I think I'm gonna do it

You can ask any of my friends and they'll all tell you I'm not a betting man. In the last year I've put money on exactly one sports bet that I'm currently winning, the under on the Wolves winning 30, but I think its time to make another, much riskier bet. I know I’m a twins fan and I’m probably being a homer, but I’m putting 20 bucks on them to win the world series now. On March 1st.

I look at it this way. This team made it to the playoffs last year. Yeah, just a one game series, but it was bonus baseball. Hear me out on this one. When I say this team I mean THIS team. Same rotation, same outfield plus a healthy Cuddy and same infield plus Joe Crede. You can say his back will give. I will argue that the contract gives the Twins incentive to drop him early. Something they didn’t do with previous veterans who didn’t belong. If his back gives we just go back to the platoon, if not we got a guy who was once an all-star, once a silver slugger and a good fielder.

And this rotation? Now they have an entire season under their belts. Now they won’t be intimidated or caught off guard and we get a full season of Liriano. If Liriano had gotten 2 more of Hernandez’ starts last season we would have beat the White Sox outright and gone up against a clone in the Devil Rays... It would have been interested. Now the whole team is back plus one and a specialty role or two.

The only thing that makes me weary is the bullpen. It could use a shot in the arm (rimshot). Somebody is going to have to step up with Neshek out once again. Mijares could be the guy to step up, but that could just as easily go south. My feeling is that if we can't get someone to step up in the bullpen we'll still be in a good despite the weakness and come trade time we'll find ourselves in the perfect position to pick up that big name reliever for once instead of stand idly by.

This team really could turn into a steam roller and it would be so poetic to do it in the final season at the dome with a hometown kid as the hero and a team made almost entirely out of the farm system just after their owner has died. It would be beautiful and I think it could happen.

Thank you Erin



Hat tip: Twinkie Town


Fuck You NBA and Possibly Fox Sports Net Too

Today during one of the first 28 Home runs that Josh Hamilton hit I realized that tonight was the Wolves first summer league game. Then Bez informed me that I could watch the game for free on NBA.com as IT WOULD NOT BE BROADCAST IN THE TWIN CITIES.

After signing up for the service and telling them the truth about who I am and where I'm from I was informed that:

This live webcast is not available in your area. Please check your local tv listings for broadcast info on this game.

Uhh, Fuck you NBA. Who in their right minds wants to watch a shittier version of the wolves except for maybe me and 3 other dudes? And who told you that this game was being broadcast somewhere where it was definitely not. All I want to do is take a look at what Kevin Love can do against bad compatition and get a feel for who our next back-up PG is going to be. (I'm afraid Bassy is so gonzo that even Hunter S. Thompson can't understand)

What can I watch instead of my beloved and shitty Wolves? O.J. fucking Mayo and the Memphis Grizzlies play the Fake Lakers. Thats some shitty shit, man. Did you plan this? Are you mocking me assholes? Whats the deal with letting me watch the player I wanted play for the wrong team but not the right team with the wrong player?
I hate everyone responsible for what occured tonight. I even tried to pretend I was from Idaho even though I knew it was a feutal attempt to see my team.

P.S. Kevin Love had 16 pts and 11 rebounds last time I looked which doesn't mean shit.

P.P.S. Amazingly Justin Morneau won the home run derby by some loophole in the rules where the man with the best proformance doesn't always get to win. Congratulations of the money and the car if you got one, but we both know Hamilton got robbed. He put on a crazy show that put my jaw on the floor for what felt like a good half hour.

Something good finally happens to the Twins

Justin Morneau and Micheal Cuddayer have signed long term deals with the Twins ensuring that we will not have another Hunter/Santana debacle on our hands. Morneau's contract is said to be 6 years long and worth about $80 million while Cuddayer's is 3 years and about $23 million. I think I would have liked them to put another year on Cuddy's contract, but if they move him to center like Gardy (bat-shit crazily) said might happen three years would probably be a better deal for the team to have the 4th year option.

