Category Archives: Baseball
Torii Hunter wonders “WTF?”
Yesterday my Minnesota Twins played their 108th game, which means the season is now exactly 2/3 over. And I say “my” Twins, but given their performance since the All-Star break, many of us fans are about to disown them. When I last wrote about them, I said, “Now everything depends on what happens after the All-Star break.”
They’d surprised us with a Mighty May, had a rough June Swoon, but seemed to wake up again in July and ended the first half strong. Unfortunately, their second half has been pretty awful all around. Their batting struggles continue, but now the pitching is going downhill, too.
After a giddy rush of “post-season is possible” we’re back to our original ask: “Please just don’t suck again this year.”
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11 Comments | tags: Glen Perkins, Miguel Sano, Minnesota Twins, Paul Molitor, Seattle Mariners, Target Field, Terry Ryan, Toronto Blue Jays, Twins 2015 | posted in Baseball
Oh, my! I mentioned last time that the Minnesota Twins, after a surprisingly good month of May, cooled down big time in June. Fans held their breath wondering how far the team would fall from the height reached in May. Now, with June behind us and July well under way, we can start breathing normally again.
The Twins lost ground in June but remained above the .500 mark (by five games!) by month’s end. But July seems to have brought an end to the ice-cold bats. The Twins are 8-4 in July as we begin the All-Star break.
But more importantly: It’s Pluto Day!
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4 Comments | tags: Brian Dozier, Ceres, Charon, Clyde Tombaugh, Dawn mission, Glen Perkins, Minnesota Twins, MLB All-Star Game, NASA, New Horizons, Pluto, Pluto is a planet, Pluto is amazing!, space, space exploration, Twins 2015, Venetia Burney, Vesta, Win Twins | posted in Baseball, Science
Today the merry, merry month of May has its final appearance in locations worldwide. If you managed to miss all 31 shows you’re out of luck for the remainder of the season and will have to wait until it hits the road for the 2016 tour. (Hint: order your tickets now; they go fast.)
It’s been a slightly strange month in Minnesota. Temperatures have shown strong indicators towards summer, but winter’s chill has been persistent. Last night’s low was 44 degrees (Fahrenheit), and it’s only 66 degrees here late in the afternoon.
Even the deer are acting strange!
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17 Comments | tags: Angie Harmon, Battle Creek, deer, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In, Lina Leandersson, Lisa Edelstein, Lucy Liu, Michael Chiklis, Minnesota Twins, Rise: Blood Hunter, Sebastian Gutierrez, Tomas Alfredson, Toronto Blue Jays, Twins 2015, vampires, Win Twins | posted in Baseball, Life, Movies
If they completely collapsed right now, fans of the Minnesota Twins would still have seen a better season than they have since 2010. If they could somehow continue playing at their current level, they could win 90+ games rather than losing that many as they have every season since then.
If they just win every other game (playing .500 ball), they’ll win 83 games and still end up with a much better record than they’ve seen in four years. They’re currently four games above the .500 mark — something fans haven’t seen since the end of 2010!
Whatever the case, the last few weeks have us jumping for joy!
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8 Comments | tags: Brian Dozier, Major League baseball, Minnesota, Minnesota Twins, MLB, Paul Molitor, Target Field, Trevor Plouffe, Twins 2015, Win Twins | posted in Baseball
Minnesota Twins fans have enjoyed a wonderful four-day weekend to begin the merry month of May! After a very rough and disappointing first week, the Twins have been playing increasingly better baseball, and topped it off by sweeping the Chicago White Sox in a four-game home stand.
The icing on the cake was an absolutely gorgeous spring weekend with sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s. The Thursday and Friday evening games were a little cooler with temps in the mid-60s, but Minnesotans are hardy people. We wear shorts and tee-shirts in 40-degrees!
The question with the Twins these days is: Can this possibly continue?
