Disappointed in love and broken
at forty she married a small town
in Ohio
it made no brash promises whispered nothing
sweeter in her ear than good morning
good afternoon good evening good night
my dear
good night my darling
good night my dear
in the morning
I’ll still be here
I don’t quite get this: The Twins have two guys in the AL top ten in home runs, RBI, and slugging percentage. They have a leadoff hitter who is eighth in the league in batting average. The club is second in the American League in fielding percentage, fifth in team ERA, fifth in RBI, fifth in hits, sixth in batting average, and sixth in on base percentage.
Their two-time Cy Young award-winner is tied for fifth in wins, and 12th in ERA. There are two guys in the bullpen –Neshek and Guerrier– that have allowed fewer walks plus hits per innings pitched than Santana.
The team’s starting catcher and reigning batting champ goes on the DL, yet his backup is hitting .306.
Hunter and Morneau are all over the AL leader board –Morneau is second in the league in home runs, ninth in RBI, and tied for sixth in runs scored. Despite Alex Rodriguez’s ridiculous April, Morneau now trails him by four home runs, and Hunter has crept within three for the league RBI lead.
Yet despite all these positive numbers the Twins are 22-24 and in fourth place (six-and-a-half back) in the Central.
I’ll let KRS-One pose the million-dollar question: Why is that?
The knee-jerk answer: it’s the piranhas, stupid.
Or consider this: the troika of Ponson, Ortiz, and Silva –all of them question marks coming out of spring training– have combined to go 7-14.
Or this: the Twins are 13th in the league in home runs (Morneau and Hunter have combined for 25 of the team’s 35 homers, and Morneau has hit six of his in three games).
Of course you could take the glass-is-half-full approach and conclude from all those numbers that the Twins are a lot better than they’ve played so far.
You could also decide that with one more injury or a prolonged slump from one of the stars and this team is going to be lucky to win 80 games.
I’m an optimist, though, so I’m going to go with that first scenario until the Twins have kicked me in the kidneys so many times that I’m pissing blood.
Tonight’s game, along with last Friday’s win in Milwaukee (Bonser’s 11 strikeouts, Hunter’s grand slam), was a blueprint for the kind of team I thought the Twins were going to be coming into the season.
Sort of, anyway.
It still perplexes me that the guys in the middle of the order are being forced to pretty much score and drive in all the runs (Luis Castillo is batting .319 with a .368 OBP and he’s still a distant fourth on the club in runs scored –behind Morneau, Hunter, and Cuddyer). Considering how well those guys have done (and the absence of Mauer), it’s odd that the team has struggled as much as they have to score runs.
The reason for that, of course, is that nothing much has fired on all cylinders for the Twins all season. Going into tonight the team had lost four of Johan Santana’s last five starts.
They didn’t lose tonight, and the way Santana (and Neshek and Nathan out of the bullpen) pitched, the firepower of Morneau and Hunter was pure gravy, though certainly lots of fun to watch. Still, Morneau and Hunter drove in all seven of the Twins’ runs, and the 3-4-5 hitters (Cuddyer, Morneau, and Hunter) scored six of them. And those three pitchers combined for this extraordinary line: 18 strikeouts, five hits, and two walks.
Hunter’s season has been an astonishing thing to witness, and I’ve never placed much stock in that old monkey business about guys putting up huge numbers in the last years of their contracts; the game’s just too damn hard to play for even great players to just crank it up a notch at will when there are tens of millions of dollars on the line.
I’m still not sure what the hell Hunter’s doing differently this year, but he certainly looks like a guy who’s all of a sudden got things figured out. How often, though, does a guy make such great strides after he’s turned 30 (and Hunter will turn 32 in July)? Granted, it’s May, but the guy is on pace to post career bests in everything. He should easily have more doubles by the All Star break than he had in either of the last two seasons, and despite the fact that he’s slugged over .500 just once in the last six years, his slugging percentage currently sits at .616.
I can’t figure it out, especially since he’s been hitting without any real protection all season.
