February 24, 2012: Another Sick Kid

At least cleanup was a snap, what with the tile floors.

59 LTEs written in response to February 24, 2012: Another Sick Kid

  • FirstTime "hitman" LongTime

    Joe Johnson is injured and will be missing all star weekend. His replacement in the 3 point contest? Well, I will leave the reaction to Hollinger.

    !!! RT @ajchawks NBA says Jerry Stackhouse to replace Joe Johnson in All-Star Sat. shooting stars.

  • brianS

    for the next video game post:

  • sean

    Joe Mauer = good, Drew Butera = bad, Doumit = really bad*.

    * Caveat: The effect is likely pronounced for Butera due to the lack of other catchers to compare against.

  • ubelmann

    Getting back to free’s post in yesterday’s CoC:

    I’ll probably repost this when we get a new pot, but these two tweets came virtually at the same time this morning:

    Phil Mackey‏ @PMac21 -- Morneau: “I don’t know how I’m going to feel tomorrow and how I’m giong to feel a week from now, but today I feel good. Just go from there.”

    Jim Souhan ‏@SouhanStrib — Morneau just spoke. Looks skinny, sounds worried. Not good signs.

    Okay, so Souhan is a clown, but his bias sure seems to be that he believes players aren’t seriously injured when they are. So if he’s publicly worried when a player says he’s fine (for now?), I’m kind of inclined to embrace my pessimism.

    Also, Morneau’s statement by itself is hardly reassuring. It sounds like the sort of thing you might say if you feel good today but didn’t a couple weeks ago and haven’t felt like you’ve made any kind of steady progress towards being 100%.

    • This is essentially the same response I had to it. Souhan is a petty, fear-mongering hack, but in this case, he may be a petty, fear-mongering hack with a point. Morneau’s words are not the words of a person who is confident that he’ll be playing professional baseball in 2013.

    • SBG

      So the fact that he wasn’t in camp wasn’t a cause for alarm, granted, but when he got there, warning bells started ringing with impugnity.

      • ubelmann

        I’ve been pretty pessimistic all along, so yeah, I think it was a little silly for the media to pass along the idea that his absence was no sign for concern. I would even go so far as to say that I’ll believe Morneau is coming back to full health when I see it. CH’s post today had me looking back at how Puckett’s career ended, and I had forgotten that he was playing well in Spring Training and then he was suddenly retired.

    • socaltwinsfan

      Morneau says he’s symptom-free, so how is that not 100 percent? He says he feels fine now, but he doesn’t know how he’ll feel in a couple weeks. Who does? Every concussion is different and he’s been dealing with his for most of the last 18 months, so of course he’s concerned. I read and heard nothing from today that caused me to have any more concern than I had before. It is an unknown. Until he starts feeling symptoms or has problems, why worry about it? Liriano could blow out his arm tomorrow. Mauer could blow out his knee tomorrow. If he didn’t think about the possibility of having to retire, Morneau would either be a complete idiot or in denial, but I get tired of everyone focusing on it. He says he’s fine, the doctors say he’s good to go, then let’s go play and stop asking about it every day. This is a problem that gets exacerbated by stress and is partly psychological. Constantly reminding him of it doesn’t help any. Both Morneau and Span of expressed that they sometimes feel tired or a little off and they don’t know if they’re just tired or if it is a symptom returning. Can you imagine living with that and then having someone shove a camera or audio recorder in your face and asking “How are you feeling? Have you had any symptoms? Will you be able to play tomorrow?”

      • ubelmann

        Morneau says he’s symptom-free, so how is that not 100 percent?

        The part where he tells the media “I don’t know if I’ll be at full 100 percent go, but I’m going to go out there and participate in everything.”

        Until he starts feeling symptoms or has problems, why worry about it? Liriano could blow out his arm tomorrow. Mauer could blow out his knee tomorrow.

        From Morneau:

        “The only thing right now that I’m worrying about coming back or bothering me as we go along is the concussion stuff,” he said. “That’s something that’s just so unknown. There’s people that have the post-concussion [symptoms] and deal with it the rest of their lives. It’s one of those things that I don’t know. I can’t predict the future. All that other stuff — the foot, the knee, the wrist — I don’t see that limiting me at all going forward.

        Morneau himself is worried about it, and it’s clearly a whole different ballgame than something like Liriano’s arm or Mauer’s knee, just like it’s different from Morneau’s foot, knee, and wrist.

        And how can any Twins fan not be at least a little worried with Morneau talking like this?

        “I don’t think there will be a career if it’s something I’m dealing with,” Morneau said. “That’s the reality of the whole thing. I’m obviously not going to continue to mess around with this if it continues to be a problem. There comes a point where you can only torture yourself for so long. It’s something I love to do, but you keep preparing, and you keep being left out. That’s something that nobody wants to go through.”

        None of the other key Twins players are talking about maybe walking away from the game. This is a big story and you’re welcome to ignore it but it’s a big story and a lot of other people will undoubtedly be concerned about it.

    • socaltwinsfan

      He’s dropped some weight with a change in his diet, reducing the stress on his ankles and knees. Morneau said he feels strong enough to go through all the workouts without limitations.

      So, is he “skinny” or “in the best shape of his life.” Morneau is at 222 now and was at 233. Sounds like he was pretty heavy last year. I would think a concussion would cause you to gain weight, not lose it, since you feel fatigued and often have difficulty just getting out of bed or going outside into bright light. Shecky is just from the “sky is falling” school of journalism in the Twin Cities.

      • ubelmann

        You can focus on Souhan if you like, but on the mlb.com story (where optimistic spin is the name of the game), the headline on this story was “Morneau feels good, but concerns linger.”

  • Rowsdower

    Okay, I’m the only one left here at the office for the rest of the day. It’s Friday afternoon Should I Stay or Shout I Go?

  • The Dread Pirate

    meat’s carnitas recipe is making the entire house smell delicious.

  • freealonzo

    Great. Now Souhan, who’s been in Fort Myers all of 2 days already misses Cuddy’s card tricks:

    Jim Souhan ‏@SouhanStrib Having spent 2 days in Twins’ clubhouses can’t tell you how much I miss Cuddyer. Quiet, dull, extremely young clubhouse.

  • FirstTime "hitman" LongTime

    Oh, Rubio!

  • FirstTime "hitman" LongTime

    So the actual basketball in this rookie/soph game is awful. With that said, Rubio has hit multiple teammates in the chest with a pass that they didn’t see coming. This should be a game where he gets to show off all of his skills. Unfortunately his teammates aren’t helping.

  • davidwatts

    turned on the tv and it happened to be on FSN. The Wild are losing 3-0 in Dallas (no shock), but the first thing I heard uttered from the announcers ‘Dallas has not been dominating this game’. I want to live in their fantasy world