As the title of this blog entry indicates, I intend this to be the last entry. For reasons I won’t go into now I have basically curtailed my participation in this site and on this blog. That’s OK. My life is moving in new directions and the changes are exciting, and as I move on to new things it is only natural that some of my earlier passions diminish and fall by the side. I have been feeling, though, that one last blog entry was appropriate, even necessary, if only for the sake of giving mysel
I suppose I should start by admitting that I have a split personality – by “day” I am an ardent Twins fan, rooting for my team even when they do something stupid (which is all too often these days, but that’s another topic). At “night,” however, another side of me surfaces and I become one who is passionate about English football – and by football, I mean real football. Not the thing that millions of fans follow in this country that involves a prolate spheroid of artificial animal hide, but a ga
One of the topics being ardently discussed by the Twins fanbase these days is the status of Kyle Gibson and his recovery from Tommy John surgery. As a part of that discussion much has been made of the 130-inning limit to which Gibson is being held – indeed, it has become for some the focus of the discussion. If Gibson has only so many innings before he is shut down this year, then doesn’t it make sense to have him “spend” those innings with the parent club, getting MLB experience in preparation
A few years ago controversy erupted when Derek Jeter was mistakenly ruled to have been hit by a pitch and took first base at the umpire’s direction. Jeter admitted later that the ball had hit his bat, not his person, but that the umpire had made a ruling and he just abided by it. The subsequent controversy was about the role of ethics in sports. We all know that game officials, like players and everybody else, are human and make mistakes. Blown calls are a part of the game, and while they someti
First, the good news: On Monday, I watched the Twins home/season opener on my TV here in Idaho (thanks to a newly purchased MLB.TV subscription and a brand-new HDMI cable running from my laptop to my TV). Now, the bad news: On Monday, I watched the Twins home/season opener on my TV here in Idaho (thanks to a newly purchased MLB.TV subscription and a brand-new HDMI cable running from my laptop to my TV). I knew when I accepted my new call and moved out to Idaho there would be changes, but as
As I sit here getting myself ready to celebrate Easter, thinking of miracles (Easter is, of course, a time to celebrate the central miracle of my faith), I find my mind turning to the upcoming MLB season. What miracles can we hope to see this year? What dreams do we have for the coming season? What needs to happen for us, at the end of the year, to know that something wonderful and unexpected has happened? Here are the miracles I’m hoping for this year: The miracle of Mauer and
As I write this I am reading that the United States has crashed out of the World Baseball Classic (again) and will end up officially in 6th place – just below Cuba. I find myself of two minds about this. On the one hand, I share the understandable disappointment in the results. On the other, I find myself wondering if I should even care. After all, if MLB and the MLBPA don’t take this tournament seriously, why should I? Let me back up a bit and explain why I make that admittedly unfair stateme
Back when I was growing up I had a poster that proudly proclaimed “All I really need to know in life I learned from watching Star Trek.” Teachings such as “Remember the Prime Directive” and “Set phasers on stun” resonated with me then and still do today. As I start getting myself psyched up for the coming baseball season, though, I have found myself thinking that in many ways baseball, in addition to entertaining, can also teach us about life. Hence my thoughts on what I can learn about life fro
It’s a ritual that happens every spring. In caves and dens around the country black and brown bears are gradually starting to claw their way to consciousness. The long winter’s sleep is winding down and once again the a new year dawns, filled with times of opportunity and times of crisis, with the chance to excel in the ritual of life and the danger of losing the battle once for all. In many ways that’s what I feel like as I head into Super Bowl Sunday. Yes, for one more weekend my attention i
Note: The following entry is not in any way meant to mock or make light of those with real addictions. I know all too well the struggles that are associated with addictions of all types, and the effect it can have on lives. Please read this in the humorous spirit in which it is meant. It is mid-September. The Twins are twenty-four games under .500, getting their clocks cleaned 9-1 by Kansas City last night. It is raining and dreary out. So what is the highlight of my day? The release of the 20
NOTE: This entry is a postscript to my series of entries describing my game-day experiences on a tour of the Minnesota Twins farm system; it describes what led me to make this trip in the first place. Please be advised that it is very different from what has gone before in this series. It is longer, more personal and, in contrast to the light-hearted tone I tried to take with the previous entries, it is written from a more serious perspective and has a strong spiritual component. If this is not
It was noted elsewhere that this week attendance dropped below 30,000 at Target Field for the first time in its history. Some saw that as a harbinger of doom, leading to a vicious cycle of depressed revenues followed by lower payroll followed by a poorer product on the field followed by depressed revenues followed by... My own take: At last! This is what I’ve been waiting for since Target Field opened. Don’t get me wrong – it was fun to see a full ballpark for a while. But I’m glad the honeymo
As I watched the game on TV last night (trying to put comparative images of The Towering Inferno out of my mind) I found myself wondering why I even loved this game so much. I even tried watching some basketball instead, but inevitably my finger kept moving toward the “last” button on the remote to check back on the game. Why? What is it about baseball that has me so ensnared, even when my home team is the Minnesota Twins? After reflection, here are five reasons I still love the game – even this
So what kind of fan am I? When I was in Fort Myers that was one of the season-long advertising gimmicks they were touting – the varied nature of those who attend ballgames. Yesterday, attending my first Twins game since my minor league trip (I love watching a pitching duel!), I found myself thinking back to the various minor league parks I was at and comparing them to the relative cathedral that is Target Field. I also found myself thinking about who had attended those games, and who I saw aroun
