Gardenhire Not a Fan of This Kind of Music

Minnesota Manager Ron Gardenhire wasn’t a fan of “God Bless America” on Thursday night.

With the score 1-1, Irish tenor Ronan Tynan sang a long, slow version of the song during the seventh-inning stretch.

The Yankees then scored three runs in the bottom half of the inning, going on to a 4-1 win.

Gardenhire thought the long break in the middle of the inning may have affected his starting pitcher, Brad Radke, who hit Nick Johnson with a pitch leading off the bottom half of the seventh.

“I thought sitting there in that long inning, ‘God Bless America,’ I never like those situations because it takes a long time, and the pitcher has got to sit there for an extra amount of time,” Gardenhire said. “Then he goes out there and he ends up hitting the first hitter right in the butt. We have seen that happen to our pitchers before when you have long innings like that. It does seem to happen that way. That’s just part of the game.”

“God Bless America” has been played during the seventh-inning stretch of Yankee home games since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Radke said that he did extra stretching during the long break, and he didn’t think he was bothered by the lengthy pause.

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Minnesota third-base coach Al Newman will throw out the first ball Saturday when Minnesota plays host to New York in Game 3.

Newman suffered a brain hemorrhage Sept. 10 while the Twins were in Chicago to play the White Sox.

He was kept in a coma for two weeks and remained hospitalized until Sept. 26.

Newman said he won’t return to coaching for the postseason.