Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Dick Enrico Dies at 85
"Why buy new, when slightly used will do? Except when the deals are this good!"
TV-watching Minnesotans were barraged with that quizzical slogan throughout the '90s and '00s, and on December 14 the man who delivered it—2nd Wind Exercise Equipment founder Dick Enrico—died in hospice care in Brooklyn Park. The Chisholm native was 85.
2nd Wind would eventually spiderweb to 100+ stores, serving as the crown jewel of Enrico's lifelong entrepreneurial efforts; his obituary mentions ventures involving waterbeds, Italian food, stereos, and cellphones, among others. Enrico sold his used fitness gear empire in 2015, but guys like him don't just retire. This sprawling 2016 T.C. Biz profile by the late, great Burl Gilyard details the several business ideas he had percolating at the time, including a battery-operated device known as the “Fabulous Action Flipper.”
“I like to feel the wind in my face—pressure, pressure, pressure. I function best under pressure, I function best under the unknown, I function best under the challenges,” Enrico tells Gilyard. “And I love being able to, hopefully, overcome the challenges. That’s what gets me excited.”
That excitement never waned:
Twin Cities ad legend Dick Enrico has still got the goddamn goods pic.twitter.com/kDQ8TFgAKO
— Jay Boller (@jaymboller) July 16, 2021
To honor our fallen pitchman, KARE 11 unearthed Enrico getting the Boyd Huppert treatment some years back (see below). Dick was preceded in death by his younger brother Roger, who served as the CEO of PepsiCo before dying in 2016 while snorkeling around a Cayman Islands sandbar known as Stingray City. You can't accuse the late Enrico brothers of living uneventful lives.
Ilhan Omar in the NYT
As Trump's war against the Somali community and Minnesota's immigrant community more broadly drags on, the New York Times' Annie Karni sat down with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) at her office in Washington, D.C.
In the profile (gift link), Omar tells the Times she's carried her passport on her person since Trump became president; what was once a point of pride is now a “document of safety.” The congresswoman has, as most Minnesotans already know, frequently been a target of Republicans. The latest round of attacks from the president—earlier this month, Trump called Omar's hijab a “little turban” and said that she “does nothing but bitch”—are overtly racist, but then, this is the guy who previously led rally attendees in chants of "send her back" directed at the MN rep.
"If it all gets to her, Ms. Omar is careful not to let on," Karni writes. “'We feel bad, actually, for the president,' she said of herself and other members of the Somali-American community. "'We also know we’re not garbage. We have not been broken by the life experiences that we’ve gone through. Words are not really that hurtful when you’ve survived war.'”
We're No. 1! (Most Aggrieved!)
"It's not easy being a baseball fan," ESPN's David Schoenfield wrote last year in the inaugural edition of the MLB Aggrieved Fan Index. "The commitment is intense: 162 games from the thaw of early April through the sweat of summer to the cool evenings of October—and that doesn't include spring training or the never-ending offseason."
That also doesn't include the frustration and aggravation that's so fundamental to the sport, especially when it comes to, say, cheap-ass owners who refuse to shell out any money, hence the existence of the ranking. And after placing fourth last year in the Aggrieved Fan Index, your Minnesota Twins are No. 1 in 2025!
Here's the heartbreaking way Schoenfield frames the Twins situation:
Let's turn back the clock to 2019. The Twins won 101 games, smashing an MLB-record 307 home runs, on their way to the AL Central title. Then consider where the rest of the division was. The Kansas City Royals were a mess. The Detroit Tigers were a bigger mess. The Chicago White Sox had lost 89 games. Cleveland was about to embark on a rebuild of sorts, trading away stars such as Francisco Lindor, Trevor Bauer and Corey Kluber.
The Twins had the most talent in the division. They should have dominated the AL Central the next six years. But that didn't happen. Oh, they won the division in 2020 and again in 2023, but the Twins have instead seen an undermanned Cleveland team win the division the past two years, a Tigers team with plenty of holes make the playoffs the past two seasons and even the Royals win a wild card out of nowhere in 2024.
And, well, you know what happens next: the Twins' historic 2025 trade deadline sell-off, a 19-35 record in the the final two months of the season, and the lowest full-season attendance figure for the franchise since 2000. Oh! And the Pohlad family taking the team off the market.
...can't possibly argue with that No. 1 spot. See you all here again in 2026.
Wanna Buy the Ol' Psycho Suzi's?
Nobody seized on that opportunity three years ago, when the old riverside northeast Minneapolis restaurant hit the market for $6 million. Now you've got another chance, this one coming at a steep discount: The ginormous tiki-themed space became available again last week, this time for $4.5 million. All 15,320 square feet across three levels of 1900 Marshall St. NE look untouched from when Psycho Suzi's closed in 2023.
"The Iconic former Psycho Suzy’s Restaurant can and should be yours!" the property listing from RE/MAX Advantage Plus presumes of you and your capacity to run a huge restaurant. "This premier direct Mississippi River waterfront real estate, restaurant and bar offers one of the most dynamic hospitality settings available not only in the Twin Cities but throughout the entire region."
The bar for taking over former Leslie Bock-owned destination establishments appears low; Hey Y'all Tipsy Taco Bar, which operates out of the old Betty Danger's address, received poor marks from Racket contributor Kirstie Kimball.