At any rate, that $12 million option the Twins picked up in the off-season –which I thought was a dicey move– is looking smarter all the time, even as Hunter is looking more and more like a guy who is pricing himself well out of Minnesota’s budget.
It will be a damn shame if Torii finally puts together a monster year and the Twins finish in the middle of the division.
You’d sure like to see your team hold a 4-0 lead, particularly since the Twins have had so few early leads of late. And, yeah, Dennys Reyes is the lefthanded specialist out of the bullpen –or was– but he hasn’t done much of anything to justify that position thus far in ’07, and his stellar 2006 is looking more and more like an aberration. It was supposedly a big surprise that his shoulder was bothering him even before he entered yesterday’s game with the score tied at five, but why was it such a surprise?
The Reyes situation is pretty much Jesse Crain all over again. Both guys signed extensions in the off-season, sucked early on, were sidelined with ‘tenderness’ but somehow managed to avoid the DL, and came back only to endure more suckiness, this suckiness apparently attributable to injuries, the severity of which went unrecognized by the team’s medical staff.
I don’t quite understand how a guy whose arm was aching a few weeks ago is supposed to get better by pitching to Major League hitters, but what the hell do I know?
It also seems to me that the Twins have had a number of eerily similar situations in recent years (Liriano last season, for example), situations where the team’s doctors clearly failed to recognize the severity of a pitcher’s injury until it was too late.
The loss of Reyes and Crain does put a strain on the Twins’ bullpen, but at this point, considering the way they’ve pitched, it’s sort of a case of addition by subtraction. Given Minnesota’s history of nurturing reliable and unsung middle relievers –there’s a long list by now, the most recent examples being Matt Guerrier and Pat Neshek– you always kind of figure they’ll find a way to patch something together. The way things have been going, though, this season figures to be a test of the club’s scouting and coaching resources.
Is Ramon Ortiz headed the way of Sidney Ponson? How much rope do the Twins give him with Garza and Slowey waiting for a shot at Rochester? Consider that Ortiz was 3-1 with a 2.57 ERA on April 27. Here’s his ERA after his last four starts: 3.23, 3.80. 4.89, 5.36. I’m guessing that impressive start is going to give him a considerably longer leash than Ponson had, especially given that the Twins are on the hook for his $3.1 million salary.
How much have the Twins missed Joe Mauer? They’d started their slide before he went on the DL –they were 15-14 at the time– but they’ve gone 5-9 without him in the lineup.
Scott Baker’s quotes following his Saturday start in Milwaukee were even more refreshing than his performance. It’s hard to root against a guy who says stuff like this: “It’s supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun, why are we doing this? I think a lot of times we’re too result oriented and this game is such a result oriented, stat game. There’s too much emphasis on that. It’s about the process, it’s about enjoying this time.”
Yeah, well, you know…uh, boy…ummm, that was…that was…uh, that was….I’m sorry, give me a moment to compose myself…I, ummm, I’m just trying to, you know, I’m trying to get my head around this…I don’t know, it’s, uh, it’s just…it’s just really, really…I mean, seriously, Jesus, it’s really hard…that was…that was, well, I’m not really sure, I can’t quite…I cannot quite…I don’t know…I, ummm…
(Walks into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator door; stares disconsolately at the pathetic collection of 20th century condiments and takeout containers of fossilized and mold-frosted Chinese food and then drinks maniacally from a carton of chocolate milk; inexplicably removes his flannel pajama bottoms and shoves them in the garbage pail; sits down on the kitchen floor in his boxers, spits into his palm, and absentmindedly spells out F-U-C-K on the oven door with his index finger. A dog appears in the kitchen doorway and stares at him with a puzzled look on its face.)
(Points at the dog) Tell me the truth: what the fuck was that? Don’t give me that stupid look. That. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. That. That. That. Why do I do this to myself? Seriously, why? I can’t…I cannot take much more of this. I won’t.
Pussies!
