Links for 5/1

What a crazy weekend. After struggling to hit pitchers no one had ever heard of, the Twins put up 19 runs against the Tigers while taking two of three in Detroit. Torii Hunter returned with a vengeance after taking a pitch in the grill (possibly inspiring the team), Carlos Silva picked up his third win by turning in his third quality start, Russ Ortiz notched his fifth consecutive quality start and Jessie Crain gave up a run in each of his two appearances, but won one game and lost the other. And to top it all off, Johan Santana turned in the second best April of his career (only bested by his 2005 numbers).

So where do the Twins stand after an up and down April? Aside from the obvious answer of "Better than last year", there's still a lot up in the air. Last year's 9-15 start also afforded the Twins a chance (as well as forced them) to cut their ineffective veterans and try out the young talent. While they'll have the opportunity to discard Sidney Ponson, Ramon Ortiz and Carlos Silva have more than earned an opportunity to continue pitching. After all, it's hard to cut the two starters who have the best ERA in your rotation. And oddly enough, the only real starter (Ponson doesn't count) that's struggling is Boof!, the only non Johan starter people expected to pitch well. Monsieur Bonser has been up and down all year, and no one is quite sure what's wrong with him, or if we should be worried.

At the plate, the Twins inconsistency continues (and will most likely do so unless Kubel and Ron-DL can add some power to the lineup). Jason Bartlett and Nick Punto have improved, but that was almost guaranteed, considering how poorly they started. The question still remains as to whether they'll get back to their 2006 levels and the answer is an important one--if they aren't both getting on base, the Pirhana offense doesn't work.

Last year, the Twins didn't start to dig themselves out of their early hole until Mid-May. Luckily, we don't have to worry about that this year. That being said, they still need to turn in a solid May, or else they may find themselves in yet another hole.

But for now, it's time for the Quick Links:

• Coffeyville Whirlwind has used the 20th anniversary of the Twins first World Series Championship to take a look back at that miraculous season.
• There are some who think that Joe Mauer would have been the #1 pick in more than one sport.
• "New cars with automatic transmissions are not built with a clutch. New cars with automatic transmissions are now built with a Mike Redmond."
• Will Leitch memorializes Josh Hancock
  
• The Hall of Could Have Been
• Harmon Killebrew takes a look back
  

Gone Fishin'

The end-of-semester crunch is on full time here at Sharkey Manor, so just another brief post today. But I find the Joe Thomas situation with tomorrow’s NFL draft to be an interesting one, and I thought I’d see what people thought about it.

For those that haven’t heard, Wisconsin offensive lineman and super-highly rated prospect Joe Thomas is skipping tomorrow’s NFL draft to go fishing instead. When I first heard this, I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do. It seemed to show how down-to-earth he was—that he didn’t take himself too seriously. After all, the draft is a ridiculous made-for-TV sideshow and his being there or not doesn’t change anything. Why not enjoy a day on the water?

Then I heard that the NFL Network is going to have a camera out on his boat to get his reaction. ...huh? I feel like that changes everything. Does this not reek of a publicity stunt? I suppose I could give him the benefit of the doubt, but this smells awfully fishy, doesn’t it?

Oh wow... I just realized the terrible pun at the end of that sentence. Please forgive me. Somewhere, a writing teacher weeps.

I guess I’m just disappointed, that’s all. I’m already tired of the draft-as-spectacle junk, and for a moment I thought we had a breath of fresh air and perspective. But unfortunately, Thomas is probably just another part of the show.

The Warriors are Our Salvation

“Oh wow.”

With those two words, Steve Nash summed up the first chunk of the NBA playoffs. This was midway through the second quarter of Tuesday night’s thrashing of the hapless Lakers. As Nash was taking the ball up the court, he suddenly unleashed a spot-on alley-oop from forty-five feet to Shawn Marion (who was cutting behind the defense). Experiencing this play in real-time was jarring—one of those double-take moments. The pass was a laser.

The best part was only revealed on replay, however. TNT (whose coverage smokes ABC/ESPN, but that’s another topic entirely) fired up a court-level camera shot of Nash as he was crossing the half-court line. He seems fairly normal at first, then he looks up—and his eyes go wide. I mean, huge, popping-out-of-his-head wide. The replay then very clearly shows Nash saying to himself “Oh wow” just before he unleashes the dish to Marion.

He took the words right out of my mouth.

The Suns are a pleasure to watch—this much we all know. Against the Lakers last night they elevated their art to as high a level as I’ve ever seen, throwing up 68 points in the first half on their way to 126. Tasty. They spent the majority of the evening toying with Los Angeles and unleashing the blinding fury of Leandro Barbosa. The NBA is simply more fun with Phoenix around.

Tonight’s games mean even more. The second games of the Denver/San Antonio and Golden State/Dallas series will go a long way towards determining what type of playoffs we’re in for this summer. If Denver and Golden State manage to upset the two favored Texas teams in round one, we will be set up for basketball the likes of which we could only dream of watching San Antonio and Detroit a few years ago: fun!

Game one of the Denver/San Antonio series had an interesting vibe to it: the Nuggets simply seemed like the better team. This was not supposed to happen; the Nuggets are supposed to be the out-of-control squad looking to find itself for next season, while the Spurs are the steady hand looking for another ring. Thankfully for those of us who like to be entertained by our basketball, this was not the case.

The Spurs are boring. Sorry, it’s true. I say this with no malice or ill-will, but simply out of taste. They’ve been here so often that they seem too in-control at all times. Sure, every so often Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili get out and run a little bit, but there never seems to be any joy in their game. Denver gives us just the opposite: two major scorers (Carmelo and Iverson), a guard who looks to push the ball (Steve Blake), Nene emerging as a force on the block, and Marcus Camby sparking the fast break with blocked shots on the defensive end. A Denver overthrow of the San Antonio monolith (which would be helped tremendously by a game two win this evening) would go a long way towards bringing the joy back to playoff-watching.

Golden State is another matter entirely. They don’t start anyone taller than 6-9 (Al Harrington playing “center”). They have a coach (Don Nelson) who lives to push the tempo and run up points. He’s molded this team in his image and released them on the world for all of us to bask in. Their upset of top-seeded Dallas in game one was the most significant aesthetic blow yet struck in these playoffs. The halftime score was 38-38, if my memory serves, but this wasn’t a dry, defensive struggle. It was frantic, frenetic. Shots flying from everywhere. Loose balls. Absurd passes.

Dallas has the “better” team, so Golden State has simply opted to create chaos. The Mavericks are held up as the gold standard for creating a great basketball team: they seem to have all the pieces in place, with everyone playing their perfectly assigned role. The Warriors, on the other hand, simply toss out all the roles. Harrington is their tallest starter, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to wander out behind the three-point line. Baron Davis at the point guard is their best post-up, back to the basket player. So what? Dallas was forced in game one to adapt to Golden State’s style (their two centers, Diop and Dampier, barely played), and the Warriors prevailed.

In these game twos, two things can happen. The Texas teams may come out and reassert dominance, smashing Denver and Golden State to pieces. This would be a notable setback, giving the favored teams momentum as they head on the road. The other option is much more exciting: what if Denver and Golden State play it tough again? They don’t necessarily have to win (although that would be fantastic), but they can prove that they belong in these series. Then, friends, we really have something to watch.

I haven’t even touched on the virtues of teams like Houston, Toronto, and Chicago (LUOL DENG!) yet. Suffice it to say, after the putrid regular season, basketball is rising from the ashes. I hope you’re watching.

John Sharkey can be found practicing his crossover at aodshark@gmail.com.

PS: I would be remiss if I did not give a significant hat-tip to the scribes of FreeDarko. If you aren't reading them yet, then you should be.

Deconstructing Norworth

It's been 99 years since Jack Norworth, an established vaudeville performer and songwriter during the heyday of Tin Pan Alley, first penned the lyrics to Take Me Out to the Ballgame while riding on a train to Manhattan. But it was only recently that the good folks at FireJoeMorgan.com got around to giving their unique take on the unofficial anthem of baseball:

Take me out to the ball game…
Well, duh. We’re baseball fans. We’re the people you wrote the song about. We like baseball. Of course we want to go to the ball game. What better way is there to spend time on a fine summer’s day, unless it’s flinging vitriol at baseball writers and announcers who use every day as a new opportunity to display their ignorance of the game they actually get paid to write and talk about. Seriously, a dead person could come up with a more original opening lyric than this. Oh, that’s right; Norworth is a dead person. Never mind.

