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Random musings from a transplanted midwesterner

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Entries in this blog

The Cheapskate's Guide to Attending the World Series

I'm a five-minute walk away from the east-west commuter train that also stops at Fenway Park. So with Game 1 of the World Series being held at Fenway, Tuesday night, despite not being a diehard Red Sox fan and despite the forecast of iffy weather I felt like I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the logistics.   The title for this blog entry is deceptive because I didn't actually "attend" the game. I didn't have tickets, and of course no way was I going to pay scalper prices. But I thought I'd
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Back Fields in Motion - March 23, 2017

Thursday morning in Fort Myers, I resolved to take some pictures for once. Arrival was a little after 9, in time again for calisthenics (shown, left). Either that, or the prospects were being put to work erecting a new fence.   Fellow TD moderator USAFChief arrived shortly after this, and we shared a great day soaking up all that Twins spring training offers at the back fields.   After the players were warmed up, instruction began. Sometimes they do a lot of standing and listening at spring trai
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Back Fields in Motion - March 21, 2017

Greetings from sunny Florida! I'm lucky enough to be in Ft Myers for a week during Spring Training.   Today I spent the day mainly on the back fields, watching the minor league prospects. Normally I call these reports Hammond Notes (I must have been under the impression everyone remembers Hammond Organs when I thunk up that one), but Hammond is strictly speaking the major league field here, and it would be clunky to title today's entry CenturyLink Sports Complex Notes. The photo here is of all t
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Pawtucket Red Sox game - Sunday July 8

Red Sox relief prospect Ty Buttrey came up in one of the discussions about trade talks. As luck would have it, I could drop Mrs Ash at Logan Airport today and head down I-95 in time for the last game in Pawtucket before their All-Star Break. So I did. The pretext is scouting a trade candidate, but of course I am not a scout. I'll tell you what I saw, and offer some opinions, and hopefully keep the two straight, one from another.   Even better luck: the Yankees AAA affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Ba
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Post Hoc, October 8, 2017

Not that anyone asked, but in the past day or so I posted in these Twins Daily threads... Who, besides Robbie Grossman himself, deserves credit for Grossman's improved defensive stats in the outfield, as well as improvement in the eye-test according to yours truly? My general recollection has been less wandering about in search of fly balls. If Jeff Pickler is in charge of coaching the outfielders, kudos to him. Now, about Buxton banging repeatedly into center field walls... On a post-season br
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Lollygagging?

I happened upon this nice leaping stab by Polanco from a few days ago:   https://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2018/07/03/2224124283/1530583378940/asset_2500K.mp4   Question: on a ball hit to the left side, does Brian Dozier have anything better to do than make a beeline for second base, on the small chance it's caught and they might try to double off the runner? The runner has to change direction, Dozier could have been close to full speed by that point. Seems like he was napping there.
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An unexpected afternoon at Fenway

I stumbled into a free ticket to the Red Sox game against the Pirates on Thursday. It was a makeup game and a guy seated near me also said he'd gotten his tickets free from someone. (He also insisted that Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City is new, so our conversation was not illuminating for me. Only USAFChief is entitled to consider Kauffman "new".)   I anticipated that attendance might be sparse - April games tend to be attended in the low 30,000s rather than the high 30,000s anyway, and a makeup
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Back Fields in Motion - March 22, 2017

Today the big league club was on the road, and I did not follow them, returning to my haunts at CenturyLink Sports Complex.   It was a bit of an abbreviated day on the back fields for me, as I didn't arrive until 11, and the players had already departed for their lunchtime break because the games were slated for noon. And then that noon start meant the game was over well before 3:00. Fellow TD moderator ChiTownTwinsFan joined me to watch the Cedar Rapids single-A squad (or at least the momentary
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Arizona Fall League 2018 - Nov 1 & 2

I feel like posting a little bit on my trip to Phoenix for the Arizona Fall League.   I arrived Thursday and was picked up at the airport by ashburydavid. Nice that he could take a day off from work to join his dad for a long weekend of baseball watching. Salt River, the team all the Twins prospects are on, had played earlier in the day, so we contented ourselves watching the evening game in Scottsdale. You can get good seats at the AFL:     The game itself between Scottsdale and Peoria was ver
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Surprise Saguaros game, Thursday Nov 9

Not to take away from Steve Lein's excellent AFL summaries, but USAFChief and I (plus special guest ashburydavid) were in attendance at Surprise Stadium this afternoon, and we got to see several of our Twins prospects appear in the 6-2 loss to the Glendale Desert Dogs, so I thought I'd write something up, given all this Twins game action. Chief might chime in with his own perspectives, if he ever gets free of rush-hour traffic to his hotel.   Basically, nobody really impressed me, I'm sorry to s
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Back Fields in Motion - March 24-27, 2017

After my most recent blog entry from Ft. Myers, my wife arrived to take part in the fun in the sun. Unsurprisingly, time spent at the keyboard diminished to near-zero until I got home. This post represents a condensed and abbreviated review of the rest of my stay in Florida.   All baseball and no beach makes Ash a dull boy, at least in certain people's eyes. At left, you'll see circumstantial evidence that Friday morning was devoted to Ft. Myers Beach. Also, below, someone there went to the trou
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2022