Burch woke up one morning in a ditch in some low-lying country. He had no idea where he was and no recollection of how he might have arrived there. Whatever possessions he might once have owned –and he had a vague recollection of a backpack full of belongings– were nowhere to be seen.
He was thirsty as the devil himself for a can of Coca-Cola.
Alongside the damp ditch in which he found himself there was a poorly-maintained dirt road, its surface pocked and worn with deep ruts. In the distance Burch could see smoke rising from the chimneys of a little town, and he set out along the road in the direction of this unfamiliar village.
As he walked it became apparent to him that somehow, and somewhere in the lost stretch behind him, he had acquired a rather pronounced limp. Burch felt a dull ache extending from his left buttock all the way down to the area behind his knee. The pain became more acute as he hobbled along the road.
An angel appeared to him just as he was approaching the outskirts of the village. Burch watched as the angel glided down from the bare branches of a tree.
You are to undertake a quest, the angel told Burch. An old horse will be provided for your journey, and you are to learn that the heart can be killed anywhere on earth.
That, Burch said to the angel, does not sound like a quest. It sounds like a sentence.
To which the angel replied, That is only because you fail to understand the full meaning of the phrase.
Burch considered the angel as it fluttered there above him on gray and dusty wings. This, he thought, was a most unwelcome and untimely visitation.
It seems to me that the phrase could not possibly be plainer, he said.
Only because you cannot yet see clearly, the angel said.
Burch was in no mood or condition to argue with an angel. For his part, the angel felt obligated to remind his charge of the seriousness of his mission.
You will understand, I’m sure, at what grave peril to his soul a man refuses to carry out the orders of an angel, he said.
I understand no such thing, Burch said. And surely you understand that you are looking at a man whose soul is already in considerable peril, if, in fact, it has not already been entirely lost to him.
What I am telling you, the angel said, is that there is yet hope for you. You are being given a rare opportunity.
I can barely walk, Burch said.
That is why you are being provided with a horse, the angel told him.
From the village Burch heard the ringing of church bells.
I suppose, he said, that I am to regard that as a sign.
The angel cocked his head and listened to the sound. The bells? he said. That is nothing more than a custom of the village.
Burch spit into the road and pawed at the dirt with his boot.
Let’s have a look at that horse, he said.
Slayed.
Slaughtered.
Shattered.
Crushed.
Obliterated.
Burst.
Busted.
Broken.
Destroyed.
Rubbed out.
Squashed.
Flayed.
Annihilated.
Massacred.
Snuffed.
Shredded.
Spent.
Jolted.
Struck.
Moved.
Electrified.
Blown wide open.
Stunned.
Tickled.
Elated.
Overjoyed.
Lit up like a jack-o-lantern.
Delighted out of all proportion.
Rocked.
Resurrected.
Reborn.
I’ll have to do some more digging around to figure out what exactly happened, because I left the room for what seemed like five minutes during tonight’s game, and when I came back Jesse Crain was gone and the Indians had tacked six unearned runs on the board.
I used to think I had a pretty good understanding of the rule covering unearned runs, but I’m still having a hard time figuring out how a guy could give up six unearned runs on 25 pitches. It sort of hurts my head to think about it.
It’s never nice to know one of your guys is hurt, but I guess it’s still sort of nice to know that Crain has been pitching hurt, if only as a way of explaining his lousy performance in the last month.
Ramon Ortiz was not just disappointing tonight, but alarmingly disappointing. He looked absolutely nothing like the guy who pitched so aggressively and with so much enthusiasm in the early going. Maybe that’s the problem now; Ortiz works so quickly, and is so aggressive in going after hitters, that it seems like the scouting report is encouraging opposing batters to be equally aggressive in their approach against him. The guy gave up six runs on just 34 pitches.
How nice of the Twins to pick this particular night to slug four home runs. The real problem, though, was that those home runs might have actually meant something if Glen Perkins hadn’t come in to relieve Ortiz and given up three runs of his own (two IP, four hits, two walks, 48 pitches: that line would represent a bad night for Sidney Ponson). Those three runs, and Crain’s later blowout –aided by Nick Punto’s first error of the season– made moot Minnesota’s late mini-rally.