Take me out with the crowd.
We’re not the only baseball fans in this city or this country, you know. They’ve been playing this game for several generations now, since back before the Civil War, and there are rumors going around that it just might become very popular some day, sort of a National Pastime even. Of course, that could be one of those urban myths like albino alligators in the New York City sewers or Dice-K’s gyroball. So unless the game’s being played in Washington, D.C. or Kansas City, we would pretty much expect to be there with a crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack…
Cripes, how many times do we have to cover this same ground? We’ve said it a bazillion times before. There are already peanuts in Cracker Jack. You don’t need to buy peanuts and Cracker Jack – BECAUSE CRACKER JACK ALREADY HAS PEANUTS IN IT! Give the vendors a break, already. They work hard schlepping up and down those steps for minimum wage so you can stuff your face with fatty overpriced junk that clogs your arteries and dimples your butt like a golf ball. And it wouldn’t hurt to carry a little spare change of your own when you head to the ballpark, you know. Self-reliance is a really endearing trait.

I don't care if I never get back.
Maybe you don’t care, but some of us do. We have lives and families. We have responsibilities. We work for insurance companies and whatnot. We have to find new ways to screw people out of their claims and raise premiums without drawing the attention of regulatory agencies or we don’t get paid. But instead we have to listen to you going on and on about you. Because just like Manny and Barry, it’s always all about you, isn’t it? On second thought, we don’t care if you never get back, either.

Let me root, root, root for the home team...
Oh, I see. Because the home team is the only team with good baseball players. Right. Have you checked the PECOTA rankings of the visiting team’s outfield this year? Or the Range Factors of their middle infielders? How about the WHIP of their starting pitchers or the FIP of their bullpen? The OPS, Isolated Power, and Win Shares of the 3-7 hitters? Because maybe there might be some players on the other teams worth rooting for just because they happen to be very good baseball players, even if they work for teams in different zip codes. We always expected rank homerism from Phil Rizzuto, but as intelligent, thoughtful baseball aficionados we should be well past that ourselves by now, shouldn’t we?

If they don't win it's a shame.
Look, this really isn’t prefrontal lobe surgery here. Even the best teams lose 50 games or more every year, and about half of those are at home. Sure, it’s a shame, but sabermetrics clearly show that no team has ever won all of its home games, even the Yankees, even in a strike-shortened season, and the probabilities against it happening are astronomical. They’re roughly the same as Sidney Ponson pitching a perfect game. Never happened, never will. Some days you get the bear and some days, well, the bear gets you. Get over it.

For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out…
Unless they’ve completely rewritten the rules of baseball in the last century-and-a-half, three strikes always equal an out, unless the catcher drops the ball on strike three with first base open, in which case the batter must be put out by a fielder in possession of the ball tagging him before he achieves first base or by a fielder possessing the ball tagging first base before the batter achieves it in order to record an out. Man, this just gets so damn old after a while. Did this clown ever actually play the game of baseball? Did he ever actually watch a game of baseball? Because this stuff should be as obvious as the ignorance that spews from the mouth of Joe Morgan like Linda Blair pea soup vomit on a nightly basis.

At the old ball game.
Yes, we get it. They’ve been playing baseball for many, many years. It’s a game with a lot of tradition and a long history. It’s a game that has stood the test of time. We get it, we really do. It’s a game that can even survive the soul-killing, endless repetition of a trite, hackneyed song like this one for nearly a century and be none the worse for wear. In fact, people don’t even sing this whole song because they don’t know the rest of the lyrics, just that God-awful refrain that they keep bleating over and over again like sheep in the slaughterhouse chutes. The rest of it is so bad that brain synapses melt down when you try to sing it. If this song were really any good, why did Norworth rewrite the lyrics nineteen years after it was first published? Why did he change the protagonist’s name from Katie Casey to Nelly Kelly? That’s pretty radical revisionism. I mean, the People’s Republic of China could learn a thing or two from this guy. Hey, Norworth! We’ve got your old ball game right here, you pitiful vaudeville hack.

This entry posted by Twayn, who can be bothered at twayn77@yahoo.com.

Links for April 23rd

It’s hard to be unhappy with the Twins performance this year when you consider that last year they were sitting at 7-11, the exact opposite of this year’s record. And how can you complain when the team is in first place in the division, tied with Baltimore (Who knew the Orioles had recovered so well from their opening series sweep?) for the second best record in the American League? Of course, dropping two of three to the Royals, including a wasted Ramon Ortiz’ consecutive quality start, (a missed opportunity considering their May schedule) really makes it hard to get into a celebratory mood.

It doesn’t help that there are question marks about when Rondell White and Luis Castillo will be able to return and how effective they will be. Or that Ron Gardenhire wants a third catcher (a natural result of Redmond being among the nine best bats available, due to White and Jeff Cirillo's injuries). Then there's the fact that we Twins' fans have been spoiled the last few years, and are thus a little freaked out by Joe Nathan's performance so far. And Anthony Swarzak, one of the Twins' best pitching prospects, is going to be out for fifty days for violating the league's drug policy (recreational, not performance).

And yet, the Twins are coming home in first place, something they could not say the entirety of last year. So life, while complicated, is good. And now, onto the Quick Links:

• Jesse Lund of Twinkietown has a look at Alexi Casilla, aka L'il Luis.
  
• "It takes two to tango and two to mambo/But you can do it all with just one Bombo"
• So any talk of resigning Torii might be moot, since there's the possibility he'll be ineligible for three years. At least he'll take Mike Sweetney with him.
• Brian Meehan of the Oregonian tells the story of how Pat Neshak became "Sideshow Pat". And Jonah Keri of ESPN.com has an interview with the submariner from Brooklyn Park
  
• If there's one reason to lament the advent of contacts and Lasik, it's the effect it's had on baseball players' eye wear.
  
• Finally, if you're looking for information on who the Vikings' are going to be taking in the NFL draft on Sunday, make sure to stop by the Ragnarok for player previews and other draft day discussions.
  

Power and Inconsistency

The offensive show the Twins have put on in their series against the Mariners has the Twins’ in the middle of an offensive upspring after a slow start to the season. And when the Piranhas are biting, Mauer and Morneau are emulating the original M&M boys and Cuddyer and Hunter have broken out their boom sticks, the Twins’ offense seems unstoppable. And yet, despite that aura, just like last year, the offensive can quickly lose it’s potency, something the team demonstrated when it started out the season by scoring only 23 runs in their first seven games.

So what’s the problem? Why were the Twins the only team in the top half of the Majors in runs scored to have an equal number of games where they scored between four and seven runs and where they scored three or less? Counting the three Twins’ playoff games, they had a bad offensive game (less than three runs) more often than they had a good offensive game (between 4-7 runs). There were eleven teams that scored three or less runs in more games than the Twins. Not one of them finished better than 18^th in runs scored.

Those teams all had a lot of offensive issues, unlike the Twins, who lead the Majors in batting average, were eighth in on base percentage and were seventeenth in slugging, all respectable showings. And seventeenth isn’t that bad when you consider that the offense depended on four players with sub .400 slugging percentages. The effect of those players, however, becomes clearer when you look at isolated power, a metric for power that factors out singles.

And in isolated power, the Twins’ true offensive deficiency becomes clear. As a team, they had all the power of the computer nerds ruining baseball, finishing in second to last, with an isolated power of .138, ahead of only the Pirates. Not at all surprising considering how many at bats the homerless Jason Tyner received (not to mention Punto, Castillo and Bartlett).

Therein lies the Twins’ problem and the source of their inconsistency, both this year and last year. Intuitively, it makes sense, as well. Without power, runs are harder to come by, as a team needs to hit more singles it score than it would doubles or home runs. So when the Twins were stringing together single after single and consequently are leading the league in average, they were eighth in runs scored. This year, with Punto and Bartlett starting slowly, they’re only ninth in average and consequently, fifteenth in runs.

That drop demonstrates the danger in an offense that relies too much on batting average due to its lack of power. If the Twins can’t duplicate their team average of 2006, their offense of 2007 is going to be worse. And how likely is it that Joe Mauer is going to once again hit for an average few catchers have ever obtained? Or that Nick Punto is going to duplicate a year where his average was 34 points higher than his career mark? The same type of questions can be asked about Justin Morneau, Jason Tyner and Jason Bartlett.

All of this goes to show that the problem with Piranhas as predators is that it takes the entire school to strip all the meat off. If only one or two are biting, then they only inflict flesh wounds. And if the Twins’ Piranhas aren’t able to duplicate their 2006 averages, then the little bites that they do take out of opposing pitchers will be too infrequent to do any real damage. At that point, the offense will go from “inconsistent” to “awful”, if those bites are infrequent enough. If you have any trouble remembering what that’s like, just think back to 2005, when the Twins were last in Isolated Power, 23^rd in average and 25^th in average. And then start praying that all the Piranhas continue biting.