I am really starting to like Bill Smith as the general manager of this team. I don't know about his ability to get the prospects in trades that Terry Ryan always seemed to find but he was willing to trade pitching for batting and now he's signed two very good baseball players to contracts before they got a whiff of free agency. Terry Ryan would be sitting with his thumb up his ass going over the Johan trade offers with a fine toothed comb and too busy to ensure that two of the best players on the club stay here in Minnesota.

Now all Smith has to do to pull off the trifecta of GM brilliance is get the Mets, Red Sox and Yankees back into a bidding war. Get me Lester and Elsbury. Get me Hughs, Kennedy and Cabrerra. Get me a couple players from the Mets that Terry Ryan approves of. Honestly I have no clue about any of the players being offered by the Mets and that scares me, but I didn't know who Joe Nathan, Boof Bonser and Fransisco Liriano were when I was unsure about making Mauer the every day starter (still not sure about how that will play out).

The Star Tribune told me about the contracts.

HUH???

Terry Ryan is done, as GM. This is strange. Why now? Why at all? Is he saying? There are so many questions. More later.

All-Star Un-Weekend is Upon Us.

No matter what the sport there is always a stigma attached to All-star games. The Superstars never want to play, everybody thinks their guy deserved a spot and didn’t get it (*cough * Pat Neshek * cough*) and the games usually aren’t too defensive. Baseball has tried to remedy this problem after the debacle in 2002 at Bud’s own stadium, but all that has resulted from that mess was AL home field advantage in the world series for, oh… say the next quarter century. Of course, that doesn’t bother me with the Twins in the AL, all Pohlad has to do is spend some $ ching $ and keep Torii, Johan, Nathan, Cuddy and Morneau to long-term deals. I know he’ll never pay them all because owners are assholes but I can dream, dammit.

Anyway, tonight Dr. Morneau is gonna be crushing the long ball in the Home Run Derby. If I know my Morneau correctly he’ll be adding to his legend by becoming the first player ever to kill another when he accidentally knocks Eric Byrnes unconscious and he slips off his Kayak into McCovey Cove. I also wouldn't mind if he did the same to Kenny Mayne. The good doctor will have fellow Canuck and baseball smasher Larry Walker lobbing gopher balls in his general direction. Did he slight Scotty Ullger and Joe Vavra with his decision? Possibly, but putting two Canadians together in a lax environment and micing them can only lead to great sound bites. I’m probably going to petition to get a second Canadian into the NBA so we can listen to Nash say “Eh.”

Like I mentioned the other day Johan Santana, Torii Hunter and Justin Morneau will be playing in the big game, and like I didn’t mention Ron Gardenhire is one of the coaches on Jim Leyland’s squad. I hope Torii measured Barry Bonds’ head when the future home run king picked him up back in 2002 so that we can settle this steroid business. Oh yeah, and if you wanted to go the game but couldn’t scrape enough change together out of the ashtray some dentist managed to get permission from MLB to wear a silly-ass hat on his head with a camera so you can feel like you’re at the ball park. Drunken, obnoxious asshole blocking your view included!

Some stuff hapened while I was gone

While I was gone a couple notable things happened regarding the sports teams in Minnesota That I thought were worth mentioning.

The AL All-star team was announced somewhere between Iowa and Wisconsin and I swear to god it took me 2 days to figure out which Twins made the team. The batting Champ was replaced by the MVP Torii got invited this year and Johan made it 3 in a row. Pat Neshek was included on the Internet vote for the final spot. Alas, the wacky, blogging reliever from Brooklyn Park was unable to overcome the terrible twosome that is the Red Sox nation and Japan. Hideki Okajima stole the final spot.

