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The Human Fan Condition (Twins versus Phillies -- Games 60-62)

Twins vs. Phillies   Run(s) Scored (Twins 3 Phillies 2—Game 60)   Run(s) scored.   When my team is at bat, I add up all the players and figure out how many runs could’ve gone on the scoreboard. I assume the highest number possible.   But when it’s the other team . . .   As soon as “Run(s) scored” appears on my smartphone screen all sounds around me cease. I can hear my heart beat. I don’t even count up how bad the damage could be. I just assume infinity.   Somehow, despite seemingly being on the
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

1

The Hoosecows - The Midwest's Top Prospect?

Just bought my 2014 Twins Daily Offseason Handbook, and I started thinking my baseball thriller The Hoosecows, written with Roy C. Booth, is a prospect to watch in its own right.   If you're a Twins fan, the joy of watching prospects mature is going to be a big part of your 2014 experience. Sano, Buxton, Meyer . . . What could be more exciting than supporting a future superstar before they slip into a big league uniform?   Now, I'd like to offer you a chance to dial into another prospect. The H
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

0

The Harsh Pinstripes of Destiny

When you're grown up, there's no reason to hide from the truth. You're not as funny as you think you are. Everyone dies. The universe is cold and hostile. More true than all of these, though, is the following Truth: the Minnesota Twins will lose to the New York Yankees in the first round of the playoffs. This series of columns begins with the ending, which is the Minnesota Twins losing to the New York Yankees in the first round of the playoffs. Other bloggers, vloggers, pundits, podcasters, colu
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

0

The Great Blogsby (Twins versus Blue Jays - Games 139-141)

The Mob Has Tweeted (Twins 5 Blue Jays 6 - Game 139) This game paired up two pitchers I knew, in my gut, were going to become amazing. R.A. Dickey rose to the challenge. Mike Pelfrey must not have gotten that memo.   When your favorite team will only win prizes for participation, the only excitement left comes in sifting through the wreckage to find future stars.   We all know how this game works, even if we pretty it up with BS from time to time. You pick a player you believe is going to turn
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

0

The Death of a Disco Mustache (Twins at Rangers -- Games 133-135)

We're Still Doing This? (Twins 3 Rangers 2 -- Game 133)   Forgot this was a solid win until a Rangers fan reminded me of it on Twitter. Close game against a great pitcher and a good team. Twins win.   I was more excited about another Morneau homer. Morneau may be Canadian, but his backstory makes him a real American hero. Brash but charming slugger finds early success, suffers a career- (and life-) threatening injury, and is just now getting to the part where the audience stands back on their fe
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

0

The Day-to-Day Zone

THE DAY-TO-DAY ZONE   FEAR IN A HANDFUL OF ROSIN PART 3   A MR. HORRORPANTS SCREENPLAY   BASED ON AN IDEA BY MICHAEL HAAS (@digitalHaas)     INT. BLACK AND WHITE. A MOD 50s LIVING ROOM. THERE ARE SEVERAL COUCHES MADE UP OF LIGHT GRAY RECTANGLES. A COFFEE TABLE SITS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM, COVERED IN MAGAZINES.   DENARD SPAN ENTERS THE ROOM, LOOKING CONFUSED AND FRUSTRATED. HE SITS ON ONE OF THE COUCHES.   HE SHAKES HIS HEAD AND STARES AT A DOOR IN FRONT OF HIM.   THE DOOR IN FRONT OF HIM IS
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

1

The Buterrible-Pun Men.

Between the idea and reality, between the motion and the act, falls the home run Towles hit this afternoon.   We terrible pun men wait by our computers, with our pointer fingers cocked and ready.   We terrible pun men, already awaiting the opportunity to be the first to title a blog post "The End of a But-ERA" when the catcher is dropped from the roster.   In this frozen land, we know only one smart-assed blogger can be the first to use "The End of a But-ERA." And so we wait with eyes watchin
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

5

The Bullying Typist

I planned to write four columns for four Twins games attended in eight days, but I got stuck after running Fifteen's 5K before the last game and ended up skipping the game and staying home. The Twins lost, but my experience running into Target Field and getting closer Glen Perkins to sign my medal thrilled me enough to make me forget my favorite team's woes.   Still, I felt like I owed y'all that last blog entry, to justify my shameless and unabashed promotion of my novel Orphans (in paperback a
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

1

The Ballad of Big Jim.

