Twins manager Ron Gardenhire agreed with his star catcher, saying that Mauer has been unfairly criticized this year because of his personality and really has dealt with a plethora of injuries.
"He doesn't talk about [injuries], and he shouldn't have to," Gardenhire said. "It's on me. I'm the one who takes him out of the lineup. You can put it on me all you want to. I talk to him every day, and that's the communication. If he's beat up, he's not playing. That's the way it is. There were a lot of days I went in there and said, 'Joe, I don't have many choices.' He said, 'Whatever you need me to do.'"
Yeah, we could have used that quite some time ago, Gardenhire.
Souhan's asked several journalism professionals and none of them had ever heard of the internet.
I am linking to a blatantly political story, for which I apologize. But here's why. There's an anecdote about Justin Bieber that I just had to comment on.
"You guys are evil," he says with a laugh. "Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home."
Justin Bieber doesn't provide health coverage to his employee??? Seriously?
*again, apologies about the politics part
He could just mean he provides coverage through an HMO that still racks up huge medical bills for this bodyguard. Either way...
"His" bodyguard may not literally mean his employee. Bieber's bodyguard could be supplied by a service that Bieber pays for, which I think is more likely given his age.
I also wouldn't be surprised if they're independent contractors.
And actually on contract with his record label or management agency.
Definitely. And the cost is deducted from the artist's percent take. (Maybe I should have put scare quotes around artist, but I haven't actually heard more than about 8 seconds of anything he's done.)
I've got 35 minutes of Bieber on my iPod. He sounds like Stars of the Lid. I can't tell how his style of drone music is so popular with the young girls.
Lid?
Wow. Need to save that for the next time the Twins face Danks.
Actually, SotL named themselves after the starry effect of rubbing your eyes repeatedly.
The double-meaning of lid was probably not unintentional.
That's exactly the way I understand it, from my sample size of one person that I know who's been a bodyguard for famous folks.
Does anyone else find it slightly odd that the movie about the book Billy Beane wrote is just coming out now (Sept. 23), instead of months ago when people outside of playoff cities still cared about baseball this season?
I assume that Billy Beane's movie is a cash grab that couldn't compete with more CGI driven Thor, The Green Lantern, Captain America, etc etc hence the late release.
Yeah, this is the point where we exit blockbuster season and enter Oscar-grab territory.
I made some buffalo chicken dip for work today, only I used some of the leftover pork I had from meat's carne adovada recipe in lieu of chicken and Frank's. I'm calling it an upgrade, this stuff is delicious.
This is my first day in the office all week, and tonight will be my first Twins game of the week. I wasn't paying attention on Monday, was flat on my back (i.e. curled in a fetal position) with a nasty flu bug on Tuesday and Wednesday, and worked from home Gleeman style yesterday. This one moved quick but had it all -- headache, sinuses, sore throat, fever and chills, hacking cough, sneezing, sniffling, etc. It's good to be on the mend.
I had something like that about a month ago. Nasty business.
God is telling you guys to get flu shots this year.
I never used to get flu shots, but then I became a pastor and started spending a lot of time in hospitals and nursing homes. I'm still not convinced about how effective they are, but I want to at least be able to say I did everything I could to avoid getting/spreading the flu.
dude, Pastors don't count the money, the Financial Secretary counts the money. And Mrs. Runner ALWAYS washes her hands after the Monday accounting.
Exactly right. And, unfortunately, there are good reasons why they don't let the pastor count the money.
so, the money isn't being Pastorized?
Booo.
BOOOOOOOO!
guys, don't feed the droll
Rhu: Booo....but with a little "Heh".
I've never gotten a flu shot thanks to my over-the-top fear of needles. As I'm still in my mid-20's, I'm not exactly the flu shot target demographic, but in the next couple of years I think I'm gonna have to bite the proverbial bullet.
The 1918 flu pandemic killed more people between their late teens and mid twenties than any other age group.
You should be glad you didn't have shots back when needles weren't tiny and laser-sharpened. And were reused. Kids today are Mauers.
Kids today are Mauers.
This is my favorite use of the "Mauer is a p*ssy" meme so far.
Also, you can get flu "shots" (mist) administered through the nose which don't require a needle.
Or get a smallpox shot. Two-pronged needles, poking you 15 times. The pain is temporary, but the scar lasts a lifetime.
That one was no good...pleasant memories of penicillin in the tuckus - think molasses through a needle the size of a cocktail straw.
A Navy man getting penicillin...now I've heard of everything!
Everyone gets it in boot camp (the first time).
/clears throat, looks around /
booty camp?
