Brad Zellar A genius to me is somebody who does something wonderful I can’t begin to comprehend, and with his latest virtuous and ambitious enterprise John Bonnes (a.k.a. Twins Geek) fits the bill. If you’ve been reading John’s blog over the last few seasons you know that he’s among the more balanced and rational of the baseball … Read more
My family’s been hunting snakes down around Lake Pepin for generations. My old man’s from one of the longest lines of snake hunters in the entire country, in fact. My mother’s own family was famous in those parts for creeping in caves, and the snake hunting, I gather, was sort of a natural off-shoot of … Read more
Well, if you’re in a lucky seat, you’ll win a Hormel hot dog treat. Great for lunch, great for dinner, You could be a wiener winner, in the Hormel…Row…of…Fame! ALSO: GREAT NAMES IN MAJOR LEAGUE HISTORY, PART ONE Astyanax Douglass Drungo Hazewood Ezra “Saltrock” Midkiff Moxie Hengle Tub Welch Rivington Bisland Ollie Welf Spurgeon Ferdinand … Read more
I close my eyes, whistle, and send the dogs off into the brush to see if they can scare up any words. I’m not sure how long I sit here –it varies, I suppose, from night to night. When it gets quiet like this, though, and I can’t even hear the rustling or baying of … Read more
Fantasy baseball is one of them. Fantasy league is even worse. There’s something essentially emasculated about these terms, and to use them in the form of an admission –“I am in a fantasy league”– seems somehow shameful. I’ve no doubt that a first-rate thesis could be written on the homoerotics of fantasy league baseball, but … Read more
I don’t suppose I can reliably claim that I have just seen, at four a.m. in the third day of March in the Midwest, the first firefly of the summer. That won’t, however, stop me from staking my claim. I see what I see, and the world can believe whatever the hell it wants. I … Read more
I’d like, if I could, to correct a common misconception regarding Paradise. The animal sanctuaries are actually, in fact, offshore, a couple islands just off the coast which have been set aside for cats, primates, and horses. As with humans, however, not all cats, primates, and horses are admitted to Paradise, although virtue is not … Read more
I have every reason to believe our lads are steroid-free (seventeen reasons, in fact –that being the number of seasons since a member of the local nine has hit thirty homeruns), and I wouldn’t expect to hear of any dirty piss tests emanating from the Twins’ clubhouse any time soon. The truth is that the … Read more
A man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost. —Henry Thoreau Man will never find the end of the trail. —Robert Hofstadter Probe and rummage and ruminate all we want –through, past, back, forward, beyond, up, out, now— we can’t see through any of it, … Read more
Everybody, from the coaching staff to the fans in the chat rooms, has been hard on Luis Rivas the last couple years. Most of the criticism directed at Rivas has been justified. The guy had obviously developed some bad work habits that were showing up on the field with a glaring regularity. At times –most … Read more