Brad Zellar Carlos Silva’s performance against Pittsburgh today (3.1 IP, 11 hits, nine earned runs) should make Ron Gardenhire’s decision a whole lot easier. The Twins love Silva, and he’s a first-rate clubhouse character, but given the way he’s pitched this spring, and the way he pitched in what was clearly a make-or-break game for him this … Read more
Easy world, you gave it once– please quietly welcome it back, that hand. –William Stafford, from “Going On” …what is it we are all doing, what is it we are about, pray tell? And why are we gathered here? –Raymond Carver, “All My Relations” What the hell do we want? What is our heart’s desire? … Read more
Although it goes against the organization’s general philosophy, it sure seems like Alexi Casilla, the kid the Twins nabbed from the Angels in exchange for J.C. Romero, deserves a spot on the roster when the team breaks camp at the end of the month. As much as Terry Ryan and company might want Casilla to … Read more
All men should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why. —James Thurber We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk … Read more
But couldn’t it all have been a little nicer, as my mother’d say. Did it have to kill everything in sight, did right always have to be so wrong? I know this body is impatient. I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind. Yet I loved, I love. I want no sentimentality. I … Read more
It has been called to my attention that another baseball season is almost upon us and it has been more than five months since I updated this site. Shame on me. Shame, shame, shame on me. Here I am, though, and here I will be –I swear on the Baseball Encyclopedia— on a regular basis … Read more
It may be that alien animals are attracted to individuals possessed of certain psychological traits. We can surmise that energy-seeking entities were around that night, and that the poacher’s blood would have met their needs. Scattered work. Magic of the city. Web of shopping. Antonio Villas Boas had blood extracted from a clean incision just … Read more
So, then: Even after all that impenetrable darkness and the long, bruising fall, he would live, and emerge gulping and incredulous into a world painted over in a flat coat of muted gray. In the old happily-ever-after version of such a tale, a man in the grips of blind despair would be saved by an … Read more
Why don’t you begin by telling me about the dreams you said have been troubling you? I’m locked out of my house and can’t find the keys. I am walking around in an unfamiliar city and everyone I encounter is speaking a language I can’t understand. I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize … Read more
It was like this. It was this way. Here was the way it was. This is how things stood: Silently. Still. At attention. That was one moment and unfortunately this world is all about one moment to another. In the next moment everything was swirling and it was as if I was a plastic man … Read more