It will be a cold day in hell before I ever got an optional shot. I didn't even bother getting my second hepatitis A shot that would have immunized me for life six months after returning from Africa simply because it would have also required getting a second shot that wasn't immediately necessary.
Good. For a sec I thought he was telling me to run for office.
flu shots are a government conspiracy.
Forbidden Topic!!!11!1
That does it. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Sounds like Moss is being paged.
Pretty soon, those Communists will be taking over the world.
Your computer has a bug, too. Got another spam from you.
Is that directed to me, Rhu_Ru? Because I'm behind on my system maintenance and really should run some scans. Send me any info you have on the spam and I'll check it out. I haven't had any symptoms of an infection, but I haven't been paying real close attention lately, either.
Yes sir. Will do.
I just turned my first job offer since becoming unemployed. I was a bit overqualified. The pay was LESS than I was making with my first job out of undergrad 9 years ago, plus NO benefits. I don't have other offers yet, but I'm okay for a bit and when I could do just as well at say, Target, I think I'll keep looking.
The job I'm about to take will pay me less than half of what I was making just out of undergrad 10+ years ago. I guess didn't know how good I had it.
Yeah I certainly understand the economy is different and I have had it good. However, there are many jobs out there in my field that pay a lot more. I literally would have to file bankruptcy or short sale my home if I took this job and I bought a cheap house (at the time).
It was a good article and definitely something that's been noticed around these parts for a couple of years now. I wish the article would have dug deeper. Why were fundamentals so much better five years ago than they are now?
1. MLB coaching: Is Gardy and his staff not good teachers at the major league level?
2. Minor Leagues: Does the minor league staff not stress fundamentals as much or don't know how to do it? The article seems to throw Tom Nieto under the bus a bit, but I think the slide pre-dates him.
3. Scouting: Are the Twins not drafting fundamentally sound players like they did in the past?
4. Something else: Bad Luck, no one fundamentally sound these days, etc.....
As with most things, I have a feeling it's a little of all the above.
On a related note ...
jmand1 Jim Mandelaro
Breaking news: Twins dismiss @rocredwings manager Tom Nieto and hitting coach Floyd Rayford. Pitching coach Bobby Cuellar keeps job.
Didn't take them long to make some changes.
There's a poll on the side: Do you have confidence in Twins management to make needed changes? So far, 68% picked the obvious one: "no, changes need to include management changes".
There's a shocker. Not going to happen anyways, so it's really a rather useless poll. I'm surprised it's only 68 percent considering those that normally take part in such polls, how bad the season has been and the typical fan knee-jerk reaction to such things.
I found Nieto's defense to be a bit puzzling:
As far as doing our pregame work, we didn't change anything we did last year to this year.
Gee, Tom. You lost 95 games last year. Perhaps change was warranted.
Yeah, that was strange. My guess is that he meant they weren't criticized the year before about work ethic, but I can't imagine they were praised for it either.
Phil Mackey on the topic. Basically, he excerpts from the press release. How about some actual reporting, Phil?
from the release:
"The Minnesota Twins organization would like to thank both Tom and Floyd for their contributions," Twins Director of Minor League Operations Jim Rantz said in a press release.
"These changes in Rochester are just part of an overall directional change that is being implemented throughout the minor league system this off-season."
Interesting that Jim Rantz isn't getting the heave-ho. He's been the Director for a long time, hasn't he? (checks: 26 seasons now)
Rantz prolly knows where the bodies are buried.
Facebook status of the day:
WARNING! DO NOT CLICK ON LINKS TO AUDIO CLIPS OF NEW NICKELBACK ALBUM. They lead to audio clips of the new Nickelback album.
Nickelback's fish in a barrel, but I never get tired of shooting.
This one has some Annie Oakley style.
niiice
So two of my roommates have been together for ten years, and when they're both home, they yell at each other nonstop. Imagine my elation when the guy left early this morning!
Yeah, so for the last hour I've been listening to the girl yell at him over the phone. Lord almighty, I hate these people.
i never understood those types of relationships at all before. i had plenty of friends in them, witness the acrimony, and wondered why why why?
then, i was in a very tumultuous 4 month relationship where i participated in all those things i hated about those couples. while i now have a better understanding about those kinds of relationships, i still cannot condone them.
Yeah. I can see why they happen, but these two have been together trying to figure out if they belong together for years now. The answer is quite obviously no. They'll both allow themselves to be trampled by the other, solely out of comfort. Meanwhile, everyone around them suffers. Their dog spends all day with me.
well, yeah. i figured out pretty quickly that that chick was poison, but i still let it drag on for awhile. regardless, i had the good sense to jump ship in about 4 months. 10 years? feh.
so the dog jumped out of the frying pan
43 comments in a game log? That's got to be close to an all-time low.
for the new basement. Do we have data on the old basement yet?
