151 thoughts on “July 15, 2011: Back on the Horse”

  1. Has anyone else used the Readability plugin for Chrome (or any other browser)? I just found out about it yesterday. It's great. I clicked "Send to Kindle" on two articles yesterday and there they were waiting for me when I got home. I had been previously copy/pasting into Word and then emailing that to the Kindle, but this is much faster and formatted much better. Fantastic plugin.

        1. It's one of the best pieces of software I use on a daily basis, if that'll sell you. (Course, I don't personally use the Kindle integration much. But I know people that do.)

    2. Is there anything that dumps it all into a single word file for printing? (No digital reader for me.)
      That'd be sweet.

      1. Sure is. With Readability, you click "Read Now" and it formats it into a single webpage, stripping out all the sidebars and other frames. Then there's a "Print This" button right above the "Kindle" button. Here's a sample I picked more or less at random from "Wired" (I hope that works). Here's the original for comparison.

    3. I've been using Readability in Firefox for months. Since I'm a longform fan, I really appreciate the app if I want to read an article on my laptop. Otherwise I send it to Instapaper and take it along with me on my iDevice.

  2. Keith Law put his mid-season top 50 prospects up (insider (required). Twins on the list:

    15- Aaron Hicks OF-6-2.185.
    Analysis: Hicks got off to a horrible start, but is now hitting .294/.414/.447 (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) since May 1. He's a true center fielder who projects to have above-average defense, a plus arm, the ability to get on base and more power once he gets out of the pitcher-friendly Florida State League. Preseason Ranking: 10

    23- Miguel Sano 3B-6-3. 195.
    Analysis: This 18-year-old projects as an impact bat at first base or in left field with big raw power. Weird stat quirk: He's a right-handed hitter but has a reverse split in 2011, hitting .311/.368/.607 against right-handed pitchers in 21 games for rookie-level Elizabethton. Preseason Ranking: 29

    27- Oswaldo Arcia OF- 6-0. 210.
    Analysis: I have to think he would have been in the Futures Game if he'd been healthy. He's hitting .300/.345/.480 in a tiny sample in high-A as a 20-year-old who projects to stay in right field. Preseason Ranking: 74

    I believe Kyle Gibson was a top 50 prospect before the season, not anymore.

    1. Gibson dropped two spots to #36 in BA's mid-season top 50 and they didn't include Arcia or Sano. Also, if Gibson was already close to #50, then it's easy to see why he missed the cut.

        1. I'm extremely bullish on Hicks so I definitely wouldn't want to see this, especially not this year.

          1. Yeah I get that. That's why it's dumb. I'm one that doesn't care for Hicks as a prospect. Believed and still do that Revere was the better bet. That's partially on by belief that he's not going to be the plus defensive CF. Kinda a BJ Upton with worse defense?

            I fully recognize I'm being a hater though.

            1. Revere had a .741 OPS as a 21-yr-old in Ft. Myers. Hicks has a .778 OPS as a 21-yr-old in Ft. Myers and that's after a slow start. Hicks may be slightly slower than Revere, but Hicks has the organization's best arm for a position player. IIRC, Revere was criticized in the minors for his routes on defense and I don't remember anything like that for Hicks.

        2. No, the Twins wouldn't win that trade. Bell is in his final arb year, so the Twins would be trading a highly thought of prospect for two months of Bell. He's better than Capps, but Hicks is better than Ramos.

    3. Glad to see my boy Oswaldo jumping up the list, despite missing two months due to injury.

  3. The more I hear about the Clemens trial, the stranger it seems. The only options I can think of are: 1) the prosecutors were simply incredibly incompetent; 2) the prosecutors were so arrogant that they thought they could put that evidence in and no one would notice; 3) the prosecution's case was so weak, but they felt so much pressure to go ahead with it anyway, that they thought their only hope for a conviction was to try to sneak this through. 4) the prosecution deliberately sabotaged its own case. I'm open to other ideas, but those are the only ones that come to mind.

    1. I've ceased being surprised by celebrity trials. When someone's being protected, it turns into a joke.

      I'm trying not to cross the line, but Clemens has friends up high in American government, and when he was initially on trial years ago, it was clear that members of that party were interested in nothing but praising him for being an icon while political opponents were launching attack after attack. It became pointless to follow, as it was clear that nobody on either side had anything in mind besides advancing their political careers.

      1. He wasn't on trial, he was testifying before a Congressional committee.

        My dad thinks it was a set up, that Clemens was being protected in this trial, but I have a hard time getting to that point. I'd like to think that our prosecutors were simply incompetent and not bought.

        1. If they decide not to retry, my money is on having sabotaged their own case. Either they thought this was better than putting up a stinker of a case and losing or there was something worse that they didn't want to have to deal with... I don't know. But it's so blatant that it seems purposeful.

