The Wichita Wind Surge opened the home portion of its 2025 season this week at Equity Bank Park.
And a new manager is leading the team this year.
Brian Dinkelman is a native of Centralia, Illinois. He spent the last five seasons managing the Single-A Cedar Rapids Kernels before moving up to Double-A Wichita. Both teams are affiliated with the Minnesota Twins.
Before becoming a manager, Dinkelman spent eight seasons as a player in the Twins organization. That included 23 games with the major league club in 2011.
Dinkelman talked with Tom Shine about finding the balance between winning and player development in the minor leagues, his short stint in the major leagues, and how he fell in love with baseball.
The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Brian Dinkelman: When I was a young kid … it was like the neighborhood game that we played all the time. It's like, ‘All right, let's go to the park and play baseball again today.’
So, I think it was just something that me and my friends did when I was young, and we enjoyed it. So … played every day with it, and then had some success with it, and then continuing on.
Tom Shine: You played 23 games in the major leagues. What's your favorite memory of that?
The first game in Kansas City. We were at home in Rochester, New York, got the call that day that I was going to the big leagues.
Flew to Kansas City, and it was middle of June. It was 100 degrees.
Family and friends all drove from home, which is about five hours or whatever.
So, just to see all them there and have that first experience in the big leagues and in the big stadium and stuff like that was pretty special.
What's your managing style and philosophy?
Show up to the ballpark every day and have the guys ready to compete that night and go out and give their best effort daily. Baseball is a long season, so there's going to be ups and downs throughout the season. So try to get these guys prepared every day to compete for 140 games.
Your primary job as a minor league manager is to develop players. But all athletes want to win. I'm guessing you want to win. How do you balance those two interests between development and winning?
Yeah, it's a fine line. We want to win games here. It makes it more fun, makes the clubhouse fun. When you go through stretches where you lose a bunch of games, it doesn't make it as enjoyable to come to the ballpark. … But you're also trying to develop players individually, to get … to the next level and then help the major league team.
So, there's a balance between it. But also when you win ball games, that helps develop winners, too, and that's what you want to try to do as they advance through the minor league system. So when they get to the major-league level, they have some experience on how to win ball games.
Ron Gardenhire was your manager during your time with the Twins. You worked with (his son) Toby Gardenhire in Cedar Rapids. … What did you learn from the Gardenhires?
Just to see the way that Toby learned from his dad, and then Toby and I learn from each other about the game of baseball. I think we both kind of watched the way his dad managed the team for many years and learned from that. And then now we kind of have our own ways of managing, but also taking things that he did well and the things that we do well to help our teams.
How do you tell a player … ‘Hey … you can't play here anymore.’ How do you do that?
It's a tough conversation. I've had to release numerous players over the years. It's never fun because you never know this could be the last chance this player ever gets to play professional baseball. It's never easy because these kids have been playing since they were a young age, and this is what they've dreamed about: to get to the major leagues. And then to have to tell them that, ‘Hey, this is it with us right now,’ is … never easy.
You played for a number of years, had some success at it. What made you think that (you) could make the transition to coaching and managing?
I think at some point you always have to realize, one day, I'm not gonna be able to play baseball anymore. I was getting toward the end of my career … I enjoyed the managers and coaches I had on staff and just trying to watch them and learn a little bit of how they ran the game. And then once I got out of baseball, I thought,’Well, I want to get back into it a little bit,’ because I spent one year where I wasn't part of professional baseball, and was fortunate to get a job back with the Twins as a hitting coach and learn from some guys my first couple years, and then fortunate to become a manager shortly after that.
The goal of the players here is to make it to the major league … is that your goal, too? To someday get back to the major leagues as a coach or a manager?
I mean, that'd be great. I think now at this point in my career, I enjoy coaching baseball and helping players out. If I got the opportunity to make it to the major leagues, it would be awesome.
But as long as I'm still coaching baseball in some aspect, whether it's here or major leagues or Triple A or wherever it might be, just being able to teach the game and be part of it on a daily basis is all I'm looking for.
