(AP Photo/Jim Mone) If you haven’t been paying attention, you’ve been missing a strange, maddening, encouraging, teetering-on-the-brink-of-disaster one day, triumphing-over-adversity the next, almost wholly improbable stretch of baseball from the Minnesota Twins. The Twins season to date doesn’t really add up, and they’re certainly not going about their business the way past teams have. Yet, […]
I Can't Believe I Watched the Whole Thing: That's Why They Play Nine, You Communists, Part Two
May 29, 2008 by
AP Photo/Orlin Wagner As I sat staring vacantly at the TV in the ninth inning of last night’s Kansas City-Minnesota game, I had another of my brief, increasingly pathetic revelations. My God, I said to my dog, This really is my life. Which is something I find myself saying to my dog with alarming frequency […]
Are You Lonesome for Me, Baby?
May 24, 2008 by
All day a dragon in a rented crow costume was installed in the tree outside my house, shrieking imprecations and keeping me at bay. A few months back I reversed the mat on my doorstep so that each time I opened the door I would encounter the word “WELCOME.” My hope was that this would […]
What Fresh Hell Is This?
May 22, 2008 by
Sidney Ponson? Come on, seriously: Sidney Ponson? You have to be kidding me. Truly, there is very, very little that could give me more displeasure than seeing that fat Aruban hump toss a complete game gem in the Metrodome. My displeasure wouldn’t be much diminished even if he had been wearing a Minnesota uniform. (Here’s […]
Guts and Small Ball
May 13, 2008 by
AP Photo by Jim Mone Francisco Liriano was almost as disappointing as Nelson Liriano. There has been a disquieting wave of injuries—to Michael Cuddyer, Kevin Slowey, Adam Everett, Scott Baker, Nick Punto, and, most depressingly, to Pat Neshek. The offense has been erratic; the power and team on base percentage alarming. Up and down the […]
That's Why They Play Nine, You Communists: Meet Your First Place Minnesota Twins
May 5, 2008 by
AP Photo/Hannah Foslien I’m not a fair weather fan. Honest to God, I’m not. Seriously. I’m not. This season, however, I am trying very hard not to let the game eat me alive. I’m also trying very hard not to allow the game to eat up so damn much of my time. It’s a hard […]
You Know How It Is. Or Maybe You Don't. Maybe I Don't. Maybe, in Fact, None of Us Does
April 23, 2008 by
What does it mean that I have to sit and think for several minutes, and eventually have to count on my fingers, to figure out exactly how old I am? I don’t know what it means, but I know it’s appalling, the fact that I have to do it, and the number I eventually end […]
Three Weeks, from Which We Can Conclude Virtually Nothing, So I Will Talk Instead about Vivisection
April 23, 2008 by
AP Photo/Jim Mone I love baseball stats, love them as least as much or more than the next woman. And like so many others, the explosion of the statistical analysis of baseball was what drew me deeper into the grip of the game at a moment in my life when I was just starting to […]
Confidence Game: A Case of the Yips in the Motor City
April 16, 2008 by
AP Photo by Duane Burleson We’ve been spoiled. While the Twins starting pitching and offense have too often been an iffy, up-and-down proposition throughout most of the 21st century, the bullpen has pretty consistently owned the late innings and protected leads. It was easy, in fact, to take them for granted. It didn’t seem to […]
The Postponement Blues
April 11, 2008 by
Early April baseball in the Midwest can be a flat-out teeth-kicker. Baseball, of course, can kick your teeth in on a regular basis no matter the month, but shit like last night is brutal, even if it (literally) comes with the territory. Couldn’t they at least have given us a rain delay, so we could […]