Sweepish in Seattle

Have you ever noticed what fantastic wallpaper Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven make, not to mention cohorts Marney Gellner, Ron Coomer, and Anthony LaPanta? They'll go through a game running through inside jokes, rambling about random statistics, and showing the odd bout of omniscience -- and very rarely does anything they say make you stop and contemplate. Maybe that's how a baseball game should be, especially one starting at 5:40pm, just about the same time the kids are fussing, dinner is on the stove, and the dog needs a walk.

Thursday's 6-5 win over Seattle was no different. At one point Bert guffawed over how if he was Latin American it would stink because they would review his birth certificate and he would miss a couple of birthdays -- there was a joke about birthday boy Dennys Reyes in there somewhere as well. Later, Dick sounded a bit silly applauding Luis Castillo's brilliance as a leadoff hitter this season -- with 4 walks in 56 plate appearances, a .321 OBP and OPS around .600, I tend not to agree. Finally, Bert and Marney chimed in about Michael Cuddyer struggling to see in right field, only to see him lose one in the sun about six innings later.

But amongst all of that Tom-foolery, a fine telecast of an important Twins' victory, one statistic repeated by each member of the team nearly got by me... and then, once I thought about it, the fact shocked me as much as any I had heard in awhile:

This three game sweep by Minnesota at Seattle was the first since 1996.

Like I said, not much to think about except... 1996? This 1996? Go ahead and think back 11 years, if you dared to even flip on channel nine and watch Twins' games at that point. We're talking Jeff Reboulet, Rich Becker and the lovely Scott Stahoviak, people. It frankly shocked the system to think that team swept anyone on the road. But the Mariners? We're talking about a defending AL West Champion team in 1996 that had four probable HALL OF FAMERS on it -- Griffey, A-Rod, the Big Unit, and Edgar Martinez.

So, how exactly did that happen (besides being in the middle of a six-game M's losing streak that all but killed their hopes for a repeat division title)? Wouldn't it be fun to find out?

Well, in game one, on August 9, the 55-59 Twins were coming off of a three game sweep of the California Angels (break up those '96 Twins!) in Anah... erm... Los Ang... at Angels' Stadium. The Twins sent Scott Aldred to the mound against Bob Wolcott (like I said, noooooo one was watching this one). Despite Griffey, Jr. hitting a two run shot before the second out of the game was even recorded, the Twins rallied for six in the fourth off of RBI hits from Gregg Myers and Marty Cordova and a three run home run from Pat Meares. Bizarrely, the last pitcher for each team, Randy Johnson for the Mariners and Frankie Rodriguez for the Twins, were career starters to that point -- Rodriguez even earned a save in the 6-5 Twins' win, his first in a season where he started 33 games. Even more bizarrely? The box score shows the weather as 68 degrees with a two MPH wind blowing "out to centerfield." The game was in the Kingdome.

The next day the Twins won 10-4 in a complete laugher. Scott Klingenbeck went 5 2/3 for the Twins' win, while the home team roughed up Sterling Hitchcock for six runs in three innings. All told, Tom Kelly's squad raked 18 hits, including four more from Pat Meares and three each from erstwhile heroes Dave Hollins and Matt Walbeck... what a squad!

Finally, in the Sunday finale, the Twins got a virtuoso pitching performance from Brad Radke. He went eight complete, scattering eight hits for three runs in true Radke fashion... not so common for Brad, he struck out eight batters, including Alex Rodriguez three times! Maybe he should've saved it for the 2003 & 2004 playoffs. Oh well. The Twins won the game 6-3, with Marty Cordova driving in a pair and Frankie Rodriguez getting his second and last save not only of the series, but of his Twins' career. He would go on to pitch 206+ innings that season -- go figure.

So, the next time Bert and Dick try to slip a little factoid past -- give yourself a chance to reminisce... or better yet, do a little internet research and pull up some memories you didn't even know you had. If the result is anything like it was for me, you'll never be more thankful that you're a fan of this proud 2007 Twins' team and the largest collection of "superstars" the franchise has likely ever boasted. Sorry, Coom-Dog.

Cory Caouette is a lawyer living in San Diego who frequently ignores his 10-month old daughter when Johan is pitching.

Music To Whose Ears?

I learned something last week that read like a baseball epiphany - "The Humpty Dance" does not improve your eye at the plate. Reading about Michael Cuddyer's switcheroo on his plate entrance music got me thinking about the countless other rejected songs over the years by stars and, more likely, platoon players looking for the right tune to propel them to stardom. Surprisingly, I'm not the only one who has wasted more than a nanosecond on this subject. ESPN's now defunct Page 3 actually investigated this topic in 2004, unearthing a plethora of batter's box beats from each team's sound crew. Particularly enlightening is the fact that Manny Ramirez changes his music daily and even during the game.

If baseball is truly about the fans, couldn’t the fans have a say in the music that’s piped into their ears every at-bat and pitching change? This strikes me as an untapped realm of the fan experience, a gimmick that may hold the key to filling the outfield stands at a Marlins game. What if we, the people, got to choose the 5 second ditties that amused us as a batter strolled into the batter’s box? Civic pride would swell as fans formed a new musical bond with their players. To that end, Ricky, my Twins-partner-in-fandom-since-birth, assisted me in brainstorming the most appropriate entrance music for your 2007 Minnesota Twins. Of course, these are subject to change once a player endures a slump.

Johan Santana: “You’re the Best” – Joe Esposito. Just as Danny LaRusso was the best around, so to is Johan with his crane-kick changeup and sweep the leg fastball.

Joe Mauer: “Betcha By Golly Wow” – Prince. Ricky sums it up best. “Not only is Prince a fellow Minnesotan, but Joe's the kind of guy who would say 'betcha by golly wow’ to describe his inevitable 40-game hitting streak.”

Justin Morneau: He's the reigning MVP, so maybe he gets to pick his own song, but a strong recommendation would be “Canada’s Really Big” – The Arrogant Worms. To quote from the song, “So stand up and be proud and sing out very loud / We stand out from the crowd cuz Canada's really big.”

Torii Hunter: “Spydermann” – Another Bad Creation. A blast from the past from the East Coast Family to remind us of our superhero prowling centerfield.

Francisco Liriano: “I’ve Got My Finger Crossed” – Louis Armstrong. Armstrong speaks for every Twins fan hoping and praying Liriano dominates again.

Joe Nathan: “Closing Time” – Semisonic. There’s plenty that would work here, but this seemed most apropos.

Michael Cuddyer: “Breaking Out” – Santana. Clearly his potential is catching up with him. Just sit back and enjoy the show.

Matt Garza: “Patience” – Guns N Roses. ‘Nuff said.

Boof Bonser: “Boof Baf” – Fugees. You don’t find too many people named Boof and you don’t find too many songs named after him. Symbiosis at its finest. I’d even recommend the song.

Ramon Ortiz: “Steal My Sunshine” – Len. All signs point to Baby Pedro being a Free Agent steal.

Carlos Silva: “Sadeness (Pt. 1)” – Enigma. The one with the creepy monks chanting over electronic beats. Hopefully it’s an incantation that cures Silva’s inconsistency once and for all.

Sidney Ponson: “Mr. Big Stuff” – Jean Knight. A tasteless, yet easy and fun jab at Sidney’s weight issues.

Jesse Crain: “Insane in the Membrane” – Cypress Hill. Just to scream at the chorus “Insane in the Crain!” Could spark a new line of parking lot t-shirts.

Pat Neshek: “Yellow Submarine” – Beatles. A nod to his unique delivery.

Glen Perkins: “Home Sweet Home” – Motley Crüe. A shout out to the hometown boy.

Juan Rincon: “Escapar” – Enrique Iglesias. A Latin tune for all the jams he extricates the team from.

Matt Guerrier: “Que Onda Guero” – Beck. Guero and Guerrier appear to share a word derivation. Plus it’s a good song.

Dennys Reyes: “Lefty” – Pushmonkey. It’s got a high rock intensity that our reliable lefty reliever would thrive on.

Mike Redmond: “Dance Naked” – John Mellencamp. His proclivity for batting practice in the buff suggests he performs a dance routine in the clubhouse as well. The inside joke would certainly bust up players in the dugout every Redmond at-bat.

Jason Bartlett: “Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year” – Fall Out Boy. Yeah, yeah, he’s technically in his 3^rd season, but you get the idea. The sooner that question is answered, the better.

Nick Punto: “My Shorty” – Aaron Carter. Not to describe Nick’s significant other, but his relative small stature. And the chorus resonates with his overall effect on the team as a glue guy.

Luis Rodriguez: “Hot Hot Hot” – Buster Poindexter. I don’t know why, but this sounds like a song Luis might actually pick on his own.

Jason Kubel: “Hell’s Bells” – AC/DC. The obvious association coupled with the requirement that AC/DC be incorporated into every American sporting event in some fashion. Trevor Hoffman shouldn’t have exclusive use of this one.

