I had an incredible time at the ballpark tonight –and, yes, I’m in a good enough mood that I’m going to go ahead and refer to the Metrodome as a ballpark. It was a strange and amazing game, and a seriously gutty, inspired, and lucky performance by Carlos Silva. There was a point in the … Read more
Back in the day –this was in 1987– I used to have this Nancy and Sluggo tee-shirt that I believed was some sort of magic talisman for the Twins. Whenever I wore it to a game the Twins won, and somehow I figured out, or thought I figured out, that when I didn’t wear it … Read more
It’s not really a surprise to me, but Jacque Jones has quietly become a better player –certainly a better hitter, and I’d argue a better all-around player– than Torii Hunter. Jones is as competitive and driven as Hunter is easy going, and he works as hard as anybody on the team to get better. He … Read more
…and a 2-1 victory against the Royals should probably go in the loss column, but what the hell, we’ll take it. Don’t knock yourselves out trying to score a few runs for your pitchers, though, fellas. Didn’t you pretty much know that two runs was all it was going to take tonight? I did, right … Read more
What the hell was that? I am sorely in need of some consolation, brothers and sisters. A weekend without baseball, followed by a train wreck in the Motor City, has left me sitting here listening to Skip James with my head in my hands (well, my head was in my hands, but I had to … Read more
The guy who pumps the music through the Metrodome speakers during Twins games is a fellow by the name of Kevin Dutcher. I have no idea how much attention people pay to that sort of thing during baseball games, but I started noticing a few years ago that the selection of tunes at the Dome … Read more
I’m not even going to bother to try to reconstruct the haywire play-by-play from the last four games. I was intending to go back over the game logs at some point tonight, but the prospect is frankly just too exhausting at the moment. All I know for sure is that I saw more variations of … Read more
–Ralph’s Barber Shop, Okmulgee, Oklahoma –Bateman Park, Okmulgee, OK —On the tube in Ralph’s Barber Shop, Okmulgee, OK: Twins clinch 2004 Central Division title It shouldn’t be possible for nine hits, seven walks, and a hit batter to add up to four runs. That’s the sort of line the Twins regularly threw up last year … Read more
Have you noticed over the last several seasons how every time a Central Division foe has tried to talk trash about the Twins in the media it’s seemed to result in an immediate upsurge in the quality of play from Ron Gardenhire’s charges? Granted, what qualifies as bulletin-board grade trash-talking in baseball is generally pretty … Read more
Last night’s terrific 5-4 comeback victory against the Tigers had no shortage of dramatic plot lines, from the return of Joe Mays and his $17 million arm to Shannon Stewart’s walk-off game-winner off the Rheumatoid Terminator, Troy Percival. Almost lost in all the hullabaloo was rookie Jason Bartlett’s first major league homerun, for which he … Read more