In other Twins news... Holy shit, they scored 32 against the White Suks today. Torii had one in each game, Dr. Morneau had 3 (in one game!), Gimpy Cirillo had one, Kubel displayed that power people keep on trying to tell me he has and Cuddy hit double digits in the HR catagory. In the second game of the double header Mike Redmond took a bat to the face invoking a strange rule that TNABACG explains. I'm calling it the Chris Hientz rule from now on

In Wolves news Kammron Taylor was added to the Summer league roster. I believe that this is a good pickup and though it will not fill the void left by Bracey, its a start. Stupid McHale.

The Wild signed Pierre Mark Bouchard Wes Walz to one-year deals and requested arbitration for Boogaard. They also Signed a dude on 'roids so that we have a chance of beating the Ducks. I will have my day, Earl.

The Vikings plan on raping you if you want to go to the Bears or Packers games. If you want tickets to those games you're gonna need to buy preseason games. Note to self- Hit up the August 10th or 30th preseason game to check out Adrian Peterson... people will be giving away tickets. Also, Kelly Holcomb would like to become the quarterback for the team, but Brad Childress still feels like the team isn't ready for quarterback at this point in time.

The Legend of Dr. Mourneau

When Justin Morneau hit his walk-off home run last night, his 20^th of the season, it got me thinking about the Twins best power hitter since Harmon Killebrew. Through 67 games has 257 at bats, 48 runs, 72 hits, 20 home runs (3 are walk-offs) 54 RBIs, 30 base on balls, 39 strike outs and a .280 bating average. Little is known about the Canadian first baseman except that he won the MVP last year and loves and played hockey as a child. Because the Twins first baseman grew up in Canada and plays in Minnesota there is little media coverage and even less in terms of background information. The following, this legend of Dr. Morneau, was obtained through interviews with a friend of a friend of a guy who used to know a dude who played pee-wees with Morneau, the chick who dated Joe Mauer in 4^th grade and recently had a phone conversation with him and the oldest and drunkest man we could find in New Westminster, British Columbia.

Legend has it Dr. Morneau was born with a bat in one hand and a hockey stick in the other, this lead to a 43 hour delivery from his mother who immediately returned to catch her co-ed softball game in time to hit a walk-off grand slam of her own. Morneau’s godfather, Paul Bunyan, attempted to play outfield against a 4 year-old Morneau; The pair used Mount Seymour as the outfield fence, but Bunyan continually fell into Buntzen lake and eventually gave up citing “bad knees.” By the time he was 11 he was playing on the High School baseball team. His most notorious play came at the plate against Fraser Valley Christian High School when he sent the catcher into the 5th row. He was declared safe.

At the age of 15 Morneau had a very eventful camping trip in which he single-handedly hunted down the entire Bigfoot population in the area using only a Swiss army knife and gumption. Earlier in the day he arm-wrestled a Grizzly Bear to a tie. When asked about the tie Morneau said that he would have ripped the bear’s arm off, but he holds a special spot in his heart for the beasts. Also the bear’s wife was in the crowd and he felt no need to embarrass the Grizzly more than he already had.

As a Pee Wee hockey player the first baseman preferred to play sans helmet and take puck shots to the face prior to games to get “psyched-up.” Twins fans may have been surprised when Morneau continued playing with a broken nose but Canadians simply said, ” Yeah, that’s Morneau for ya, Eh.” On a side note Morneau’s great grandfather invented the word “Eh.” The origin came from the grandfather attempting to fight and hit on the slugger’s great grandmother simultaneously. He happened to be ending sentences as his foe landed kidney shots.

Recently Morneau lobbied the MLB rules committee to allow him to carry Lew Ford and Nick Punto on his shoulders as he batted and ran bases. He figured that if he crossed home plate with the two on his shoulders he would score 3 runs automatically instead of having to wait for the two to get on base themselves. In an effort to get his rule passed he offered to rip Barry Bonds’ eyes out. Hank Aaron appreciated the offer, but Bud Selig said that the police would most likely have to get involved. Finally, there is much commotion about Morneau’s daily routine of a Jimmy John’s sub prior to each game. What is not as widely known is that the first baseman washes down the sandwich with an authentic Major league baseball eaten like an apple. Morneau says it helps with his “intestinal fortitude.” Morneau recently received an honorary doctorate in ball crushing from the University of Vancouver... Hence the title Dr. Morneau.