FWIW, the local boys done good again tonight, winning 40-14. They were up 26-0 at the half, 40-0 in the third quarter, playing second and third stringers. I think the coach needs to start scheduling some tougher non-conference opponents -- SOS matters here for playoff seeding and such. (to be fair, tonight's opponent was in the playoffs last year and advanced to the second round; we beat them 49-35 last season).
I also have been known to say I'll restart my workout regimen today or tomorrow.
This might be too late, but it's better than not at all.
Yeah, we could have used that quite some time ago, Gardenhire.
I read this quote weeks ago.
http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Gardenhire_says_Mauer_plays_hurt_more_than_any_of_these_other_guys082711
Souhan's asked several journalism professionals and none of them had ever heard of the internet.
I am linking to a blatantly political story, for which I apologize. But here's why. There's an anecdote about Justin Bieber that I just had to comment on.
Justin Bieber doesn't provide health coverage to his employee??? Seriously?
*again, apologies about the politics part
He could just mean he provides coverage through an HMO that still racks up huge medical bills for this bodyguard. Either way...
"His" bodyguard may not literally mean his employee. Bieber's bodyguard could be supplied by a service that Bieber pays for, which I think is more likely given his age.
I also wouldn't be surprised if they're independent contractors.
And actually on contract with his record label or management agency.
Definitely. And the cost is deducted from the artist's percent take. (Maybe I should have put scare quotes around artist, but I haven't actually heard more than about 8 seconds of anything he's done.)
I've got 35 minutes of Bieber on my iPod. He sounds like Stars of the Lid. I can't tell how his style of drone music is so popular with the young girls.
Lid?
Wow. Need to save that for the next time the Twins face Danks.
Actually, SotL named themselves after the starry effect of rubbing your eyes repeatedly.
The double-meaning of lid was probably not unintentional.
That's exactly the way I understand it, from my sample size of one person that I know who's been a bodyguard for famous folks.
Does anyone else find it slightly odd that the movie about the book Billy Beane wrote is just coming out now (Sept. 23), instead of months ago when people outside of playoff cities still cared about baseball this season?
I assume that Billy Beane's movie is a cash grab that couldn't compete with more CGI driven Thor, The Green Lantern, Captain America, etc etc hence the late release.
Yeah, this is the point where we exit blockbuster season and enter Oscar-grab territory.
The Buffalo Bills are looking good.
[redacted]
i am now calling the bills the "pretty-boys" for the rest of the year.
Compliments are for chicks...
Soon enough you will see how the rest of the city stacks up.
heh.
I made some buffalo chicken dip for work today, only I used some of the leftover pork I had from meat's carne adovada recipe in lieu of chicken and Frank's. I'm calling it an upgrade, this stuff is delicious.
This is my first day in the office all week, and tonight will be my first Twins game of the week. I wasn't paying attention on Monday, was flat on my back (i.e. curled in a fetal position) with a nasty flu bug on Tuesday and Wednesday, and worked from home Gleeman style yesterday. This one moved quick but had it all -- headache, sinuses, sore throat, fever and chills, hacking cough, sneezing, sniffling, etc. It's good to be on the mend.
I had something like that about a month ago. Nasty business.
God is telling you guys to get flu shots this year.
I never used to get flu shots, but then I became a pastor and started spending a lot of time in hospitals and nursing homes. I'm still not convinced about how effective they are, but I want to at least be able to say I did everything I could to avoid getting/spreading the flu.
Use some hand sanitizer after you count up the weekly collection, Parson.
dude, Pastors don't count the money, the Financial Secretary counts the money. And Mrs. Runner ALWAYS washes her hands after the Monday accounting.
Exactly right. And, unfortunately, there are good reasons why they don't let the pastor count the money.
so, the money isn't being Pastorized?
Booo.
BOOOOOOOO!
guys, don't feed the droll
Rhu: Booo....but with a little "Heh".
I've never gotten a flu shot thanks to my over-the-top fear of needles. As I'm still in my mid-20's, I'm not exactly the flu shot target demographic, but in the next couple of years I think I'm gonna have to bite the proverbial bullet.
The 1918 flu pandemic killed more people between their late teens and mid twenties than any other age group.
You should be glad you didn't have shots back when needles weren't tiny and laser-sharpened. And were reused. Kids today are Mauers.
This is my favorite use of the "Mauer is a p*ssy" meme so far.
Also, you can get flu "shots" (mist) administered through the nose which don't require a needle.
Or get a smallpox shot. Two-pronged needles, poking you 15 times. The pain is temporary, but the scar lasts a lifetime.