Risk vs Reward

Disclaimer: Despite the photo, no Byron Buxtons were used in the preparation of this blog entry. Do I have to say it? Okay, I will, just to get it out of the way: I love the Correa signing.  Teams should be trying to get good players, and we just got one of the best baseball players on the planet, in the middle of what should be his prime years - a center-cut slice, as they say.  But ever since I heard about it, TWO LONG DAYS AGO, there's been something on my mind.  Risk versus reward.
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2021

Woo! Worcester

Mrs Ash and I went to Worcester last night to see their brand-new AAA team, the Worcester Red Sox (known almost exclusively as the Woo Sox).  It's part of our farewell tour in New England as we prepare to move back to Nevada. We took a train scheduled to arrive an hour early, so as to have time to take in the sights, but mechanical troubles had us traveling about 5 MPH for the last 5 miles, meaning we arrived about when the next train was supposed to (though it became delayed too, in a ripp
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The Game

(This is an entry in the Blogging For Pizza contest.)     April, 2010...     "I don't want to be the catcher on the Twins anymore," Joe Mauer said. He looked around the table at the others inquiringly. "Like that?"   Gardy beamed. "Exactly like that." The manager picked up his glass and made a vague toasting motion with it, in acknowledgement of the catcher's quick comprehension.   Morneau's eyebrow inched up. "And the purpose of this rather esoteric activity is...?"   Gardy sighed. "It's a game
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1979 Pittsburgh Pirates

Attending a nice panel discussion at SABR this morning, including 1979 Pirates champions John Candelaria and Grant Jackson. They reminded the audience that the team started out 12-18, and were in fourth place at the all star break. Their recollection was that there was still a long way to go, and they just continued to play the games one at a time. While the odds are against our 2018 Twins, it wouldn't be unprecedented to go all the way. The panel reminds me that the players have to just shut ou
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Hammond Notes - March 24

We allowed ourselves the luxury of arriving sometime after 11, and learned that the minor leaguers would not play at noon but at 1. Since we had cheap-seat tickets for the big league game, we chatted outside the park with Thrylos then went on in. Tomorrow we'll stay outside and watch the prospects again.   Warm day, starting out overcast but changing to partly sunny. Sunscreen advised.     Ricky Nolasco had a very nice outing, particularly in the early going when I noted three backward-K strike
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Baseball Website Find of the Day (warning: lame!)

Looking to kill a few minutes? Have a look at this peculiar project a ten-year old some knucklehead enterprising person took the time to construct via a series of posts in 2011-12.   http://burncardburn.com   Follow it through to the end, and in total there's about five pages of images and videos of captioned baseball cards, defaced baseball cards, intentionally damaged baseball cards, burnt baseball cards, and, ..., well, more captioned and defaced and damaged and burnt baseball cards. PS: hope
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A few photos from Oakland

A few photos from Tuesday night's and Wednesday afternoon's games in Oakland.     Possibly one of the last photos taken of Miguel Sano before his trip to the 15-day DL. Notice the tear in his left trouser leg. Left hamstring injury next time up to bat... coincidence? I think not.   "Sorry son, that's strike three. By the way, I forgot to say, welcome back to the majors."   Gulls just wanna have fun.   Another Dull relief appearance. God, I slay me.   Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, and (no
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2021

Matt Wallner hit by pitch

Matt Wallner was hit in the face by a pitch in this afternoon's game versus Mesa.  Looked like his lower jaw.  I happened to be taking photos during that plate appearance - it's a bit out of focus and blurry but I can't help uploading and posting it anyway.  Matt was able to make his way to the training room at the far end of the ballpark under his own power, so I'm hopeful that he escaped serious injury.
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Surprise Saguaros game, Saturday Nov 11

I offer a brief writeup for the final game of my three-game Arizona Fall League visit, which the host Surprise Saguaros lost to the Peoria Javelinas 11-10 in disappointing fashion Saturday night.   The headline from the game of course would be Lamont Wade's concussion injury from a collision in right-center field. I posted a few photos in reply to that thread, found here. He was injured in the top of the second inning, before having a turn at bat.   I haven't talked too much about the other team
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Hammond Notes - March 27

Vacation time in Ft Myers is coming to a close. We had a very fun day at the Twins spring complex today.   We arrived at 10:30 unaware the minor league games had been moved up several hours, presumably in response to the forecast of rain. I started watching the Cedar Rapids game, and then a little bird told me, "you're missing Phil Hughes". I switched over to the Miracle game, in the fifth inning.     Performing as the World's Most Expensive Bat Boy in this game was Kohl Stewart. (Lurking on th
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Surprise Saguaros game, Friday Nov 10

Just a quick summary of Twins-oriented doings, at the AFL game in Peoria Friday evening from which Our Heroes emerged victorious.     Because every one of the Twins pitchers appeared in the Thursday game, we did not expect to see any Friday night, and thus were not disappointed on that count. However, perhaps in compensation, all three of the Twins batters were in the starting lineup and played all game.   Lamont Wade batted sixth in the order. He achieved sac fly RBI in each of the second and
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Hammond Notes - March 25

Today we skipped the major league game and spent our morning and afternoon on the back fields. But only after watching some of the major leaguers doing drills on the front field. Looked like they were concentrating on the pitchers making their throws to bases - I wonder if the snafus in yesterday's game had anything to do with that.   Had a nice chat there with TDers John Bonnes, Jim Crikket, Halsey Hall, and beckmt (I believe only one of these names appears on any of these gentlemen's birth ce
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