Twitter started sizzling yesterday. There's a chance Thome rejoins the team and puts a few more taters over the right field flag pole.   There's no way this helps the Twins long term, but I can't help but be excited. Jim Thome is so heroic Greek mythology borrows heavily from his career.   Mauer's never going to be that kind of hero. He's the quiet, unappreciated type. Biographies of the cool, consistent catcher will mention how little respect he got in his home town. They'll quote Gleeman's t
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

1

The Astros: Stealing Signs, Series, and Some of My Time.

The Houston Astros.   The team downplayed it. The commissioner spoke on it. The other players weighed in, some enraged at the cheaters, some enraged at the snitchers. Clearly baseball needs another bulky white man’s opinion, but I’ve had difficulty decided exactly how I feel about it. I went with “smug” first, typing out a bratty lil piece about wishing the Twins would cheat to get past the Yankees in the post season. Even typed out a draft on my phone:   Maybe we get found out. Maybe it takes a
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

0

The Astros Playin' (Twins versus Astros - Games 105-107)

Road Goes On Forever (Twins 4 Astros 3– Game 105)   Left a great time at Diversicon, a science fiction and fantasy convention, to find the Twins were still playing. The game was tug of war, and the rag tied onto the rope was still in the middle of the mudpit in the center.   I’d spent the day with my mind wrapped around the business of writing the unreal and then bringing it to life (for more on my life out from under the baseball cap, click here). Listening to good old fashioned baseball soothe
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

1

The 21st Century Wanderer

I spent my Tuesday night at Target Field because of a coupon and the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates are the team I root for in that other league, and the ticket cost next to nothing after I applied the coupon. Since this coupon paid for one single ticket, I went without a spouse or a sidekick.   Once I knew my novel Orphans (with Roy C; Booth} would be published on July 21st, this lonesome visit to Target Field took on added importance for me. The book takes three lonely, crumbling men and haun
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

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2022 Season Blog

That One Royals Series - A Twins Blog

This Royals series was inevitable.  The air is filled with the business of summer. Schools are either out of session or winding down. Kids are making plans to play outside after being given more time off than they know what to do with. Parents put together the finishing touches on family trips. Family dogs look for sunny spots in the lawn where they can pant peacefully. Ice cream consumption is up. Air conditioners are on. Somewhere, someone is already bored. In the midst of this comes

Terror at the Martin Romero Institute!

TERROR AT THE MARTIN ROMERO INSTITUTE:   FEAR IN A HANDFUL OF ROSIN PART 2   A MR. HORRORPANTS SCREENPLAY   INT. A LIVING ROOM OF AN ABANDONED HOUSE.   Mr. Horrorpants enters the room. He kicks at a crushed plastic beer cup. From the corner, a crouched human being stirs. The crouched stranger stands and reveals himself to be Carl Pavano, dressed as a teenager from the 1950s.   PAVANO Nick?   MR. HORRORPANTS Something is amiss here!   PAVANO They're all gone! All of my friends! We thought we
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

1

Swing's the Thing: Twins versus Mariners (Games 51-53)

Twins versus Mariners   No Big Deal (Game 51)   The ball game was relegated to nothing more than background noise. The goose-egg on the Twins’ side of the scoreboard did little to lure me back in.   With baseball refusing to signal the beginning of weekend joy. My conversation with my friend turned to ghost stories and hard luck tales. I even dug out the flashlight for that special campfire vibe.   And so it’s like this: Baseball is apple pie, and when people are done with their slice they retur
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

1

Sunk in Atlanta - Twins at Braves (Games 41-43)

