Superbowl Friday

Not to turn this into a total love-fest for MLB Network, but did you all know that the Superbowl is on Sunday?  I didn't.  Know why?  Because I haven't watched ESPN in weeks.  Also, there's the Joe Torre thing that's consuming everyone's consciousness, so thank goodness for snarkiness, amirite?

In other news, I feel bad for Torii if this is true, but I have to say I enjoyed the concept.  This is mostly because I really enjoyed watching the Tigers crash and burn and the Twins and White Sox come out of the rubble victorious, and seeing all the analysts on-air personalities suddenly scrambling to explain why the two teams they thought were worthless good-for-nothings were suddenly battling it out for first.  I resent, of course, that most of the focus was on the White Sox, who of course were "better than we expected" rather than "lucky," but you're not a Twins fan if you don't have a mild chip on your shoulder over media coverage.  

Also, Houseboy came up with what I hope is a brilliant parallel for the Twins next year in the 1983 Orioles.  They were beaten by the Brewers in a one game playoff in 1982, but came back the next year to win the division by 6 games.  Not to mention winning the World Series that year, which would be nice.  Not having Cal Ripken might make a difference, but we'll see. 

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Thank you MLB Network

Just a little check-in here to let everyone know that I think the MLB Network might be the awesomest new invention in baseball since they made the bases screw into the ground.  I was skeptical, what with All Other News Media basically sucking at the teat of the Yankees and Red Sox, with the occasional tip of the hat to the Cubs and The Whoever Won the World Series Most Recently.  I figured this would be 24 hours of tributes to Yankee Stadium and in depth coverage of the Red Sox curse*.  

I was wrong, however.  It's only about 12 hours out of the day on MLB's golden teams!  The other 12 hours of the day, we get to hear about the year the METS won it all!  Or that time the BRAVES were good!  Or when the Pirates.... had those uniforms we all like!  I even caught an occasional Twins reference that did NOT have Kirby Puckett in it!**

Plus, Harold Reynolds, we love you.  We missed you.  Baseball Tonight has been a bleeding sore without you.  We're so happy you're back and telling us things we already know!  Yay you!

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* For realz, wasn't that curse broken?  I don't know much about curses, being a fan of a team that has been good when they have good players and bad when they don't, but it seems like two World Series ought to have taken care of them.

** You KNOW I love Kirby.  I just like some of the other guys too.  Remember Kent Hrbek?  What about Shane Mack and Chili Davis?  They were all right too.  I heard that Johann Santana used to be a Twin even.  

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Other people's pain is my pleasure

That's right. I'm that bitter. After the crushing one game playoff defeat of the Twins, Walleye and I vowed not to watch the playoffs. It was going to be like 2005, where they just didn't exist and forever afterward when people mentioned it I'd say something disturbing and confusing like "Oh, 2005... the year they didn't have the playoffs because of the Robot Riots." Only replace 2005 with 2008 in this case.

But on the other hand, the Brewers did make it in, and Tampa Bay has this adorable underdog thing where people from Florida don't give a shit about baseball, and there are former Twins on the team as well as fun players named RRRRRRRRRRRRocco Baldelli and suchlike. So we just tuned in to see the scores and pretended we didn't.

And then awesome things happened like the Cubs getting swept. That made us very happy. And forgive me Jenny, but the White Sox getting eliminated in 4 games gave me tingling little feelings of happiness too, seeing as how I'm bitter and angry. Those two things combined almost outweighed seeing the f*%king Red Sox squoosh poor Torii Hunter and the other Los Angeles Undefeatables of Anaheim. Add in the Brewers losing it in 4 games too, though, and now I'm stuck rooting for Tampa Bay and the Phillies? Go Matt Garza!

The baseball gods like drama

So after losing their respective series to the Indians and the Royals, the White Sox and the Twins both managed to pull impressive wins out of their asses this afternoon. This forces the White Sox to make up the rain out with the Tigers and play 162 games like the rest of us. Interesting little tidbit in that game: reported probable pitchers are Freddy Garcia and Gavin Floyd, who were traded for each other (plus Gio Gonzalez, but who's counting) in 2006.

So, that's my contribution to the analysis of THAT game. Irony man. I think.

Hawk Harrelson has a way with words

Near the beginning of the White Sox game tonight as I was somewhere between the cobra and the downward dog position in my third round of Salutations to the Sun, I heard the best sports announcing moment since the inevitable awesomeness that comes from female weightlifting in the Olympics. Hawk Harrelson, of Jim Thome, "Ride Jim hard tonight and put him away wet." Well, I think the downward dog mutated into some kind of retching cow and then fell over.

In the end Jim was 0 for 3 and the Twins, hanging out in Toronto and taking Labor Day off like good Americans, caught up with the White Sox and now share first place. I hope Thome's not too wet wherever he is tonight.

Yesterday the best thing all season happened

I knew it was coming only hours before, but I'd been wearing the jersey from the moment I heard the news. I remembered the terrible day, more than four years ago, when I heard he was leaving us and the curse of my favorite players began. The camera followed him up the back hallways of the Metrodome, grinning from ear-to-ear and he looked almost as happy as I felt.

"What's up Minnesota! Eddie G's in the house!"

I about cried with happiness.

The Twins lost and I had a blinding migraine, but Eddie Guardado shut down the 8th inning with 3 pop flyouts in his triumphant return to the Twins. All is right with the world.

If someone else said it better...

So, I recently went to Twinsfest, where I took lots of pictures of my feet on the field turf and of Walleye with the soon-to-be-painted-over pictures of Torii Hunter on the walls, got my 1991 World Series newspaper signed by Kent Hrbek himself (who joked with Bert Blyleven while I hyperventilated), looked at models of the new stadium and celebrated Morneau's and Cuddyer's new contracts. And then I returned to Chicago and spent several weeks in denial over the loss of Santana to the Mets (don't even ask about Hunter--that's still a cruel joke as far as I'm concerned). I had been trying to figure out what to say about it, and then I saw this article in the Hardball Times, which pretty much says it all. I don't hate Santana for this; I hope he does well (though I personally wish it had been for the Brewers or some other more deserving NL team). I'm just about tired out with the bullshit that Twins fans have to put up with from ownership, and despite all my previous arguments about the small market the team is in, I can not BELIEVE that Hunter and Santana were not worth opening the purse strings for. I'm starting to really question whether this team can return to World Series caliber if the ownership is never going to see another Kirby Puckett that they will invest in.