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13 Comments | tags: Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Major League baseball, Minnesota Twins, MLB, White Sox | posted in Baseball
My Minnesota Twins played their first spring training game last night. It was an exhibition game against the University of Minnesota. And, wouldn’t you know it, those professional experienced baseball players managed to beat the college kids. That hasn’t been the case for some other teams (the Philadelphia Phillies lost to the University of Tampa Bay last Sunday, for example).
In about three hours the Twins begin Spring Training games for real by hosting the Boston Red Sox (who beat two different college teams in a double-header Tuesday).
To celebrate, I thought I’d share my MLB Parks Tour plan.
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14 Comments | tags: baseball park, baseball season, Boston Red Sox, Major League baseball, Minnesota Twins, MLB, MLB Ballpark Tour, MLB baseball parks, road trip, Spring Training, Twins 2015, University of Minnesota | posted in Baseball
It’s snowing here in Minnesota right now (exactly why we call it “Minnesnowta”). The recent temperatures rival — sometimes excel — the temperature in my freezer (which is to say: zero degrees Fahrenheit). To be clear, by “excel” I mean ‘colder than’ — we would disdain a February that didn’t chill our bones and nip our nose.
But down south, in Florida and Arizona, MLB pitchers and catchers are reporting for Spring Training after having the winter off. (Teachers get summers off, baseball players get winter.) Depending on the team, the report date varies from the 19th to the 22nd. The rest of the players, depending on team, report from February 23rd through the 27th.
So, I thought now would be a good time to talk about pitching.
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4 Comments | tags: batters, breaking ball, Cactus League, catchers, curve ball, fast ball, Grapefruit League, Major League baseball, Minnesota Twins, MLB, pitchers, pitching, Spring Training, strike zone | posted in Baseball
Here in January we’re almost equally distant from the previous professional baseball season (which ended in September) and from the coming one (which begins in April). Pitchers and Catchers report for Spring Training in mid-February, position players report later in the month. Spring Training games begin in March.
At various points in 2014, I picked up DVD copies of two (actually four) favorite baseball movies, plus one I’d never heard of, but found in a $4.99 bin somewhere. They’ve all been siting patiently waiting for me to watch them.
I thought: New Year’s Day sounds like the perfect time to do that!
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24 Comments | tags: Bleacher Bums, Bob Uecker, Bull Durham, Cleveland Indians, David S. Ward, Durham Bulls, Harry Doyle, Kevin Costner, Lysistrata, Major League, Margaret Whitton, Rene Russo, Ron Shelton, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Wild Thing | posted in Baseball, Movies
Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants, winners of the 2014 World Series! This is the eighth win overall and their third win on consecutive even-numbered years (2010, 2012 & 2014). On the flip side, until 2010 they hadn’t won since 1954 when they were the New York Giants — that’s a 56-year drought!
They did get to the ball in 1962 (lost to the Yankees) and 1989 (swept by their neighbors, the Athletics) and 2002 (lost to the Angels). Given them credit for taking the 1962 and 2002 Series to seven games.
I’ll be honest. I was a lot more thrilled last year when the Boston Red Sox won.
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19 Comments | tags: baseball post-season, Boston Red Sox, Kansas City Royals, Madison Bumgarner, Major League baseball, MLB, San Francisco Giants, World Series, World Series 2014 | posted in Baseball
I was tempted to call this Sports Thoughts, which would have been a great title, but which also would have implied a connection to the previous four posts. And there isn’t one. At all.
Instead, this one ties back to a post from last June: Digital & Analog Sports (which, obviously, you should go read now). That one explored how sports can be grouped in terms of continuous (“analog”) versus interrupted (“digital”) play. It also touched on how sports can be viewed in terms of their MacGuffin (often some type of ball, but sometimes a puck or “birdie” or some other object), and it considered their field of play (location, size, configuration).
This time I’ll explore sports in terms of opponents and teams.
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5 Comments | tags: board games, card games, computer games, games, George Carlin, Kansas City Royals, Keith Olbermann, Major League baseball, MLB, NASCAR, skydiving, sports, World Series | posted in Baseball
Logos con carne 