          1. Lester Munson of 4LTR disagrees, I think:

            Prosecutor Durham had done a masterful job in his opening statement and was building powerful evidence on the difficult issue of the committee's authority to investigate baseball when the video blunder occurred. The prosecutors' work throughout the process has been high-quality and nearly error-free.

            A mistrial like this is a rare event in federal courts. Deliberate defiance of a judge's order by federal prosecutors is even rarer. If this combination of rare events has indeed occurred, it could allow Clemens to walk away from a massive investigation and prosecution that seemed likely to send him to prison.

            Then again, he sounded like Nancy Grace lite during the Bonds trial.

    1. This is all over my Facebook feed, what with all my friends who live there. A couple weeks ago my friend Shawn Ashley asked when I was getting out there and I suggested it might be this weekend. She said come before, come after, but don't even think about trying to get there over the weekend.

    2. My wife and I had a good laugh over that one. I've lived a significant portion of my life on the 405, but still, for gosh sakes, they closed I-40 here in St. Louis for TWO YEARS. And I-29 is still under water in Omaha, and even if it all dried up today, it'll be months before it's ready to drive on again.

      Seems like a great opportunity to show this classic -- 405, the movie:
      httpv://youtu.be/tKg5-asGRHY

      2. Shawn's mentioned that she won't be leaving the house. I think it's primarily the retail and food service people scheduled to work that are worried about getting there on time, or at all.

    4. Or, as one of my colleagues here refers to it, Y2Kar. I'm not too worried about it. But I have no reason to drive north of the 10 this weekend, so it's all moot.

    1. Thanks for the link to a nice little interview. Braun on Bert:

      He had a mid-90s fastball, but the curveball was what he was noted for. I can remember going to spring training, nobody wanted to hit batting practice off of him. We knew the curveball was coming; he used to let us know the curveball was coming, and it was still unhittable.

      That's the kind of cockiness I just love.

  6. I took my fried hard drive to Data Recovery Services earlier this week. This morning, I got an email indicating they are ready to talk price. What's the line? I'll start the bidding at $650.

    2. What do you mean by fried?

      One time I accidentally formatted my hard drive before saving. Bought a recovery program for like $75 and got every thing back except videos, which I didn't care about.

      1. what's funny is that this hard drive was literally in the freezer, if memory serves. you've got to thaw it overnight in the fridge before your throw it into the hot oil though.

        2. Yea, frozen, then, err, flash-fried. But that was just a finishing act. It was already half-baked, at least. And sadly, not enough FAT content to make it tender.

        1. yea, the Mrs. just decided that, no, we don't need those family photos back so badly.

  7. I'm on the phone with Microsoft, and we've hit the "small talk" portion of the conversation.

    "So, Pete, where do you live?"
    "Minnesota"
    "Oh! Beautiful place. Is there snow right now?"
    "......."

    1. A fair percentage of Washingtonians believe that it snows year-round in Minnesota. I'd get comments like, "I bet you wish you were in Minnesota during these hot summers."

      Eighty-eight degree heat with nary a hint of humidity, and not a mosquito in sight all summer long? B*&^h, please.

    2. The correct answer is yes, and it's dark all day long, too. We're hoping for a sliver of light in August. My house is built on an ice mass thirty feet thick. If global warming happens and that ice melts, our entire village will slide right off the ice slab and be destroyed.

      2. it's dark all day long, too. We're hoping for a sliver of light in August. My house is built on an ice mass thirty feet thick. If global warming happens and that ice melts, our entire village will slide right off the ice slab and be destroyed.

        I'm pretty sure this was the plot of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I think John Cusack starred in it. There might have been vampires, too.

        1. There might have been vampires, too.

          And the little kid was the only one who could see them.

    3. it baffles me...it's like, have these people ever seen a weather map during July and seen yellow orange and red all the way up to northern Manitoba?

      1. I was linked to a blog by a Canadian airline worker once who said she never tired of seeing Americans - even many from the northern part of the country - coming off the plane in August with heavy winter jackets, and then picking up their skis at baggage claim.

        1. I have a friend from BC who gets much of the same thing. She's taken to telling people that her family's village just got electricity, she rides a dog sled, and that their mail is flown in on a brush plane with skis.

          1. Heh, I was just discussing my French-Canadian heritage with a co-worker today and told him my grandpa came down to Wisconsin "on the sled".

      1. Speaking of, I just finished up my boycott letter in quadruplicate - one to MC HQ in Chicago, one each to the divisional offices in Milwaukee and Golden, and one to Leinie's in Chippewa Falls.

