If You Don't Have Any Pitchers, Do Just The Catchers Report? Your 2017 "Feelin' It in Fort Myers!" Twins Season Preview

Joe and Justin stop being polite and start getting real. Courtesy of SI.

Oh, how I long for the days of Johan for eight innings and Joe Nathan flappin’ his gums and slammin’ the door. How I pine for another year with Francisco Liriano’s garbage-pail filthy slider. Really, how I would tolerate a season of Brad Radke, Rick Reed, and Sweatin’ Out the Ninth with Everyday Eddie.

For someone who purports to be a keen Minnesota sports observer, I am grossly unqualified to write a Minnesota Twins preview this year. I can name three pitchers on the current team: Ervin Santana, Trevor May, and I Think We Still Have Glen Perkins. Is Ricky Nolasco still cashing checks that feature the Twins watermark? (Yes, but he won’t be pitching for us; the Twins will pay $4m of his salary while he blows chunks for the Angels.) Is Carl Pavano and his patented “Pav ‘Stache” still in the league? (Huh? No.) How about “Fireball Phil” Hughes, is he still in the rotation? (Yes.) Do we have a bullpen? (The physical structure? Yes. Pitchers to fill the structure? Debatable.)

"Set Two $100 Bills On Fire": The Twins in 2013

This is Part 3 of a 7-part look-back at what happened in Minnesota sports over the past 12 months. Some of these stories are obviously figments of my imagination. A couple actually happened. These are the tales, imageries, conversations, and visualizations that best described, at least for me, what it meant to be a Minnesota sports fan over the past 12 months.

Courtesy of AaronGleeman.com.

Three friends and I went in on a Minnesota Twins 20-game season ticket plan for the 2012 season. We held two seats just to the right of the bullpens in the right field bleachers. 2011 had been a disappointing, injury-riddled year for a Twins team that had been expected to challenge in the American League, the year when only three position players made it through 100 games, Tsuyoshi Nishioka broke out and Drew Butera played in 93 games and posted a .449 OPS—a figure that I think could have been matched by either of Joe Mauer’s at-that-point-unborn twin girls.

"Well, At Least We Got a Point": The Wild in 2013

This is Part 2 of a 7-part look-back at what happened in Minnesota sports over the past 12 months. Some of these stories are obviously figments of my imagination. A couple actually happened. These are the tales, imageries, conversations, and visualizations that best described, at least for me, what it meant to be a Minnesota sports fan over the past 12 months.

Cal Clutterbuck, commencing his traditional post-goal rendition of "The Circle of Life." Courtesy of the AP.

The game proceeded as most other high-stakes contests had during the time I had known these guys. Tense stretches of rising action followed by Vesuvius bursts of unfettered emotion: directed at refs, at the personal shortcomings of opposing players, at the heroics of Josh Harding, the Wild’s emergency man-between-the-pipes.

A first period Cal Clutterbuck tally sent us into raptures, but an absolute snipe by Marian Hossa late in the second equalized for the host Blackhawks. The shots piled up for Chicago, but Josh Harding went low, went high, and stayed in front of everything the world-class opposition could throw at him. The game trickled into overtime, and star Zach Parise had a clear shot from in front that goalie Corey Crawford kicked just wide.

Don't Buy a House: Catching Up with Minnesota Sports in 2,100 Words or Less

First rule of buying a house: Don't buy this tiny of a house.

On May 30th, my girlfriend and I closed on a house just east of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. This was the culmination of a whirlwind month-long search to find a place we could afford in a nice neighborhood relatively close to where we worked. A couple dozen showings and open houses into our search, we found what would become our new house on the last day before we would have to switch our focus to rentals. It's a charming 3-bedroom with room for renovation in the finished upstairs and enough work done in the "unfinished" basement to host Vikings games and (heaven forbid) the occasional Minnesota playoff contest.

Closing (Tubby) Time: One Last Call for Basketball

Less than 24 hours after the Golden Gophers basketball team’s season-ending defeat in a 78-64 against a strong Florida Gators squad, Minnesota athletic director Norwood Teague flicked the lights off for the Tubby Smith Era of Gophers hoops.  The local media has approved the move for the most part, while the national folks have lamented the pink slip received by one of the good guys in college basketball and decried Teague’s and the program’s aspirations to become something more than a second-and-a-half-ish tier team in a big-time conference. Come on, they say. Count your blessings. You’re Minnesota. You’re located in the nation’s hinterlands, and you’re about as big a basketball powerhouse as McDonald’s is a place to get great ribs. You just fired the best thing you had going for you. 

This Was Supposed To Be The Winter of Sports!: or, Fun With Limericks

The world's first book o' limericks, penned by Edward Lear

(The following is a combination of truths and fictions relating to the origin of the limerick—a rhythmic, five-line poem structure—and the current states of affair for our local sports teams. Please consider all of the following limerick-related information in the same manner as you would any recent victory from any of our local squads: with a grain of salt and a swift retaliatory kick in the nether regions.)

Regression to the Lean: Reviewing a 96-Hour Pu Pu Platter

Tuesday, January 22
Nashville 3, Wild 1

Wednesday, January 23
Northwestern 55, Golden Gophers 48
Brooklyn 91, Timberwolves 83

Thursday, January 24
A Brief Respite

Friday, January 25
Detroit 5, Wild 3
Washington 114, Timberwolves 101

Saturday, January 26
Wisconsin 46, Golden Gophers 45
Charlotte 102, Timberwolves 101

As much as it sometimes seems like I revel in our sporting misery, I really don't like writing articles like this very much. They're much more cathartic than enjoyable, and there's no sense of a weight being lifted when the last keystroke has been hit and the last picture placed. But this was one remarkably awful week of sports for all of our most nationally relevant hometown teams, and a website that cites taking mediocrity to task as one of its stated motives for existence must give some kind of comment about the line of turds the Timberwolves, Wild, and Gophers guys basketball team have laid in one particularly trying 96-hour span.

Full Court Distress: A Running Diary of a Failure-Filled Thursday Night

Dan Barreiro asked his producer how much longer he had to hype the Minnesota-Michigan basketball game before it was scheduled to begin. Justin Gaard answered that he had about 14 minutes and change. At that moment, I pulled into the driveway of the house I share with Tony D and two other guys. One of those two is a tall blonde fellow named Tom. The following is a depressing and somewhat inaccurate narrative describing last night's major sporting events from Tom's and my perspective.