Paul Molitor reportedly was as busy over the summer as those Twins he was instructing. His divorce from Linda Molitor became final in July, after what I understand were protracted settlement talks. In August, he became a father for the third time. The second time, a case of unexpected paternity about 18 months ago, is what I believe ended his 20-year-plus marriage to Linda. They have an 18-year-old daughter. Turmoil in his personal life is believed to be the reason that Molitor took himself out of consideration for major league coaching or managing jobs the past couple of years. His life now has calmed down to the point that he reportedly was passing out cigars around the Twins clubhouse to celebrate the August birth of his second daughter. The future Hall of Famer did not return phone calls. “I have no comment and no comment on Paul’s behavior,” Linda said Tuesday. Twins veep Dave St. Peter said he knew nothing of celebratory cigars. “I know they are getting a divorce, but I cannot confirm that it is final,” he said. Asked whether Molitor was going to marry the mother of his third child, St. Peter said: “I’m not sure if there is marriage planned. I know that he obviously has a significant other.”
Tip your hat to K.G.
Multimillionaire Kevin Garnett has learned how to tip! D.C. celebrity journalist Jawn Murray reported at jawn’[email protected] (No. 25) that he ran into K.G. in California at Ivy By the Shore. Jawn was lunching at the Bennifer hangout in Santa Monica with his friend Alex Martin – Whoopi’s daughter. “I spotted Kevin leaving the restaurant with a gentleman who looked to be his agent,” wrote Murray. “Then I looked up and saw Arturo, one of the waiters there, go running out the door behind him. Kevin had left Arturo a $200 tip, and the appreciative waiter wanted to personally thank the basketball star.” The Timberwolf posed for photos and signed autographs as he waited for a valet to deliver his wheels, Murray said. A few days later, K.G. again ran into Jawn at Hollywood’s House of Blues. “I told him that I tipped you off to the generous tip he left. He’s looking out for this [column item] now,” a laughing Murray said Tuesday. “He talked about how you’ve been giving him a hard time in the paper.”
T-shirt tango
The MOA didn’t get T’d off – it got in the game. Cheeky T’s are hot products nationally, and Minnesota has home-grown entrepreneurs making a splash at a Minneapolis company named Papasea.com. It produces at line of T’s that include the messages “MOA SUX” and “Dinkytown Looters.” Some Dinkytown denizens have been whining about the “Looters” T’s, but the Mall of America produced a rebuttal: MOA ROX. “Those are on sale now at MOA gift stores here in the mall,” PR woman Kelly Olson said. “You know what, like I said before: Who knows what SUX means? Could be good, could be bad. But I am certain that ROX is awesome. So MOA rocks, and we stand by that.” Papasea.com’s veep of account management, David Schutz, was impressed to hear about the MOA’s rockin’ response. “They are selling that now? Really?” he said. “I’m going to have to pick one up.”
No pay despite play
Outrage over the “Dinkytown Looters” T-shirts sparked a torrent of media coverage for Papasea.com on Friday but no new business. “We didn’t get a single order off all that press we got,” Dave Schutz said Monday. “It didn’t help that they spelled the name wrong of the company and my name wrong and they said we’re from San Diego. We’re here, in the Twin Cities.” He said my 8.17 column item about the business that Dave runs with his brother, Mike Schutz, was right. Dave Schutz doesn’t really understand the poor reception the “Dinkytown Looters” shirt has gotten, although he’s not much bothered since some Dinkytown shops sold out the inventory. “We’re just a fun little company,” he said. “We have an entire line of locally inspired T-shirt messages.” Of course, if back-to-back hockey championships hadn’t inspired rioting in Dinkytown, there would be no afflatus for the shirts. But look around, people, there are much more offensive images on T-shirts: the Rebel flag … that caricature of the Cleveland Indians’ mascot … and one Minnesota city with a racially offensive name, which I no longer acknowledge.
Daunte’s detour
Daunte Culpepper threw a little more light on the subject of his recent car trouble on his KMOJ-FM show Monday with sports guy Larry Fitzgerald. “I hear you had some trouble with the automobile and ended up signing some autographs until they got it going for you,” Fitzgerald said. Said Culpepper: “I think my alternator was bad. I had to pull to the side of the road. There was a bar down the street, and I guess the word got out that I was out there. Everybody came out to meet me and say hello. It was a good experience because I like to meet people.” Fitz joked to Culpepper: “And they say there’s no stopping Daunte.” All jokes aside, what looked like a late hit Sunday in Detroit may stop Culpepper. All that massaging and stretching of the QB’s back looked ill-advised in hindsight after those fractures were found.
