MINNEAPOLIS -- Dan Baldelli coached his son, Rocco, throughout his childhood, and even now, as Rocco Baldelli manages the team with the best record in Major League Baseball, those old coaching habits still linger.

"I was getting advice on what we should do this morning," Twins skipper Rocco Baldelli said before his club's Father's Day series finale against the Royals on Sunday at Target Field. "Yes. I accept it all and thank him, and tell him I love him. ... It's not uncommon."

Rocco was a multi-sport star as a youth in Woonsocket, R.I., but his father, whose love was for baseball, always tried to usher his son toward baseball and away from all of the other sports at which Rocco excelled.

There was even a homemade batting cage in the basement of the business that Dan Baldelli owned, a check cashing store, where Rocco would take most of his swings and even held pre-Draft workouts.

"He loved that he was a highly competitive guy, but he was always a big part of my baseball career from the time I was a little kid in the yard, throwing BP to me and playing catch," Rocco said. "He was my coach all the way up until high school, and then he said, 'You don't need me anymore.'"

The formal coaching is over, but all of these years later, perhaps the information that Dan Baldelli continues to provide on occasion is still in the back of Rocco's mind as he makes his decisions from the dugout.

"Maybe," Rocco said with a smile. "But only because it was something that I was wont to do anyway."

Cron's father coached him from young age

Ever wondered about the origin of C.J. Cron's soft hands at first base that have gracefully scooped throw after throw from Twins infielders throughout the season?

Cron’s father, Chris, has been a coach in professional baseball for nearly as long as C.J. has been alive, so it should come as no surprise that there was always plenty of hitting and fielding going on for C.J. and brother Kevin in the Cron family’s backyard cage. In this game, they would stand in front of the cage and try to stop balls that Chris hit from hitting it.

“I remember standing up against the cage, and he would have a fungo, and it was almost as if we were a hockey goalie,” Cron said. “That would help us work on our hands. Everything we did, there was always meaning behind it, and I can't thank him enough."

C.J. Cron really never remembers a time in his life when there wasn’t a bat in his hand, and he always had the chance to shag balls, keep score and serve as a batboy around clubhouses throughout his childhood. Thanks to his father, who currently manages the Triple-A Reno Aces, C.J. had the opportunity to absorb baseball knowledge even before he was old enough to truly understand it.

"He's the only reason I'm here, to be honest,” C.J. Cron said. “I didn't even know what was going on, I was so young. But looking back on it, I was super fortunate to be in those positions to kind of learn the game firsthand like that.”

During Father’s Day games, for the fourth consecutive year, players wore specially-designed New Era caps to raise awareness and funds for the fight against prostate cancer. Players also had the option to wear Stance multi-pattern blue-dyed socks. MLB will again donate 100 percent of its royalties from the sales of specialty caps and apparel emblazoned with the symbolic blue ribbon -- a minimum $300,000 collective donation -- to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Stand Up To Cancer. 

This effort also includes the annual Prostate Cancer Foundation “Home Run Challenge,” which has given fans the chance to make a one-time monetary donation or pledge for every home run hit by their favorite MLB Clubs during the time period of Saturday, June 1 through Father’s Day, Sunday, June 16, all the while tracking where their team stacks up in a “Team vs. Team” competition. Every dollar donated through the Home Run Challenge goes to PCF to fund critical research to defeat prostate cancer. As of June 13, more than $1.26 million has been pledged via the Home Run Challenge in 2019. Since inception, the Home Run Challenge has raised more than $51 million for PCF, the world’s leading philanthropic organization funding and accelerating prostate cancer research. 

Founded in 1993, Prostate Cancer Foundation has funded nearly $800 million of cutting-edge research by 2,200 scientists at 220 leading cancer centers in 22 countries around the world. Because of PCF’s commitment to ending death and suffering from prostate cancer, the death rate is down more than 52 percent and 1.5 million men are alive today as a result. PCF research now impacts 67 forms of human cancer by focusing on immunotherapy, the microbiome, and food as medicine. Learn more at pcf.org.

Twins reportedly sign Draft pick

MLB Pipeline's Jim Callis reported on Sunday morning that right-hander Brent Headrick, Minnesota's ninth-round selection in the 2019 MLB Draft, has signed for $130,000, under the slot value of $154,100 for the 269th selection.