        2. You should have emailed the Leinie's one to me, then I could print it out and take it directly to the brewery when I pass by next weekend, walk into Jake Leinenkugel's (or whoever is in control right now) office and slam it down on his desk all dramatic-like. That would be awesome.

            1. If only I had time, but I don't think my wife would go for that. I was mostly just posturing. Plus, I highly doubt I'd get past any security.

              I should send you some brew in thanks for the solidarity.

              1. I thought security might be an issue. I envisioned you tearing ass through the corridors of Leinie's before some guard Terry Tate'd you as you waved the envelope in the Leinenkugel's face.

                I should send you some brew in thanks for the solidarity.

                Go onnnnn...

                1. Shoot me an email with your address to peterson dot jessea at gmail dot com. I'll see what I can do. I don't have a ton available right now, but I do have a nice brown ale that just became ready to drink.

  9. I want to give a shoutout to an end of an era. I am a member of the Harry Potter generation and am sad to see it come to a close. The books were a worldwide phenomenon, regardless of their merit. And the movies, although not great, featured some worldclass acting by the likes of Gary Oldman, Maggie Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter and the star of the series, Alan Rickman.

    1. loved the books, movies were okay, and alan rickman always looked far too much like trent reznor for me to take him seriously.

        1. Me, too. Not for any reason, really--I just wasn't all that interested and always found other things to do.

        2. My avoidance has been intentional. Mrs. Hayes thinks I'm weird, but the more hype ladled on top of a media product, the less likely I am to want to be around it. I can be extremely stubborn in this regard.

          1. The Boy is of the age such that Harry Potter was in his wheelhouse the whole way. The Girl caught up quickly. I even had to endure an awful night at the bookstore in Davisville awaiting the release of the final book.

            1. I even had to endure an awful night at the bookstore in Davisville awaiting the release of the final book.

              Didn't Amazon allow any pre-ordering for those books?

              1. So what if they did? This was an event, and I got nominated to chaperone. Of course.

              2. The last Harry Potter book was an awesome experience. Everyone in my age bracket was reading it over the course of 2-3 days.

                True story, the day of the release I had a wedding to go. The trip to the wedding included me and two others, all in the back of the car, frantically reading our own separate books. Never again in my life will I be that excited to read a book.

                1. I may be that excited about A Dance with Dragons, although maybe not because I've had it for two days and haven't started it yet. (waiting for my trip next week so I can read it on the plane.)

              1. something like that. The things we do for our children when our wives make us....

        3. I avoided Harry Potter for a while- then I started reading the books, and was pretty impressed by them in spite of myself. I've watched the movies, and while I don't like them as much as the books, I do enjoy them. I blame most of it on my wife and kids, similar to brianS' comment above.

          1. i think i started reading after the 5th book came out. when all the friends i would expect to make fun of me for reading harry potter were the ones who were all reading harry potter, i decided to give it a shot. read those 5 books in 2 weeks.

      2. Way back in the day, my brother deemed the first Harry Potter movie better than the first LOTR movie. From that day on I vowed never to read or watch anything Harry Potter.

        That said, Drew Magary had a pretty humorous take on Harry Potter vs. Star Wars.

        1. From that day on I vowed never to read or watch anything Harry Potter.
          Your never-read-or-watch-or-listen-to list must be huge.

        2. word of warning to the sensitive eyes in the Nation -- the author is quite the potty-mouth. He may be a child of the Star Wars generation, but his vocabulary seems to be stuck in adolescence.

          still, a funny read.

        3. I quite liked the books and some of the movies are very good, but the first movie was pretty bad, and laughably far from the level set by the LOTR movies.

          1. I should note that, in comparison to what I like, me and my brother a very, very far apart.

            (also, my real reason was that the Harry Potter stuff just never grabbed my attention.)

          2. The first two movies were pretty bad. The fluffy Chris Columbus Potter died a nice death at the hand of Alfonso Cuaron.

              1. i suppose one could argue that the movies grew up with the fans, just as the books did.

                1. Yeah. Columbus' material wasn't that great. The first two books are much that way. But he did a shit job anyway. The third book was still pretty light hearted and Cuaron managed to make a pretty darn good artsy, magical, dark movie.

                2. They could, but it's not that I thought the first two movies were too youthful; I actually thought they were bad. They didn't feel as magical as they should have, Radcliffe to that point was just awful (I can't believe how far he's come) and Columbus's direction was by-the-numbers and uninteresting. Additionally, Alan Rickman wasn't good in those first couple either (by his standards), and if you can't get dynamite from Alan Rickman, yer doin' it wrong.

              2. How ballsy was it to hand over the franchise to David Yates, who'd only done TV productions prior? Paid off pretty well.