Jason Tyner: “Chariots of Fire” – Vangelis. As inspiration to hit that first homer.

Rondell White: “Remember the Time” – Michael Jackson. Sing with me – “Do you remember the time? / He used to hit .300. Do you remember the time? / He used to have a power stroke.”

Jeff Cirillo: “Ramblin’ Man” – Allman Brothers. A journeyman’s song. I suppose any Journey song would work just as well here. In fact, I’m vetoing myself in favor of “Any Way You Want It.” Yeah, I feel better about this.

Glenn Williams: “Down Under” – Men at Work. A no-brainer for everyone’s favorite Aussie.

Lew Ford: “Like A Rock” – Bob Seger. Though he’s not build Ford tough these days, I still buy Lew’s product.

Scott Baker: “Lost in the Shuffle” – Charlie Wood. His career’s theme music.

Alejandro Machado: “5-second Rule” – Funky Mama. Yes it’s a children’s song. No, not by Raffi. But it connects his Rule 5 status with the idea that if the Twins don’t want Machado, let him go. He’s been “on the ground” for 378,000,000 seconds and counting.

For whatever reason, nothing sprang to mind for the Dominican infield duo of Casilla and Castillo, though just saying their names like that just now triggered Menudo for some reason. (Now this has truly crossed some of my wires upstairs). If you have better suggestions, let's hear them. For now, I'm going to memorize the lyrics to "Boof Baf."

T'd Out

A short post today; I’ve done precious little in the way of baseball-watching lately, which hopefully will change soon. I did want to take a moment to comment on the saga of Joey Crawford. He's the NBA ref who recently ejected Tim Duncan for laughing on the bench, and is now suspended for at least the rest of the season (and, according to this pay-only Marc Stein ESPN report, may be gone for good).

Aside from finding it a bit funny, I can't figure out exactly how to feel here. The ejection was absurd, no doubt. And Crawford isn't helping his cause after the fact, either. But I'm having a hard time getting from there to "this guy should lose his job."

NBA officiating has a serious image problem, no doubt. David Stern is obviously making an example out of Crawford. But I think this hurts more than it helps. The attention paid to the officials in the playoffs will be suffocating (especially if Wade starts taking more trips to the line than the entire other team again). But then on the other hand, this also makes it seem like the NBA takes seriously its commitment to good officiating.

At least, kind of. I mean, this was a pretty meaningless end-of-season contest we're talking about here. The ejection didn't cost the Spurs much of anything. And I get the sense that this is a strange issue to hold up as an example of NBA officiating. There are so many other instances of bad officiating (that actually meaningfully affected important games) that this seems minor.

Firing Crawford doesn't fix the NBA's officiating problem, and I'm worried that instead of casting light on the issue this will only serve to muddy the waters.

Jason Tyner: Starting the next fan movement

Twins fans are known for supporting their beloved players even when they are on the DL; even when they are in a nasty slump; even when they make errors; even when they are Sidney Ponson. I’m not one for making predictions or driving a bandwagon, but if there’s a player whose cause is worthy of support and encouragement, I can find none better than Jason Tyner and his bid to achieve his first major league homerun.

On the field, Tyner looks like a rookie anticipating such a defining moment with wide-eyed childish amazement. Maybe that’s because the 6’ 1” native Texan looks like a 12-year-old 30-year-old. But Tyner’s been around, and he’s been pregnant with this homerun for nearly 10 years. The small but important, way over-due homer is poised to burst from his bat and soul and cause his daughter to ask, “Mommy, where do homeruns come from?”

Tyner made his major league debut with the Mets in June of 2000. Less than a year later he was an outfielder with the Devil Rays, collecting a career best 31 stolen bases. After nearly three years with the Rays, waivers, free agency and fateful winds of change brought him to the Rangers, Braves and Indians, where little kid-man Tyner was terrified of C.C. Sabathia mistaking his slim arm for a chicken wing and dousing it with barbeque sauce after a game. (Not wanting to give another giant pitcher any more ideas, Tyner currently does his best to avoid all condiments that Sidney Ponson has a palette for.)

So the Twins, displaying their unwavering faith in the little guys as per usual, signed Tyner in late 2004 to increase their outfield depth after the imminent departure of Jacque Jones. In 2004, Tyner did hit his first “professional” homerun in triple-A, which came after 2,632 homer-less at bats throughout high school, college and six years of floating in between the minor and major leagues. But what’s a homerun if it’s not knocked out of a major league ball park?

This April 23, Jason Tyner will turn 30-years-old and will have spent nearly 10 years as a professional baseball player. His homer-less streak is now at 1,068 at bats, the most of any active player.

Now the Twins can use a homerun whenever and however they can get it. Last Saturday, Tyner was inches away from contributing his first homer to the offensive harassment the Twins laid on his former team in a 12-5 win. It was so close even Sports Center made note of it and did a zoom-in, slow motion shot of the ball hitting that pesky baggie of ours.

The Twins kidded with him back in the dugout and clubhouse. Fellow piranha Nick Punto even gave him a heartfelt wedgie, which was promptly followed by a Bartlett nuggie. And crass Mike Redmond playfully stole Tyner’s snack money he was saving for the florescent orange crackers-and-cheese sandwich pack from the vending machine.

Twins fans get behind players struggling to officially achieve what they deserve. In recent years, we have seen the Liberate Santana (from the bullpen) movement, which has since evolved into the Free Matt Garza (from the minors) movement. The 2004 election brought about the exciting Nathan/Santana presidential ticket. Last year, fans displayed T-shirts and signs reading “Morneau for MVP,” “Mauer for Mayor” and “Santana for King of the Universe.” And retired pitcher Bert Blyleven has a continually growing support base for his Hall of Fame bid.

By June, if Tyner hasn’t gone yard, and history shows he probably won’t, I want a movement to roll through Twins Territory that’s fierce enough to get every fan on their feet when Tyner is at the plate. If we can celebrate an over-paid, over-hyped, medicated, chunky behemoth breaking the homerun record, we can surely be excited for a cheaper, fresher, much slimmer and lesser-known kid-man to hit his first homerun. I'll be spending my Sunday afternoon crafting my “1 is more impressive than 756” or “Piranhas can hit homeruns, too” sign for the next home stand.

Jason Tyner Notables:

• Holds the Texas A&M school record for stolen bases AND hits
• Named Texas High School Athlete of the Year
• Member of the 1997 United States National Team
• Hit a single in his first major league at bat off of then-Baltimore Orioles pitcher Mike Mussina
• Helps run Southeast Texas Baseball Academy, which provides baseball programs for kids

Jason Tyner Fun Fact:
His middle name is Renyt – Tyner spelled backwards. A palindrome. What's that about?

And you thought your taxes were complicated. . . .

I spent the better part o this Sunday participating in the mid-April classic: tax time. Watching the Twins’ game through my stack of W-2s, 1040s, and M1PRs I wondered if the real reason Joe Mauer was out of the line-up was because he was desperately trying to get his return in on time. This made me wonder- how do baseball players pay state taxes if they spend some much time playing in other states?

As it turns out, baseball players state taxes are exceedingly complicated. Because players earn income based on each game they are scheduled to play, both home and away teams are taxed in the state that the game is played in. This means each player has to file taxes in each state they play in!

In Minnesota, the taxation system follows a tax credit scheme that was brought forth in the early 90s. Under this system, both home and visiting teams have to pay taxes to the state of Minnesota. The taxation of the visiting athletes began relatively recently in California in the early 90s and is now policy in 14 of the 17 states that have MLB teams. This is often referred to as the “jock tax,” this name is a bit of a misnomer because the tax system applies to all workers earning income while performing services in other states. It is generally only enforced in high income and high profile cases such as athletes and entertainers –hence the nickname. Historically, Minnesota has particularly benefited from this so-called “jock tax” because the Twins payroll has been considerably lower than the league averages, meaning home games bring in more money then away games pay out.

Further complicating this tax system is the way in which it is implemented. All of the Twins are taxed in Minnesota (7.85%, the highest rate due to their large salaries) for each game they play both home and away. However, when they are playing an away game they are also taxed by the sate in which they are playing (if that state has an income tax). To account for this, Minnesota gives the Twins players a credit for the taxes they pay in other states. Since Minnesota has the second highest income tax of all states with baseball teams, the only time the Twins players end up with an actual credit is when they play in California (tax rate 9.3%). Visiting players are taxed here by Minnesota's rate and are, in turn, credited by their own states.

With all of these complications, I’m fairly certain that TurboTax doesn’t make a professional athlete edition. Fortunately, with an average salary over three million a year, baseball players can afford to hire an accountant. Despite my comparatively minuscule salary, learning about baseball players’ tax time woes makes me appreciate the relative simplicity of my own.