It was nice to see Garrett Jones, though, and Morneau’s two homers moved him into second place in the AL (now just five back of Alex Rodriguez). And the offense had a pretty decent night overall –every starter but Hunter had a hit– but with all the injuries, the offensive inconsistency, and the recent struggles of most of the starting rotation, this is increasingly a team that looks to be in a serious bit of trouble.
First of all, let me say this: the new radio home of the Twins sucks.
I spent much of the weekend driving. I left Friday night with the game underway, and before I was even properly out of the Twin Cities I had lost KSTP’s signal, and spent the next two hours –headed south along the Mississippi the entire time– going up and down the dial in search of a local affiliate in vain.
It’s ridiculous. I remember plenty of times in the past when I could pick up the Twins for, at minimum, a hundred miles in any direction. Hell, I can recall listening to the Twins in the Badlands, and also in the Wisconsin Dells.
I apparently didn’t miss much on Friday or Saturday, other than continued offensive ineptitude, the implosion of the bullpen in the series opener (and another frustratingly inefficient performance from Johan Santana), and Sidney Ponson’s by-the-book swan song in Saturday’s matinee.
Mercy, mercy on that bit of news. Thank God we’ve finally seen the last of Big Sid.
I got back in time to catch the Sunday night game, and maybe it’s just a coincidence, but the Twins played like a team that had just had surgery to remove a large cancerous tumor from the top of its spine. And I’m not going to complain, but it would have been nice if the club could have found a way to distribute some of those thirty-one base runners throughout the three-game series.
It was a laugher, sure, but it was a laugher this team desperately needed, and was pretty entertaining as well. How often do you suppose a ball club manages to strand thirteen runners and score sixteen runs in the same game? All eleven guys Minnesota sent to the plate had hits, and the Twins chewed up Detroit’s bullpen just as the Tigers prepare to head to Boston for a series.
What?
What?
What the hell do you want me to say? Everybody and their crazy uncle is out there saying something, saying all manner of ridiculous somethings, and you expect me to shed some fresh light on this baseball team?
Forget it.
I’ll say this, I guess, even though I’m sure it’s already been said plenty of times already: Torii Hunter’s catch last night was the best catch I’ve ever seen him make. It was, in fact, the best catch I’ve ever seen anyone make. I was there, and the instant that ball was hit there wasn’t any way Hunter was going to catch it. He never even managed to get turned around, never even managed to turn his head, yet somehow he not only found the ball but caught it.
It was a marvelous thing to see.
The rest? Not so marvelous.
Not so marvelous at all.
Waking, by reason of their continual cares, fears, sorrows, and dry brains, is a symptom that much crucifies melancholy men.
—Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
All he could do was transcribe the interminable babbling voice of the night, the insinuating perverse voice of the demons.
—Pietro Citati, Kafka
What if an individual is perceiving a daydream and a series of external sensory inputs at precisely the same time, and has lost the capacity to distinguish one from the other? What happens to his perceptual world? Clearly he will be peopling his universe of awareness with elements that are altogether private, presences generated from within which for him will be a genuine part of the real world; these are what he sees, or hears, or is otherwise sensing. And should he then be unable to differentiate these from his everyday perceptions, then indeed he may move into a haunted, nightmarish world, and be a very troubled human being.
—Joseph D. Noshpitz, “Reality Testing: A Neuropsychological Fantasy,” in Comprehensive Psychology
A common notion about the relationship of sleep to mental health is that total sleep loss…deranges the mind and may result in some kind of breakdown….When serious sleep disturbances are present, as they almost always are in the mentally ill, the patient’s history often indicates that the sleep disturbance preceeded the actual break from reality.
—William C. Dement, Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep –Exploring the World of Sleep
On particularly dark nights the seven black rabbits that live somewhere in the bushes in my backyard emerge from their burrow or bunker (or whatever it is that rabbits live in) and move about upright, staggering and lurching around on their back legs.
