draft. That team would play defense, too.

That lineup, still young, would ensure the Wolves of a competing playoff team. Butler is only 27 years old.

The last time (2014) Hall of Fame voting was done for the era of eligibility for Tony Oliva, the former Twin with a .304 career average and three batting titles, Tony fell short by just one vote. It’s unclear in which era the Hall of Fame’s reorganized oversight committee will place Oliva for its next vote, but it could be this fall.

It’s getting late, Oliva said. He turns 79 next month.

“If we don’t make it this year, I don’t know — I would like to do it when I’m still alive,” Oliva said. “If you die, who knows what happened, you know what I mean? It would be nice to be able to get to the Hall of Fame to be able to thank people. It would mean a lot to me, my family and all those friends that have been waiting for 40 years.”

Oliva already is in the Dominican Baseball Hall of Fame, where there is a bronze statue of him, and halls of fame in New York, California and Minnesota.

Oliva plans to return to Cuba this fall to visit family.

St. Paul’s Julian Loscalzo and Ballpark Tours, which visited Cuba two years ago, is headed back with nine nights accommodations in November.

Utility player Danny Santana, traded to the Braves for reliever Kevin Chapman last month, is batting .209 in 20 games for the Braves. The left-handed Chapman is 0-1 with a 5.73 ERA in 17 games for Rochester.

Outfielder Aaron Hicks, traded to the Yankees two years ago for catcher John Ryan Murphy, is hitting .315 in 47 games for New York with eight home runs and 31 RBIs. Murphy is batting .204 in 31 games with three homers and 14 RBIs at Triple-A Rochester.

By the way, former Twin ByungHo Park is batting .188 with three homers in 29 games for Rochester.

The Twins rank 23rd among baseball’s 30 clubs with per-game attendance averaging 23,187.

Ex-Timberwolves assistant Eric Musselman, the Nevada-Reno coach who was born in Ashland, Ohio, where his father, Bill, coached, was among those getting mentioned for the Ohio State men’s basketball coaching job that went to Butler’s Chris Holtmann.

Pittsburgh’s Gerrit Cole and Oakland’s Sonny Gray could be available for the Twins before next month’s trade deadline.

Aside from Joe Mauer, the Twins are virtually devoid of players (including minor leaguers) in the organization from the state of Minnesota.

The NFL had officials in St. Paul last week perusing Xcel Energy Center, which is expected to host the league’s big Super Bowl media party in February.

Look for Minnetonka’s Ben Sigel to be named Mr. Golf Minnesota on Sunday evening at Windsong Farm in Independence. Ms. Golf Minnesota is expected to come from among Visitation’s Anni Heck, Red Wing’s Stephanie Herzog and Edina’s Grace Kellar. There are eight male finalists and eight female finalists.

Minneapolis-St. Paul recorded the fifth-largest audience — 5.7 million — behind Nashville, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Knoxville, for NBC Sports’ TV-digital delivery of Game four of the Stanley Cup Final between Nashville and Pittsburgh.

Overheard

Gophers men’s basketball coach Richard Pitino at a Dunkers breakfast at the Minneapolis Club last week, asked about his team’s No. 10 preseason national ranking: “Sure beats where we used to be ranked at No. 10 or 11 in the Big Ten.”