I am not an accountant and I know little to nothing about taxes other than what my tax software tells me- information for this post was gleamed from:

Aiuppa, Haupert and Sheroney, NINE journal, vol. 12. 1. 2003

Hoffman and Hodge, Tax Foundation Special Report, 130, 2004

USA Today Baseball Salaries list- http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/

Finding the Meaning of Jackie

I once heard William C. Rhoden, esteemed New York Times columnist and frequent ESPN SportsReporters panelist, describe the remembrance of Jackie Robinson in the 21st Century as aloof and impersonal. As a thirty-something product of the white middle-class Twin Cities’ suburbs, I cannot help but believe that I represent the demographic that Rhoden indirectly and surely unintentionally indicted by that statement. It has, after all, been sixty years since Robinson carried what has been described as the nearly unbearable burden of breaking baseball’s color barrier. I’m not sure there is anything which occurred more than 25 years before my birth that I can fully appreciate – from something as monumental as universal suffrage, or as horrific as Hitler and the Holocaust, to the equally unspeakable annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 – I just don’t have the context.

Now, to be fair, Rhoden didn’t experience Jackie’s first at-bat either, but the very personal nature of what he did experience he illuminates brilliantly in his 2006 book Forty Million Dollar Slaves:

In [the 1950’s], when black faces were few and far between, we cheered for the color of the skin. We had some variations to the general rule: If the team was from the South and had just one Brother, his team was our team; he was our man. Didn't matter who the athlete was underneath his uniform or his skin--his true character was less significant than his presence. Out there on the field, he became the torchbearer for the race. Content of character mattered only to the extent that we prayed these pioneers wouldn't embarrass The Race.

God knows I’ve never been the torchbearer for anything, and never will. Even if I was, it wouldn’t be for an entire race, especially one whose utter isolation and invisibility in much of post-war America made your presence on such a hallowed stage as a Major League baseball field so shocking and conspicuous, not to mention inflammatory and provocative for all the wrong reasons. How truly naked must Jackie Robinson felt integrating baseball some eight years before Rosa Parks stood her ground, or how alone must Larry Doby have felt 16 years before Dr. King's "I Had a Dream" speech, or Dan Bankhead, the first black pitcher (now THAT is isolation), or Minnie Miñoso, the first black player who also happened to be Cuban.

April 15 is more than just tax day – it’s also 60 years to the day after Jackie Robinson’s appearance as the first black player in the modern Major Leagues. Maybe it’s the overwhelming media attention the anniversary is receiving, maybe it’s a realization that sports (and entertainment, generally) was ahead of the curve on integrating our country, or maybe it’s my own version of that ugly white guilt taking Rhoden’s statement to heart – whichever the reason, I’m suddenly inspired to explore who these men were, using their stories it to learn about myself, how far we’ve come as a nation, and, quite possibly how far we still have to go.

So, bear with me over the baseball season as I hope to publicly air the stories of some of these brave men and what I have learned from them. If it’s more on Jackie you want, I trust there are numerous resources available to you (in fact, I’ve included a short bibliography at the end). For me, I cannot help but think that each new player in each new city bore a very similar burden – dampened with time, yes, but still judged publicly solely because of race.

As a lifelong fan of the Twins’ franchise, I think I’d like to start there. The “first in peace, first in war, and last in the American League” Washington Senators fill the Twins’ record books with some brilliant names, from Walter Johnson (417 career wins paired with a 2.17 ERA and zero home losses to the Devil Rays), to Goose Goslin (hitting .300 and driving in 100+ runs 11 times each), to “boy manager” Bucky Harris who led the team to the 1924 World Series as manager and player. With all that history, though, and I’m happy to say that as a Washington area resident for nearly a decade and half I am well versed in much of it, I am ashamed to say I had not a clue whom the Twins/Senators first black player was. A quick internet search will tell you his name was Carlos Paula, one in a long line of famous Twins/Senators’ Cuban players. A visit back to Gameday in the middle of next month will hopefully tell you more about him and our fine team’s history.

Suggested reading:
Frommer, Harvey. Jackie Robinson. New York: Franklin Watts, 1984.
Harris, Mark. Where've You Gone, Jackie Robinson? Nation 260 (15 May 1995): 674.
Rampersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1997.
Robinson, Jackie. Baseball Has Done It. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1964.

Mind Games

I saw not a single pitch of last night’s Twins/Devil Rays game. This shouldn’t surprise me; I have a knack for missing particularly exciting moments. (I remember quite well ducking out for a quick trip to the little boy’s room that exactly coincided with Mark McGwire’s sixty-second home rum, for example.) In some ways, though, picking up the pieces of a game can be nearly as enjoyable.

The first thing that one usually learns is the score. Or, even earlier, simply who won/lost. Then, possibly someone in the room will know the score (or, at least vaguely remember that it might have been a two-run game, maybe). On the surface, this may seem to rob any and all suspense. Quite to the contrary. Knowing only the outcome, with no clue as to what led to the finish, allows for a fantastic use of the imagination.

For example, when I learned the final score of last night’s game (3-2), I instantly assumed a close, exciting game. It’s possible that the contest was indeed drab and uninteresting, but that possibility is eliminated by not having actually seen the game. I was able to make the game into anything I wanted, which happened to be a thrilling, down-to-the-wire affair. Never mind that that’s apparently what happened. I was protected against monotony.

Inferences about specific players come next. I assumed that Carlos Silva must have pitched brilliantly, only because that is the outcome that would please me the most and I was free to assume it. Sitting at this keyboard with the benefit of box scores, I can see that Silva threw six and two-thirds innings of shutout ball. Four strikeouts seem about right for Carlos, and I can imagine the ball cutting back out over the plate to freeze some unsuspecting left-handed hitter. Tasty. Again, it’s entirely possible that the Rays were smashing the ball right at outfielders all night, and that Silva was just lucky. But I don’t have to worry about that; last night, for all I know (which is generally very little) we had Vintage Silva.

Offense is tougher to mentally project; there are an infinite number of pleasing ways for the Twins to score three runs to win a game (the corollary of which is that there is an equally infinite number of excruciating ways for them to do so in a losing effort). So for the runs, I turned to the highlights on the TVs in the Big Ten. (I even got the added pleasure of seeing a nifty play by Iwamura at third; that’s something I never would have bothered to mentally create.)

The pieces start to fit together like a simile that doesn’t mention puzzle pieces, Legos, or Tinker Toys. Cuddyer’s home run is just as perfect as I could have hoped for. I personally would have left out the part where Rincon gets touched (as an aside, his decline genuinely terrifies me), but I suppose you can’t have everything. And the game got its thrilling conclusion thanks to Curly.

I couldn’t have planned it any better.

John Sharkey does actually occasionally attempt to watch games at aodshark@gmail.com.

Ducking the Issue

(more hockey analysis you didn’t ask for)

by Sam Bergman

Star Tribune hockey writer Michael Russo could hardly have been more unequivocal in his assessment of the Wild’s performance in Game 1 of their quarterfinal series against Anaheim. The Ducks controlled nearly every facet of the game, wrote Russo, and only the standout performance of netminder Niklas Backstrom prevented a far more lopsided score than the actual 2-1 final. The defense was shoddy, the forecheck nearly nonexistent, and the Minnesotans were generally manhandled by a superior Anaheim squad that had clearly come into the playoffs loaded for bear.

So it was odd to scour the comments section of Russo’s blog at StarTribune.com (which many local puckheads have taken to using as a place to congregate and chat during the games) on Thursday morning and see that a hefty percentage of the beat writer’s online audience had an entirely different assessment of Game 1. No one thought that the Wild had outplayed the Ducks, exactly, and there were certainly no excuses being made for a defensive corps that allowed a whopping six Anaheim breakaways, one of which led to Teemu Selanne’s tying goal in the second period.

But nearly everyone agreed that Anaheim’s go-ahead goal in the third period was a fluke, a garbage goal which perhaps shouldn’t even have been allowed, since Backstrom (flailing backwards as teammate Kim Johnsson crashed into him) had covered the puck with his right leg a good two seconds before Dustin Penner jammed it out from under him and into the net. Also finding consensus was the fact that the Wild, while lacking the physical presence of a Scott Niedermeyer or Chris Pronger, nonetheless showed a willingness to play the tough, Canadian-style game that Head Coach Jacques Lemaire is forever asking for. Basically, where Russo seemed to see a clear Wild loss, many fans saw an Anaheim win. It’s a subtle difference, but it says much about where the series might go from here.

