Souhan: Home Run Derby to have added meaning for Twins

Monday night, Byron Buxton is scheduled to compete in the All-Star Home Run Derby in Atlanta.

Logic suggests he should withdraw.

Logic doesn’t appreciate a good story.

Buxton is in the All-Star Game, and the Home Run Derby, because he is experiencing his healthiest season since 2017. Wednesday night, he took a fastball off his left hand. Thursday, he was held out of the lineup.

The Twins are three games under .500 with Buxton playing like a healthy superstar. Imagine how hopeless this team would be if he were injured.

So why would he agree to make a series of violent swings on Monday night and put himself at risk, and why would the Twins not dissuade him from competing?

Because no matter how much sports are defined by the quest for victory, they’re also always about much more.

They’re about stories. Memories. And moments.

Monday night, Buxton is scheduled to take baseball’s center stage in his home state, and in a city where he bought a house to speed his development as a young player.

Buxton has chosen Twins third base coach Tommy Watkins to pitch to him during the derby, creating a convergence of two of the best possible Twins stories.

1. Their most talented player has reestablished himself as a star the year the All-Star Game is played in Georgia.

2. He is rewarding and honoring perhaps the most popular member of the Twins organization.

“That’s pretty special, for him to ask me to do it,” the 45-year-old Watkins said in the Target Field dugout on Thursday. “When he asked me I was kind of caught off guard. Not caught off guard, I guess, but, I was honored. And it was a little emotional. After he asked me, I didn’t think there were many words said by either one of us. I think I teared up, and he started to, too.”

The Twins drafted Buxton in 2012. In 2013, Watkins worked with him in spring training, then coached him at Class A Cedar Rapids, where Buxton conjured memories of Mike Trout’s rampage through the Midwest League a few years earlier.

Their paths diverged as Buxton rose through the minors. They were reunited when Watkins became the Twins first base coach in 2018.

They are close and they are a study in contrasts. The Twins chose Watkins in the 38th round of the 1998 draft out of Riverdale High in Fort Myers, Fla., home of the Twins’ spring training complex and their Class A team. He would play for, coach for and manage the Fort Myers team, earning his lifelong nickname.

“Tommy was `The Mayor of Fort Myers,’ ” former Twins General Manager Terry Ryan said.

Ryan first met Watkins when he was a junior at Riverdale and Ryan and his scouts were more interested in another player.

They liked what they saw in Watkins, and then Ryan ran into him at a Wendy’s. “I said, ‘You might want to take it easy on the cheeseburgers,’ ” said Ryan, who made an appearance on Thursday’s Twins telecast with three of his former players: Justin Morneau, Glen Perkins and Trevor Plouffe. “We’ve got a 60-yard dash coming up here pretty soon.

“He’s been with us ever since. Everybody loves Tommy Watkins down there, right? And every place that he’s been a tremendous, loyal, coach, player, manager — whatever we’ve needed.

“He’s community-oriented, he is great with kids at our clinics. I don’t know if there’s a more lovable guy in this organization.”

Said Dustin Morse, the Twins vice president of communications and content: “He’s our go-to guy for so many things. I do believe he may be the most popular person in our organization.”

I was having a casual conversation with Watkins in the dugout at spring training this year when Ryan’s name came up. “Terry still texts me, every year, on my birthday,” Watkins said then. “He values people.”

Watkins spent 10 years in the minors before he made his major league debut with the Twins in 2007. He would play in nine big-league games. His climb to the majors as a coach took almost as long.

Buxton is bringing Watkins out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

“This isn’t about me,” Watkins said. “This is about Buck.”

That’s what you would expect the Mayor to say.