Why no A.J.?

A.J. Pierzynski didn’t play in the final game of the Twins/ White Sox series today and we here at SPK decided some detective work was necessary. After a few calls and a bribery consisting solely of White Castle’s flavored chicken rings we were able to obtain a transcript of the conversation between Ozzie Guillen and A.J. prior to the game. Enjoy.

Ozzie: (yelling from his office) A.J., ged ing here! Joo god some ‘splaining to do.

A.J. : (enters the room with a wrestling belt around his shoulder) What’s up Oz?

Ozzie: I ayng Berry mad at joo A.J. Why joo godda spikey da NVP’s foot ayng make ada Twings bats work? No es bueno A.J.

A.J.: I don’t know what you’re talking about Oz. I’m a perfect angel and an all-star caliber catcher.

Ozzie: No, joo is mine least favoritest player ayng I hab hated hated joo frong day one.

A.J.: that kinda harsh Oz, I thought you said you liked me.

Ozzie: No, I tell dat (censored) Mariotti ang da media dat we hates joo less causen joos ong da team. Day god 40 hits ing two ganes, A.J. Joo pisses dem off ayng den joo calls a bad gane? Day gonna bean joo for chure if I puts joo out dare today.

A.J.: Come on Oz! I was thinking of sliding into Castillo to try and mess up his knees again today!

Ozzie: Das bad beisbol A.J. joo godda learn dat joo cang jus do dat.

A.J. What if I got Redmond to punch me in the face? Is that bad baseball?

Ozzie: I hate joo A.J.

A.J.: But he’s going to punch me.

Ozzie I’n gonna pun joo ing da face. I wich we coo ged songting in a trade for joo like da Twings. Joo godda sit today, I ayng playing Toby.

A.J.: that’s bullshit Oz, I’m gonna call up all the talk radio in Chicago.

Ozzie: goo, I’n don give a sheet, call de Springer too. Ged oudda her, I godda ting of a nicknangs for de new Twings pitchers.

The twins swept the Sucks today in fantastic fashion. I fell asleep when it was 4-6 and woke up when it was 7-6. A.J. wasn't on the field and the Twins didn't need Redmond's .320 Batting average or Castillo's .334 average. Thats 7/8 games, 47 hits in this last series and a good feeling about my favorite baseball team. When Mauer and Rondell White get back I have a feeling we'll bring it to the rest of the A.L. Central.

Morneau single-handedly proves that White Sox do indeed suck

After having to deal with Boof ball the Twins were able to pull out a victory in the opener of the Twins/ White Sox series in Minneapolis. After spending what feels like month without a homerun Dr. Morneau managed two. He started off the game with a solo shot, but the Sucks came back to take the lead. Somehow Boof managed to make it to the 7^th inning, which is great, but I wish I didn’t have to use the word somehow. His pitching wasn't even the problem, it was his errant throw to third that got him the ND.

A rally in the 8^th which started with a Bartlett double that brought Redmond home and ending with a Hunter single to bring the Bartman home. Hunter is having one hell of a season and is no doubt auditioning for a big payday from Boston or New York. The 10^th stared off with a double from the fastest man with a limp (Castillo) and the Sucks chose to walk Hunter. Justin Morneau came to the plate and smashed the hell out of the ball for an upper deck three run walk-off homerun.

Hopefully Ozzie and Co. have awakened the beast and sent him on his homerun tear/ .300 batting average. With Mauer on the DL we’ll need Hunter and Morneau to swing big sticks. Hopefully Cuddy’s back feels fine and he can begin crushing the ball. This is a nice start to 9 straight games against the upper echelon (AKA not the Royals) of the central division.