So now that last night’s game is over and we have all had a good night’s sleep, what do we take away from what happened in the third inning yesterday? The first thing is to just recognize that this may not be over. Both pitchers gave the obligatory “I didn’t mean to do it” quotes after the game; everybody has learned the Cole Hamels/Bryce Harper lesson well. I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I didn’t buy either of those quotes last night, and I doubt MLB will either. Diamond’s pitch was mor
Note: This is the last in a series of blog entries detailing my game experiences on a road trip to see all the Twins minor league affiliates in their home parks. For those interested, links to previous entries are listed at the end in chronological order. After a quiet day visiting one of the local state parks and catching a matinee I head out to Frontier Field again. This time it is a beautiful night for baseball and while I am sad that this is the last game of the trip I can’t think of a bet
By late afternoon I am wondering if the game tonight is going to happen. A series of strong afternoon thunderstorms has come through the area and the rain has been heavy. The Red Wings do a good job, though, of keeping the public informed on their website of the game’s status, updating it regularly (are you listening, Twins?) and at 5:30 it is announced that the game is definitively on; the gates will open at 6pm, rain or no rain! Putting on my jeans (I have been wearing shorts the entire trip)
After a much needed late wakeup and a quiet morning worshiping at a local church and stopping by a Dunkin’ Donuts (you can’t swing a dead cat around here in Connecticut without hitting one) for a late breakfast, I headed out to New Britain for my only day game of the trip. Temperature was in the eighties and the sky was partly cloudy; all in all a good day for baseball. Getting to the stadium I decide to splurge today and go for the preferred parking ($6) as opposed to general ($4). The extra mi
I heard somewhere once that the biggest jump in the minor league system is the one between high-A and Double-A. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but as I get to New Britain Stadium and get settled I find that I can believe it. For the first time I am in a sizable stadium designed for a minor league team (Hammond Field was also sizable, but it was clearly designed with the Twins in mind – Fort Myers is just an occupant in the months between spring training seasons). I also immediately notice
I pull into the parking lot of the motel just north of Baltimore and get a room for the night. I lay back on the bed for a minute and I realize one thing – I am tired! So tired that I decide to throw dietary cautions to the wind and call the local Pizza Hut for a delivery. As I knew it would be, it has been a long haul these past couple of days, heading out from Fort Myers on Thursday morning, stopping for the night in Somewhere, South Carolina, and then continuing on today through North Carolin
I arrive this evening curious to see just how exactly they are going to turn bacon into a promotion. I end up being underwhelmed – all it means is that you can purchase a small paper basket of bacon strips for $1 when you buy any other concession stand item. I choose not to indulge, and judging by how many people I saw carrying those small paper baskets around, not many others do either. They also wrapped the ball for the ceremonial pitch in bacon too (I’m not sure why), but it doesn’t seem to h
As soon as I get to the stadium tonight, I can tell that I am moving up the chain and getting closer to how things are done in the big leagues – for the first time, I have to pay for parking ($3). The stadium itself is actually a stadium – it isn’t just a ball field surrounded by stands – which you would expect given that it is the spring training home of the parent club. Two main seating options: there are the $9.50 box seats which are individual plastic seats situated in the lower half of the
I get into Fort Myers about quarter to two – too early to check into the motel, so I decide to buzz out quick to the Lee County Sports Complex to see if I can catch the tail end of the GCL game. Sure enough, I manage to take in the last couple of innings. I drive in the main entrance to Hammond Stadium, go past the empty parking lots, and at the west end of the complex pull off the road onto the grass where a number of cars have created a makeshift parking lot. Walking past the Twins offices her
No game tonight, as the “bible belt” proved to be all-too-true to it’s nickname and gave the residents here a reenactment of Noah’s flood. I pulled out of the parking lot in Johnson City at 6pm in the rain and promptly splashed water over the front of the hood. You could see the sheets of water running down the streets seeking lowest ground. Deciding that baseball is not worth sacrificing either myself or my vehicle (such as in trying to drive to Elizabethton) I decide to head back inside and aw
I show up at the ballpark not really knowing what to expect. It is, by far, the smallest of the parks I will be attending (cap. 1500), which is to be expected for a rookie league team. It turns out to be basically a junior college or division III field. That being said, it does have character. It turns out I am visiting on a busy night. As I park the car and walk to the gate, I hear live music coming from inside the concourse. There is a fundraiser going on for the local United Way, with prize g
I really hold back what I would like to say about then payroll arguments here. The fact that people don't accept the amount taken in dictates the amount going out requires one of two things. Extreme financial ignorance or fanatical bias that prevents the acceptance of something some basic. I did not change the argument. It's the same idiocy over and over. Do you really want to be on the side that suggests revenues does not determine spending capacity?
At this point in the pre-season, I’m just so happy to be seeing games again, I don’t care about the Twins record in 2023. I think they’ll win it all, unrealistically speaking 🙂
I really hold back what I would like to say about then payroll arguments here. The fact that people don't accept the amount taken in dictates the amount going out requires one of two things. Extreme financial ignorance or fanatical bias that prevents the acceptance of something some basic. I did not change the argument. It's the same idiocy over and over. Do you really want to be on the side that suggests revenues does not determine spending capacity?· 0 replies
