It’s almost humorous to read that the Twins players are worried that the front office will break the team up as the trade deadline approaches, looking for future prospects at the expense of fielding a winning team this year. The necessary implication of this concern is that there is somebody on the current Twins roster […]
Amid a third consecutive floundering season by the Minnesota Twins I can sum up the main cause of my disappointment in two words: Joe Mauer. The rest is pretty much as expected: a free-agent flop at the top of the rotation – this year it’s Ricky Nolasco instead of Mike Pelfrey or Vance Worley. Then […]
Just as basketball positions have morphed from what we knew as kids – guard, center, forward – to specific numbered slots, starting pitchers are now referred to as a #2 starter, #5 starter, etc. So far as I can tell, this refers to the order of who’s the best, on down. But what does it […]
I can’t think of a baseball season in which I was less excited about the prospects of “my” team, in this case still the Minnesota Twins. It’s not just that they are universally picked to finish last in their division – with projected losses between 90 and 100 – it’s that there’s no individual player […]
It wasn’t so much that the Seahawks beat the Broncos by 35 points that was so impressive, it was that they seemed to win every play. We’ll never know how much the errant snap and resulting safety on the game’s opening play determined the day’s course of events. Confidence is often the decisive factor in […]
The annual Christmas Bird Counts in Santa Barbara County are serious affairs, almost too serious for me to have enjoyed participation in the past. This year (2013) I took part in two counts – Cachuma and Santa Barbara – and found myself more involved than I ever expected. I accompanied Joan and Bill Murdoch to […]
As bad as Josh Freeman was in the Monday night debacle in New York, the bigger problem, in my view, was the Minnesota offensive line. Not only did Adrian Peterson not see a hole all night, Freeman almost never ended a play in the standing position. When you watch Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, you […]
I have rarely been a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals. First, they win too much, like a Midwestern version of the Yankees. Second, they come across as organizationally boring, more corporate than colorful. Third, they compete with the Pittsburgh Pirates, to whom I will always feel an allegiance. Fourth, Tony LaRussa, the Tiger Woods […]
As we watch Postseason 2013 we are reminded not only of how bad the Twins were this year, but how little there is to look forward to. When the season started, I could identify only two players – Joe Mauer and Glenn Perkins – who would be welcome on any team, and the same was […]
Thanks to my daughter’s Christmas gift, I turned on MLB.com to watch my first Twins game of the season. It was the 7th inning and they were down, 2-0, to the Tigers. With a man on first – Plouffe had walked – Parmelee and Dozier both struck out looking on fastballs down the middle. After […]
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