Twins at Braves   Gimme Danger? (Game 41)   Bad night in the US outside of baseball. Tornados took a chunk out of the country again, leaving too many dead (no matter the number) and many of the rest battling post-disaster financial hardship like it was a kind of cancer. For those affected, this will be a mile marker for the rest of their lives.   Sadly, but less tragically, Doors’ keyboardist Ray Manzarek died.   The Doors were dangerous rock and roll. They made music fearlessly, and when they w
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

1

Summer of Massacres, Tornadoes of Sharks (Twins at Yankees -- Games 89-91)

The Twins Were Sharknados First (Twins 0 Yankees 2 - Game 89)   A SyFy televion movie called Sharknado took over the world of Twitter, and I’ll bet most Twins fans didn’t put up too much of a struggle.   Sharknado is a movie whose title tells you exactly what you’re going to see on your TV. The Internet Movie Database estimates it cost about a million to make. I’ll bet no one over the age of eight expected any quality from it, and yet it stole the world’s heart for a moment in time.   The Twins
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

1
Essay.

Stumbling Out of the Gates - A Twins Blog

Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint . . . but I'm willing to bet you can spoil a marathon with a weak start. Mental fortitude cracking with the arrhythmic slapping of your feet against the pavement. Planning and precision giving way to panic. Comparing yourself to the other runners, who seem to be running flawlessly. Baseball is a marathon . . . for the fans, too. It takes commitment to stay abreast of a whole season. The game this afternoon felt like a must-win situation to keep some sens
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen in Essay.

3

Still Preheating.

September 1st, 2007.   Driving home from a night class at St. Mary's, I turned on the Twins game. Gordo was hinting at something big happening for the guy on the mound. I listened to the game and drove home in a daze. I parked my car and did my best to walk to my back door without running or skipping. Once inside, I turned on the baseball game and called my wife into the living room.   "I can't say what's going on, but look at the numbers on the scoreboard when Scott Baker gets to the mound," I
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

3

Stay Off the Moors!

Gather round the fire, ye baseball fans. Imagine, if you will, a roaring blaze licking from beneath a tent of shattered bat handles. Listen to the tale I am about to tell, for EVERY word is true.   I tell the tale . . . Of the BASEBALL WEREWOLF!   A baseball werewolf behaves in much the same way as your regular, meat and potatoes werewolf. The moon and the night bring out its power, which is the ONLY possible explanation for why the Twins seem able to score ONLY AFTER THE FIFTH INNING in the las
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

0
2022 Season Blog

Stats for Dark Days - A Twins Blog

Confession time. I’m not a stat-head. I need to be clear. I THOUGHT I was a stat-head for many years. I love stat-heads. I love the way the game can be broken down into useful pieces of information. There’s something mind-boggling and magical about watching a game and knowing that, just below the surface, hundreds of calculations and adjustments are being considered and implemented. It feels so tidy to me. Every bit of baseball goodness is squeezed out of every player.  Gut instinct is a fi

Spring and Things.

The Twins are down in Florida, getting ready to play baseball.   I AM excited, of course. It just feels like all us Twins' fans got a Christmas tree out, and we're trying to pretend the packages that look and feel like bags of tube socks aren't really tube socks.   It's gonna be a tube socks year, folks.   Need to make it a goal to at least TRY to remember the names of the starting pitchers. Think I might try cue cards.   Two crappy seasons behind us. Someone has to be mad in that clubhouse. We
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

3

Spirit of a Ballplayer, Flesh Like Anyone Else.

"Then the boy saw all— Since he was old enough to know, big boy Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart—" - Robert Frost   Got the Sano news via phone notification as I got out of bed, and the grayness hung in the air like it saw this one coming.   Flesh fails us all, but it is not supposed to crap out on a young physical wonder standing in the wings, moments away from his MLB debut. In January, Sano drew long lines of fans at Twinsfest. Now he begins a long road toward rebuilding his body
Axel Kohagen

Axel Kohagen

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