U student asks Glen Perkins for a PlayStation 4 — and it's in the mail

A University of Minnesota baseball player had an unusual request for Twins reliever Glen Perkins -- and the U alumnus came through.

January 20, 2016 at 1:55PM
Glen Perkins
Glen Perkins (Jerry Holt — DML - Star Tribune Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Ben Humbert, a freshman pitcher on the Gophers baseball team, had an idea Tuesday. He wanted a PlayStation 4 for the team. So he did something you and I probably wouldn't do. He tweeted to twins pitcher and Gophers graduate Glen Perkins.

"I thought it would be awesome if we could score a PS4 for our new locker room because we love to game outside of playing baseball," Humbert said in an email. "I've never met or talked to Perk before but I knew that he was an alumni and a huge supporter of Gopher baseball. So I took a shot."

The shot was good. About 20 minutes later, Perkins tweeted to Humbert, who was a three-sport athlete in International Falls:

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Will this be the start of an #AskGlenForAnything hashtag? Probably not, but Perkins explained why he did it.

"Every once in a while someone sends me a tweet asking for something," he said. "Sometimes it just seems like the right thing to do. That school and the people there did a lot for me. I thought about how awesome it would be if something like that happened when I was there,and really it didn't take much thought at all. I thought is was funny and ballsy that someone asked for a PS4 so I figured why the hell not."

Humbert said, "I do take some risks in my life and sometimes a dog finds a bone, and today I found a bone."

As you'd expect, team members were pretty psyched when the word went around. But Humbert said they do have two more requests: "The team would love a Glen Perkins Fathead for our wall and we would love to have him play the first game on the PS4."

h/t: Parker Hageman at TwinsDaily

about the writer

about the writer

Howard Sinker

Digital Sports Editor

Howard Sinker is digital sports editor at startribune.com and curates the website's Sports Upload blog. He is also a senior instructor in Media and Cultural Studies at Macalester College in St. Paul.

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