Soccer: The Confounding Game
Every four years I avidly follow international soccer, a/k/a the World Cup, and conclude with a desire to watch the sport again…in four more years. While I am watching I pick a team to root for – generally based on hairstyles and uniform colors, thus putting Germany at the bottom of the pack – and […]
Instant Replay
Very shortly after the Armando Gallarage/Jim Joyce unperfect-game situation occurred, I settled on the instant-replay solution that is being more and more talked about, and it is simply this: Give each manager one challenge flag, but one flag only, that he can use at any point in the game for anything other than a ball-and-strike […]
The Save – Part 2
After the Twins blew a four-run lead in the ninth inning Saturday night against the lowly Brewers, Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse astutely criticised Twins skipper Ron Gardenhire for managing for statistics. By that Reusse meant that if the lead had been three runs, Gardy would have brought in his closer, Jon Rauch, to pitch the 9th; but […]
Twins-Yankees
The air went out of the Twins tonight – and I hope it was just for one game, not the whole season – when that least-admirable of Yankees, Alex Rodriguez, turned a painfully wrought 4-3 Twins edge into a 7-4 Yankee pounding with one swing of his bat. One must question why Ron Gardenhire brought […]
O-Dog Paws the Ground
A favorite moment from my first visit to the new Target Field came on Orlando Hudson’s first at-bat. I had heard he was loquacious, ebullient, effervescent and all the rest, but I had never witnessed him in person. He gave a love-pat to umpire Tim Tschida, then rubbed his hand over the head of Red […]