It seems to me that they’re uncommonly large for rabbits. Some of them probably stand at least four feet high. There’s nothing even remotely human about their movements.
They were particularly active in the winter months, and I spent a good deal of time watching them closely from the darkness of my room. One night, quite inexplicably, I saw them hang a puppet from a tree by its neck. I eventually concluded that they were members of some kind of rabbit version of a religious order. I’d see them coming and going from my garage at all hours. I gathered they were building tiny coffins.
I surmised this last bit of information from the fact that I had seen what were unmistakably funeral processions and burials. I’d watched as the rabbits shouldered caskets through the snow in the moonlight, and dug holes with their long legs. It was clear that my backyard was becoming a rather crowded burial ground.
What exactly the rabbits were burying remained a mystery for a number of months, until the night I saw several of them drag a baby across the yard and disappear into the garage.
They’ve been a bit scarce of late, now that the snow’s gone, but I have occasionally seen them out there milling around the garage or skulking furtively up and down the alley. The last time I saw them I could have sworn they were smoking cigarettes.
I’m not sure how exactly one would go about negotiating with rabbits, but I would very much like to strike some sort of deal that would involve these creatures delivering to me a living infant. I’ve wanted a little bitty baby of my own for quite some time now, ever since I lost contact with so many children of my acquaintance.
Should I somehow manage to procure a child from these animals, I shall name it either Ezra or Ezrena (or perhaps Theodore), and I will love the child and it shall be the King of Nothing Never, and a keeper of beasts, and full of joy.
The victim of insomnia, having seen the slowness of the dawn, arises with every nerve tattered and the capacity for happiness ruined. His morning is a desolation.
—Arnold Bennett, Things That Have Interested Me. Third Series. 1926
Melancholics are not so sleepless as maniacs, yet the want of sleep is often an early and prominent symptom. They do not readily sleep, and if they do, they awake soon to be tormented by the vilest misery that it is possible for human creatures to endure.
—A.W, MacFarlane, M.D., Insomnia and its Therapeutics. 1891.
Under [insomnia’s] influence injurious changes are permitted by the patient to be made in his daily habits; pursuits which formerly engaged his attention no longer interest him; even important business concerns are sacrificed; and against such tendencies no pre-existing vigour of intellect will afford any defence; the strongest minds (intellectually considered) may sink into apathy and feebleness.
—James Russell, M.D., “On Sleeplessness.” British Medical Journal, November 16, 1861.
After dinner, my friend drove me, in a carriage, some five miles back into the country –the greater part of the way, along the margin of Migunticook Lake, and under a terrific precipice, whose boulders every moment threaten destruction. In fact, the whole of a bright sunny day, cooled with healthful zephyrs, was spent in pleasurable excitement. Interesting conversation beguiled the evening; and, after family worship, I sunk to rest in a luxurious curtained bed. Ere long, I slept; and, about five o’clock next morning, was awakened by the crowing of the cock. This was the only night’s sleep I have had these last six years and seven months; so help me God. Since then, my nights have been tedious, as usual, without sleep, and some of them distressing.
—“An Example of Protracted Wakefulness,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. July 31, 1845.
Experience in private practice, and extended observation in the wards of general and lunatic hospitals, have taught me that the ordinary hypnotics are frequently unreliable, and that in some instances their use is attended by results as bad as, if not of more serious consequence than, the conditions they were intended to remove. I do not wish by this somewhat sweeping assertion to be understood to condemn the ordinary hypnotics, or to doubt their efficacy in suitable cases; but it seems to me that we run great danger of becoming routinists in the matter of sleeping-draughts….Like most of my fellow practitioners, I constantly meet patients who have run through the whole gamut of sleep-producing drugs, and find their last condition, in many instances, worse than their first.
—Edward N. Brush, M.D., “Some Clinical Experiences With Insomnia,” The Practitioner, January 1889.