The first issue to be considered is that of expectation vs. reality. By any objective analysis, the Ducks are a clear favorite in the series. Anaheim won a very tough division by three points, holding off not only Dallas’s veteran squad, but also a San Jose Sharks team that many have picked to win it all. They have two of the best physical defensemen in the game, two above-average goaltenders, a probable future Hall of Fame forward in Teemu Selanne, and a wealth of playoff experience which includes a trip to the Cup Finals back in 2003, the same year the Wild made their own stunning playoff run.

The 2006-07 Wild, by contrast, are largely untested in the playoffs, and are widely considered to be an occasionally dangerous team which must be clicking on all cylinders in order to run with the big boys. Minnesota’s month-long hot streak to end the season was a nice story, but in the last several weeks, it was reported that the Ducks were actually hoping to face Minnesota in the first round, believing that it would be all too easy to muscle scorers like Marion Gaborik and Mikko Koivu off the puck, and overpower a Wild defense that, despite flashes of solidity, had a maddening regular season habit of failing to backcheck and turning the puck over in front of the net.

In other words, playing at home in front of a full house (a luxury Anaheim rarely enjoys during the regular season,) the Ducks should have won Game 1 of this series. And they did. So why all the gloom and doom from the beat writer about the loss? After all, for Minnesota to have hoped for more than a split at Honda Center would have been plain greedy, right?

Well, maybe. But the real reason for Russo’s decidedly negative tone probably had to do with the fact that the game just looked so damned winnable! With starting goaltender J.S. Giguere held out of the lineup after spending a week attending to the health of his infant son, the Wild missed a golden opportunity to pepper (admittedly capable) backup Ilya Bryzgalov with pucks. The standard prescription in this circumstance is for a defenseman to throw the puck in the general direction of the goal, and count on his teammates, who should be crashing in on the goalie, to make deflections or bang away at rebounds until the biscuit winds up in the basket. This is harder than it sounds, especially these days, when shot-blocking by defensemen and even some forwards has become a league-wide obsession, rather than the specialized deathwish it used to be.

But the Wild never even seemed to consider such an approach with Bryzgalov, or more accurately, they only seemed to consider half of it. Plenty of pucks were thrown towards the front of the net, especially in the second period – the problem was that there never seemed to be anyone in a white sweater around to do anything with them. This has been a Wild bugaboo for years, now: the lack of any sort of physical approach down low, a dearth of forwards willing to endure the physical abuse one inevitably invites when parking oneself in front of the opposing goal.

Strangely, this is exactly the problem that many of the team’s offseason and in-season acquisitions were supposed to address. Hometown boy Mark Parrish was signed to be a big, tough, fearless presence who loved to crash the net and rack up the garbage goals. Adam Hall and Dominic Moore (both healthy scratches in Game 1, as Lemaire chose to play enforcer Derek Boogaard, who has been working hard in recent weeks to prove that he’s more than just a devastating right cross) were supposed to add yet more physicality. And still, where teams like Anaheim and Calgary never seem not to have a huge man with a stick camped out in front of the opposing goal, the most the Wild have been able to muster on most nights is a winger flying in towards the net at the last second to take a desperation pass from the corner that may or may not come.

It’s a strange business, this lack of offensive toughness. Most observers, when asked the reason behind it, tend to say that Minnesota simply doesn’t have the right personnel for such an approach. The team’s top scoring threats, Gaborik and Demitra, specialize in high-speed breakaways and opportunistic rushes up-ice that result in goals before the opposition can collect itself to give proper chase. The much-vaunted White-Bouchard-Rolston line likes to spend a lot of time stick-handling around the defense and then hoping that yet another Rolston slapshot from somewhere near the blue line will find the back of the net.

But there may be more to it than just personnel. Lemaire is well-known to favor a system in which the center spends a great deal of time acting almost as a third defenseman, so as to guard against odd-man rushes the other way. In some circumstances, this means that the man who would normally be expected to crash the net is instead sitting back by the blue line, as instructed. (It should be noted that I am not nearly enough of a hockey expert to know how often this is actually a factor. I’ve been asking every hockey expert I can get my hands on about it, and have thus far received inconclusive answers.) In that sense, Lemaire’s many critics in Canada may be indirectly right when they say that he only wants to prevent goals, not score them.

In any case, one thing is clear as the Wild lick their wounds and regroup for Game 2. To paraphrase Denny Green, the Ducks are who everyone thought they were. And in Game 1, the Wild appear to have been exactly who the Ducks thought they were. If a repeat of the Wild’s 2003 playoff run is to have any chance of happening, that will have to change, and fast.

Heintz Down, Perkins Up...Big Move?

The Minnesota Twins made a roster move after last night's 5-1 victory over the New York Yankees. They sent down third catcher Chris Heintz and called up Glen Perkins. Perkins will work out of the pen, and may not be with the big league club for more than a week or so unless someone like Ponson decides to skip a start or two for the local Chinese buffet.

This may not seem as one of those "key" moves that an organization makes, but I think it's a lot bigger than many people may think. First off, it offers the Twins more flexibility and depth out of the pen. Perkins is another left hander, and with Reyes not pitching well so far this year. Reyes has given up as many earned runs this year in 5 games as he did in 66 games last year. However, I don't fault Reyes for all of his struggles as I think he's been misused so far this year. He's not this team's "mop up" man, which he seemed to be in Tuesday's 10-1 loss to New York. I think the struggles of Reyes had a lot to do with Perkins being called up rather than a guy like Matt Garza.

The reason why I feel as though Garza wasn't recalled is because I think this organization feels a lot more comfortable with Perkins coming out of the pen than they do Garza. Garza is essentially this team's 6th starter. If anyone falters, or if Ponson continues to struggle, Garza is probably the man that will replace him. However, that doesn't mean that Perkins isn't right there with Garza in that respect. In my opinion, Garza is "6a" on the pitching depth chart, with Perkins being "6b."

Also, another aspect that may have impacted the decision is comparing their two starts at Rochester respectively. While Garza didn't allow an earned run in his first start, he still walked five batters while striking out 3. Compare that to Perkins and his 6 brilliant innings, I think it made the choice a little easier in that aspect also.

However, the biggest impact that this roster move may have on this team is that Jason Kubel may actually start becoming an everyday player for this organization. Gardenhire loves playing matchups, but there is no reason why a guy like Kubel, who hit well in spring training and showed the dedication during the offseason to become a better player, shouldn't be playing everyday for this team. Kubel hit .343/.398/.560 in 350 AB's at Rochester in 2004 before injuring his knee that fall. It's obvious that the kid can hit, and it's just a matter of his manager staying behind him and remaining confident in him.

The reason why the demotion of Heintz being sent down is so crucial in this scenario is that Gardy now cannot DH Mike Redmond when Joe Mauer is behind the plate. Gardy no longer has the flexibility of playing both of those guys at the same time now that Heintz has been sent down. It's either play one or the other, or rely on someone like Justin Morneau to be your emergency catcher. Yikes!

That should, hopefully, open up the way for Jason Kubel to either be the Twins everyday DH or LF'er, depending on how Gardy feels on that given day. Kubel's a better hitter than Redmond, Tyner, & Rabe, who are his main competitors for those two spots. It's just up to Gardy and Co. to realize that, and allow Jason Kubel to take off like we all expected him to before he severely injured his knee.

Agent -1

We live in Gilbert-less times; let the gnashing of teeth commence, all ye who enter here. Indeed, he who is known as Agent Zero has gone down, and we are left with dark times ahead. When I first heard that Gilbert Arenas had injured his knee, my first reaction was slightly curious: I felt cheated somehow. Gilbert would not be gracing this year’s playoffs with his presence, and I cursed the fates at this fact. It was as if some glorious possible future had been snatched away before it even had the chance to succeed or fail on its own merits.

I was looking forward to watching the Wizards trying to pull something silly in the Eastern Conference. Now, with his injury, I realized exactly what I was wanting: not to see the Wizards succeed, but to see them succeed in a specific context: with Arenas at the helm. With that chance evaporated, I couldn’t care less if the Wizards continued to exist at all.

I had constructed elaborate fantasies involving a rematch with LeBron’s Cleveland squad, or a shoot-out with a now-healthy Dwyane Wade, and a Herculean effort to overcome the Pistons. But, no more.

This same attitude explains my infatuation with young players (paging Chris Young; Chris Young, please pick up the white courtesy phone). It explains pre-season predictions, six hours of draft coverage, and Kevin Durant: when something hasn’t happened yet, it can’t go wrong. We’re free to invent whatever ideal reality we want, and to hold on to it for dear life.

Sadly, reality has a way of mucking these things up. The painful flipside of these wonderful fantasies is that they almost invariably fail. The gyroball doesn’t revolutionize baseball, and Michael Vick is a crummy quarterback. Damn.

We are then left with two choices: disappointment, or living totally in the present. Neither of these is particularly inviting. The reasons for the former’s distasteful nature are clear enough; and living completely in the moment robs us of any sense of the past or hope for the future. One of the most fool-proof ways to combat current disappointment is to invent the next fantasy and to cling to that one. But then we remain trapped in the same cycle of dashed hopes.