      3. Just got back from the movie, actually.

        I read the books initially as bedtime reading for Runner daughter, and kept reading them for completeness. I always felt a little cheated by the author, as she shrouded her endings a bit too much that the reader had much chance to make an educated guess at the ending. Still, I give her a lot of credit for proving to young readers that they could in fact read and enjoy novels of several hundred pages.

    2. I really should mention Warwick Davis, who was awesome in the last movie as Griphook.

        1. Movie and music days are something I avoid - the way a reformed drunkard avoids walking down the street with all the bars. I would get sucked in and never get anything done.

          But c'mon, Lancaster is legendarily good in SMOS. Hopefully you inspired some Citizens to check it out.

          1. I hope so too. The only "star" bigger in that film than Lancaster is the brilliant script, and Tony Curtis was damned fine also in a role that allowed him to go through an extremely powerful arc.

            I feel you on the movie days, although since that's the business I'm in, I look at it as "work-related."

            Edit: (By the way, your acronym makes the movie's title "Sweet Mell of Success.")

            1. Well, I didn't get inspired to check it out at the last movie day, but you admonishing klawitter about it inspired me to add it to my queue.

          2. As a result of Spooky's mention, I have a copy of the DVD on my desk at the studio--my pal Jim brought it in (and further admonished me for not having seen it.)

            *memo to self--Bring it home and watch it...

  12. I have and old checking account at Mom & Dad's that I almost never use*. Every six months I get a letter stating I'm going to incur a $5/mo inactivity fee if I don't use it. So I write a $10 check from that acct. to my DSM one twice a year. Today is one of those days. It's funny that the first carbon in the book is dated 8-1-06. I've 14 checks since then, including today's.

    *I keep it open as it's a joint acct. with Mom. It's come in useful once before when I needed an emergency loan. She can transfer from her acct to mine for free, then I can pay her back when I get the funds. So, I keep it just in case a similar situation arises, though as I have a steady job now that's less likely.

    1. I love being charged to use my own money. You'd think they had a special guard standing watch over a pile of gold dust instead of a bunch of numbers sitting on their server, taking up (maybe) kilobytes of space.

  13. I had a new experience today: Went to Best Buy in Mankato and was I walked in, I said to my brother 'it smells like burnt electronics'. About a minute after that, the manager came over the loud speaker and told us to evacuate the building because the fire chief said so.
    it came after a friggin monster of a thunderstorm with lots of cloud to ground lightning...so Im thinking something got fubarred

  14. Sounds like F-Rod waived his option. Provided he doesn't start throwing punches in the clubhouse the Brewers have added some pretty serious flexibility in their relief corps. I wonder if Roenicke will feel free to use Axford in higher-leverage situations now?

    1. that trade is now pretty awesome for the Brewers. get bullpen help, the Mets pay you 5 mill, AND the player waives his huge player options.

    2. Isn't the deal there that the Brewers are paying him to waive the option? I can't see why he'd waive it for nothing.

      1. well, he becomes a free agent at the end of the season and he is not going to be stuck in Milwaukee

        1. Looks like the Brewers only had to kick in another 500K. Seems like a sensible deal for both sides.

  15. Apparently, Gardy didn't like what he saw of Plouffe's defense at first base:

    JoeCStrib: #Twins vs. RH Hochevar: Revere 8, Casilla 4, Mauer 2, Cuddyer 3, Thome DH, Valencia 5, Young 7, Plouffe 9, Nishioka 6. (Blackburn P)

    Hopefully Thome will stay in there. I guess it makes sense to have Plouffe's inexperience in the outfield if you're hoping for Blackburn to get groundballs tonight.

    1. Plouffe hasn't even had a chance to play first. Though, if he's going to be the Twins' utility guy, I'm all for it. He's a "failed" shortstop, so that means he should be able to handle second reasonably well along with first and second. The outfield is a bit trickier, but maybe he'll be the fifth or sixth outfielder.

      1. Gardy said he put Plouffe at DH yesterday because he wanted a chance to see him in practice at first base. Apparently, he didn't like what he saw.

        1. So Plouffe is going to be the exact opposite of Punto. He can hit, doesn't slide into first, and Gardy hates his fielding everywhere. Probably doesn't like how he sits as a DH.

    3. I'm still hoping Plouffe can be Ty Wigginton. Sounds like Span and Kubel will both start rehab assignments this weekend, and hope to be back with the team by next weekend. So we've got that going for us.

    1. She probably figured the guy would never go to the police and admit that he attempted to rob her and that he was overpowered by her.

  19. Am I 12? Yep. Did I laugh hysterically? Yep.

    Ask Reddit: If you could compress a lifetime worth of farts into a single fart, how far would the thrust propel you into the air? (if at all)?

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