The key, then, is not to abandon these hopes. But when they don’t pan out, we must then look for the remaining good in the current situation. Gilbert may be on crutches, but LeBron is playing hard and Wade is healthy. Entertainment can still be had.

Now, if Carmelo and Iverson can mesh just in time...

LInks for 4/9

After spending a good bit of time trying to come up with a coherent theme for this week’s version of the links, I’ve finally given up. Sometimes, when the internet produces a lot of good stuff, you’ve got to let it speak for itself. And other times, you have to squash it because it’s “annoying”. So, without further ado, the quick links for this week:

• Sunday marks the 60^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier in 1947. Ken Griffey, Jr. came up with the idea of wearing 42 to honor Robinson, an idea that was quickly picked up on by other African American players and coaches, including Torii Hunter, Rondell White and Jerry White. Sadly, when Torii and others talk about how some players just don’t understand the history, they aren’t exaggerating.
  
  For those who understand the importance of what Jackie Robinson did, the anniversary has sparked conversation about the rapid decline in the number of African Americans in the Majors, whether it’s on the field, in the dugout or in the front office. John Heylar of ESPN.com discusses this situation in an intriguing and fair article.
  



• Scott Ullger has not made many friends so far this year. Then again, that’s what happens when you coach third base like you’ve got money on the other team.



• Does Sidney Ponson’s pitching have you dreaming of minor leaguers? Well, then do I have some links for you: First, there’s Roger’s Minor League Report, then there’s a video of pitching prospect Oswaldo Sosa, as well as one of Erik Lis and Eli Tanto at bats (the first two were as the #9 and #15 prospects in the Twins' farm system).



• Howard Sinker in Section 220 wants to know why the Twins took Johan out of the game on Sunday. And why did neither Dick nor Bert discuss it (not that anyone thought they would)? Of course, I'll take Dick 'n' Bert over ESPN any day of the week, what with their announcers inability to mention Torii without talking about his leaving, their excitement over the Twins' "first" World Series Appearance in 1987 and their theory that Jeter didn't win the batting title because of all the times he gave himself up to move over a runner.
  



• Soooo....time for the Matt Garza Era to begin?
  

Switching Positions? No Way.

A lot has been made about Joe Mauer and his future as the Minnesota Twins catcher. Sure, he just signed a four year deal, but that’s not the type of future I am talking about. The type of future that I’m referring to is whether Mauer is going to remain the Twins catcher, or if he’ll eventually be removed from behind the plate and put into a different position.

Mauer injured his knee on April 7^th, had surgery to remove his meniscus on April 8^th, and remained on the disabled list until June 2^nd. Was this a serious injury? You bet. Whenever someone gets their meniscus removed, it’s serious. For those of you not familiar with the role of a meniscus, it disperses friction, or acts as “padding” in between the tibia and femur. So since Mauer doesn’t have a meniscus in his left knee, it does raise a good question whether Mauer will remain behind the plate or not.

If you ask me, I think Mauer will remain the Twins catcher until three things happen…

1) He is no longer a Minnesota Twin.

2) He retires.

3) He can no longer play everyday as a major league catcher, and is therefore forced to be removed from the catcher position.

Notice that I italicized the word forced. I feel as long as Mauer is able to play an average catcher, he’ll remain there. His value, both offensively and defensively, is far too great to be moved to another position. From a financial standpoint, for Mauer, and a baseball standpoint, the Twins and Mauer would be foolish to switch positions unless he absolutely has to.

A popular position that people have talked about Mauer moving to is third base. Could Mauer play an average major league third base? I have no doubt that he could. Mauer is one of those special athletes that have it “all.” He could’ve played division one football, a high level of basketball, heck, he probably could’ve starred on the Bachelor. Have you seen those sideburns? I mean, they’re outrag…never mind, let’s stick to the topic.

Mauer could play third base, first base, outfield, whatever. But that’s really not the point. The point(s) I’m trying to make is that it’s hard to make a position transition, even for a special athlete like Mauer. Mauer has played catcher his entire life. It’s something he’s become, and having him switch positions could have some significant impact on the type of player that Mauer is, or may become.

The other point I’m trying to make is that if Mauer doesn’t need to be moved from behind the plate, why do it? Since Mauer’s removal of the meniscus, he hasn’t had one single recurrence or related injury to the knee. Yes, he just had a stress reaction, but that really has no relevance or relation to the removing of the meniscus. It’s been 3 years since Mauer had his knee worked on, and not one related injury has occurred. Plus, he’s the reigning AL batting champ, and is a career .321 hitter. That’s just icing on the cake as to why the Twins shouldn’t even consider moving Mauer from behind the plate.

Could I be wrong? Sure. Crazier things have happened. Another freak accident here, another incident here and Mauer’s knee could become a major issue. But for now, watching Mauer and knowing that he’s the Twins everyday catcher for at least four more years gives me enough reason to forget the talk about switching positions, well until now, and to just enjoy watching him and his mega hunk appearance.

Pucks in Purgatory

by Sam Bergman

tap… tap tap… this thing on?

Excellent. Ahem… Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to announce that the NHL playoffs will begin later this week.

…I know. You’d think you would have heard something about that, wouldn’t ya? You being a casual hockey fan and all. I mean, no one expects you to follow every little development of the regular season like those of us who live and die with Canada’s game, but still, when the playoffs roll around, well, you’d just expect that someone over at a major TV sports network would feel compelled to let you know about it!

But apparently not. Due in small part to ESPN’s deliberate attempt to bury any league that isn’t carried over its air, and in large part to the NHL’s infuriating incompetence when it comes to electronic media, press relations, and fan accommodation, the post-lockout hockey playoffs arrive in the U.S. with all the fanfare of a crucial Pakistani cricket match. That’s a great shame, because the majority of American sports fans being what they are (which is to say, sheep) this kind of willful ignorance means that a postseason that promises to be the most entertaining in years could fly under the radar of the vast majority of sports fans, even here, in the much-ballyhooed State of Hockey.

(Perhaps you think we are being unfair by branding the mass of American sports fans as “sheep.” Perhaps you have not listened to the Jim Rome Show lately. The reality is that Americans have been so conditioned to regard seriously the bleating of various self-appointed mass media tastemakers that most of us will respond as directed on nearly any subject on which we do not already possess a passionate opinion. See also Rodriguez, Alex and Smith, Anna Nicole.)

So how did we reach this sad state of affairs? It seems pointless even to bother rehashing the lockout, partly because everyone already knows what damage a hockey-free year did to the sport’s popularity south of the 49th parallel, but also because the changes the lockout wrought to hockey’s inner workings should actually work in the sport’s favor eventually, provided NHL Commissioner Gary “Glowing Puck” Bettman doesn’t blow the whole thing up in his own hands first. (He probably will, actually, after which the league owners will show their displeasure by only granting Bettman a 3-year extension and 75% salary bump.)

Many hockey fans like to compare the game’s current state of affairs with baseball’s sorry condition following the cancellation of the ’94 World Series: the National Pasttime was as low as it had ever been, and yet, all it took was persistence, patience, and a monster season from McGwire and Sosa (pre-reality check) to set things back on track. And while it’s awfully tempting to believe that the NHL might follow a similar path in the near future (Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are every bit the offensive force that McGwire and Sosa were, and they have the added benefit of being on the front side of their respective careers, and also of not being ‘roided-up phonies,) there is one very, very big difference between pro baseball in 1995 and pro hockey in 2007. And that difference can be found in the rigid ideology currently guiding the leadership of the NHL.

Say what you will about Bud Selig (and we’ve said much in the past,) but as many mistakes as he has made while running MLB over the years, he has been a master at adjusting to the shifting realities of the American sports/entertainment landscape. Selig, for all his unpleasantries, is a savvy businessman who has proven adept at keeping his owners fat and happy, and the fans by and large just happy enough to avert open revolt. He has advocated for, and imposed, various controversial changes on the game he controls, but he has always been careful to ensure that he had a sizable base of support behind him, not just among the owners, but among the players and the media as well. Given that kind of backing, the diehard fans will usually come around eventually.

Gary Bettman, on the other hand, appears to have taken a cursory look at the NHL back when he was first appointed commissioner, and decided on a single, linear course of action which he has followed like a religion, refusing to deviate even one inch from the course lest someone question his commitment to his own vision. Remember that, in 1993, when Bettman came aboard, Wayne Gretzky was turning Los Angeles into a bona fide hockey town, Mario Lemieux was revitalizing one of the league’s moribund but vital markets (Pittsburgh,) and the game was finally beginning to get regular national exposure on American TV, courtesy of ESPN.

Bettman's strategy, then, involved rapid and extensive expansion to the larger cities in the American south, while simultaneously abandoning as many undersized markets as could be arranged, with the overall objective of putting as much quick cash as possible into the pockets of the league’s owners. In the fifteen years since, this plan has become the NHL’s Iraq policy, a woefully misguided (if originally well-intended) ideological line in the sand from which the commissioner refuses to back away even as the league shudders around him and fans in two countries beg him to recalibrate.

Point out the clear wrongheadedness of placing teams no one asked for in Tampa Bay, Phoenix, Raleigh, and Sunrise, Florida (Sunrise, for the love of God!) while allowing hockey-mad markets like Winnipeg, Quebec, and Minnesota to languish without teams, and you’ll get a regurgitated speech on how much better things are going in Raleigh these days. (Winning a fluky Cup does tend to boost one’s attendance figures for a year or so, yes, before everyone goes back to caring only about NASCAR and football.) Inquire into the wisdom of abandoning the unprecedented national reach of the sports juggernaut that is ESPN for an outlying cable channel that offered you a couple of extra million dollars, and you’ll get back a fascinating theory about the benefits of partnering with a channel that is truly devoted to your sport and only your sport. Which immediately begs the question: if a tree falls six miles away from a forest and makes no sound, does it matter to anyone in the forest how devoted the ferns growing at the tree’s base were to the tree?

There is certainly method to Bettman’s madness. He and those who follow his lead believe, correctly, that a league that caters only to its diehard base while ignoring the masses of casual fans who need some extra prodding to take an interest is a losing strategy. This is something baseball has understood for decades, and it’s the core reason behind such “improvements” as the designated hitter, the wild card system, and the absurd nationwide hyping of the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry.

But whereas baseball has usually eased into such changes, proclaiming every new innovation a “trial” while keeping one eye sharply cocked towards the core fan base, Bettman’s NHL has essentially told an entire nation, Canada, to shut up and be thankful they still have a few teams. It has told fans in southern New England that the Boston Bruins are quite enough team for the entire hockey-mad region, then allowed one of the worst owners in sports to run the once-proud franchise into the ground. It has manipulated attendance figures of its underperforming new teams throughout the Sun Belt, and then when called on the distortions, pointed to similarly slumping attendance in Original Six markets like Chicago, while conveniently ignoring the obvious truth that the Blackhawks are run by an owner so addled and out of touch that he doesn’t allow his team’s home games to be broadcast because he believes that TV holds down attendance! In short, Commissioner Bettman will not be moved from his absurd script by any reality, not even when his devotion to ideological purity is threatening to sink the sport he professes to care about.

This isn’t the article I intended to write when I sat down at the keyboard a few hours ago. I wanted to talk about the Pittsburgh Penguins’ miraculous resurrection at the hands of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. I wanted to zero in on the fascinating first-round playoff matchup of San Jose and Nashville, which will end with one of the three best teams in all of hockey being eliminated before the end of April. I wanted to touch on the Hollywood-couldn’t-have-scripted-it-any-better rise of Niklas Backstrom, the Minnesota goaltender who could well prove to be this year’s out-of-nowhere playoff hero. I planned to dwell at length on a Western Conference so loaded down with talent that only a single playoff team failed to reach the 100-point plateau.

But you know what? I already know all about that stuff, and so do all the other hockey diehards in Minnesota. A playoff preview should be about giving those casual fans that everyone is always chasing a reason to tune in, to take an interest, even if only for a few hours, even if only as a diversion on the nights that the Twins aren’t playing. And even though I believe with all my heart that the game of hockey is as vibrant and entertaining as it has ever been, I just can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t already believe the same being convinced to slog through the wasteland at the outer edge of his cable system to catch a glimpse of the action. Besides, even if he did, he likely wouldn’t be able to see Sid the Kid wind it up or Niklas Backstrom glove one down.

Not with that immovable elephant standing in the middle of the room, he wouldn’t.

Scott Baker? Calling Scott Baker.

This message is directed towards anyone that can tell me where Scott Baker has gone. You know him, right? He stands about 6’4 and weighs around 220 pounds. He throws right handed, and was a 2^nd round draft pick of the Twins in 2003. You remember him, right?

Some people, may not remember Scott Baker. Sure, you know the name if you’re a follower of the Twins, especially over the last few years, but Baker has become a name that is mentioned less and less when talking about the Twins “rich” system of pitching. He’s fallen behind guys like Matt Garza, Kevin Slowey, Glen Perkins, and to some, even Anthony Swarzak.

In case you’ve forgot, Baker started with the Twins in 2003 while pitching for Quad Cities. After that, it took him only two years before reaching the big leagues. In his first stint with the big club, in 2005, Baker was one of the best looking young pitchers that this organization had. Baker posted a 3.35 ERA in 10 starts with the club while posting a 3-3 record. People began to envision a future rotation that would consist of Santana, Liriano, and Baker.

After the 2005 season, in which the Twins finished the year 83-79 after winning three consecutive AL Central division titles, Baker’s name began being thrown around in trade rumors. It was rumored that Baker and/or Liriano were the two main pieces that teams were looking to acquire for the Twins when they went out looking for a big bat. Twins general manager Terry Ryan laughed at those teams while telling them to get lost. You knew that this organization had future plans with Scott Baker.

Then came 2006. In spring training, Baker would earn a starting spot with the big league club. In 6 spring training starts, he went 2-1 with a 3.52 ERA. Was this fools gold? It may have been after we watched Kyle Lohse go 5-0 with a 2.42 ERA in spring training. However, many people, including Twins fans, were much more optimistic when talking about Scott Baker.

At the beginning of 2006, Baker would pitch very well for the Twins. He posted a 3.47 ERA in 4 starts for the club, including an absolute masterpiece against the Yankees on April 14^th. Things were looking good for Baker.

Then, something went wrong. Something that Scott Baker, Rick Anderson, or anyone could not, and still cannot, explain. Baker began leaving the ball up, which resulted in a number of HR’s given up, which meant that he began losing games and watching his ERA inflate worse than the inflation rate in the 1910’s. After May 6^th, Baker would never see his ERA below 5 again.

Baker would then be taken out of the rotation and sent down to Rochester where he pitched extremely well. He resorted back to the 2005 version of Baker where he had put himself on the map as far as the future rotation for the Minnesota Twins. Baker would get a few more starts with the big league club, but he would never put together a string of which he did in 2005.

Now, today, April 7^th, 2006, Baker has taken a back seat to guys like Garza, Slowey, and Perkins. He’s no longer considered the first guy to be called up if someone like Sidney Ponson, Carlos Silva, or Ramon Ortiz were to falter. To be honest, right now, Baker looks like one of those AAAA pitchers that pitch well at the AAA level, but can never put it together at the ML level.

However, I feel as though there is still hope to remain optimistic about Scott Baker. Yes, his 2005 season was outstanding, while his 2006 season was, well, atrocious. Heck, he ended the 2006 season with a worse ERA than Carlos Silva! But, I feel as though both seasons, 2005 & 2006, may have been a bit of aberration respectively. Is Scott Baker as good as his 2005 season indicates? No. Is he as bad as his 2006 season? I don’t think so either.

I think Baker falls somewhere in between. The reason why I think there is still hope for Scott Baker is because I remember what Boof Bonser looked like last July. He looked awful, like he had no possible future with this team except for being a AAA pitcher. Bonser was sent down to AAA in July of 2006 and it looked as if he wouldn’t be back up the remainder of the year. However, something changed in Bonser. He got angry, pissed about being sent back down to Rochester. There was a new Boof, a more confident version of Boof. Plus, he decided to add more of a “spike” curve to his arsenal, which looked to have made all the difference. Three months later, and Mr. Bonser was the Twins Game 2 starter in the ALDS against Oakland.

Now do I expect Baker to be a game 2 starter in the postseason one day? Not exactly. But, I do feel as though Baker has the ability to make that change, or maturation, that Bonser did after being sent down last July. Baker still has the ability to strike major league hitters out as he posted a 6.70 K/9 rate in that horrendous 2006 season. He just needs to learn how to keep the ball down more, spot his fastball, and maybe, just maybe, talk to Bonser about learning that “spike” curve.

Is Baker going to be back up with the big league club this year? I think that’s totally up in the air right now, but it’s pretty obvious that he’s probably fourth on the list when it comes to calling someone up. However, in 2008, there will be another battle for a few spots in the rotation. With guys like Silva, Ortiz, and Ponson likely gone, that would leave three spots open; But, with Liriano scheduled back then and having a spot basically reserved, that leaves two. It’s time for Baker to prove, once again, that he is part of this team’s future, and to prove that he’s not just your average minor league journeyman.

Scott Baker? Are you ready?