That one was no good...pleasant memories of penicillin in the tuckus - think molasses through a needle the size of a cocktail straw.
A Navy man getting penicillin...now I've heard of everything!
Everyone gets it in boot camp (the first time).
/clears throat, looks around /
booty camp?
It will be a cold day in hell before I ever got an optional shot. I didn't even bother getting my second hepatitis A shot that would have immunized me for life six months after returning from Africa simply because it would have also required getting a second shot that wasn't immediately necessary.
Good. For a sec I thought he was telling me to run for office.
flu shots are a government conspiracy.
Forbidden Topic!!!11!1
That does it. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Sounds like Moss is being paged.
Pretty soon, those Communists will be taking over the world.
Your computer has a bug, too. Got another spam from you.
Is that directed to me, Rhu_Ru? Because I'm behind on my system maintenance and really should run some scans. Send me any info you have on the spam and I'll check it out. I haven't had any symptoms of an infection, but I haven't been paying real close attention lately, either.
Yes sir. Will do.
I just turned my first job offer since becoming unemployed. I was a bit overqualified. The pay was LESS than I was making with my first job out of undergrad 9 years ago, plus NO benefits. I don't have other offers yet, but I'm okay for a bit and when I could do just as well at say, Target, I think I'll keep looking.
The job I'm about to take will pay me less than half of what I was making just out of undergrad 10+ years ago. I guess didn't know how good I had it.
Yeah I certainly understand the economy is different and I have had it good. However, there are many jobs out there in my field that pay a lot more. I literally would have to file bankruptcy or short sale my home if I took this job and I bought a cheap house (at the time).
Joe Morgan has a new gig.
There are too many things I would like to highlight in the article, so I'll just link to the whole thing. The title pretty much sums it up.
It was a good article and definitely something that's been noticed around these parts for a couple of years now. I wish the article would have dug deeper. Why were fundamentals so much better five years ago than they are now?
1. MLB coaching: Is Gardy and his staff not good teachers at the major league level?
2. Minor Leagues: Does the minor league staff not stress fundamentals as much or don't know how to do it? The article seems to throw Tom Nieto under the bus a bit, but I think the slide pre-dates him.
3. Scouting: Are the Twins not drafting fundamentally sound players like they did in the past?
4. Something else: Bad Luck, no one fundamentally sound these days, etc.....
As with most things, I have a feeling it's a little of all the above.
On a related note ...
Didn't take them long to make some changes.
There's a poll on the side: Do you have confidence in Twins management to make needed changes? So far, 68% picked the obvious one: "no, changes need to include management changes".
There's a shocker. Not going to happen anyways, so it's really a rather useless poll. I'm surprised it's only 68 percent considering those that normally take part in such polls, how bad the season has been and the typical fan knee-jerk reaction to such things.
I found Nieto's defense to be a bit puzzling:
Gee, Tom. You lost 95 games last year. Perhaps change was warranted.
Yeah, that was strange. My guess is that he meant they weren't criticized the year before about work ethic, but I can't imagine they were praised for it either.
Phil Mackey on the topic. Basically, he excerpts from the press release. How about some actual reporting, Phil?
from the release:
Interesting that Jim Rantz isn't getting the heave-ho. He's been the Director for a long time, hasn't he? (checks: 26 seasons now)
Rantz prolly knows where the bodies are buried.
Facebook status of the day:
Nickelback's fish in a barrel, but I never get tired of shooting.
This one has some Annie Oakley style.
niiice
So two of my roommates have been together for ten years, and when they're both home, they yell at each other nonstop. Imagine my elation when the guy left early this morning!
Yeah, so for the last hour I've been listening to the girl yell at him over the phone. Lord almighty, I hate these people.
i never understood those types of relationships at all before. i had plenty of friends in them, witness the acrimony, and wondered why why why?
then, i was in a very tumultuous 4 month relationship where i participated in all those things i hated about those couples. while i now have a better understanding about those kinds of relationships, i still cannot condone them.
Yeah. I can see why they happen, but these two have been together trying to figure out if they belong together for years now. The answer is quite obviously no. They'll both allow themselves to be trampled by the other, solely out of comfort. Meanwhile, everyone around them suffers. Their dog spends all day with me.
well, yeah. i figured out pretty quickly that that chick was poison, but i still let it drag on for awhile. regardless, i had the good sense to jump ship in about 4 months. 10 years? feh.
so the dog jumped out of the frying pan
43 comments in a game log? That's got to be close to an all-time low.
Easily in first place, non-postponed division.
for the new basement. Do we have data on the old basement yet?
FWIW, the local boys done good again tonight, winning 40-14. They were up 26-0 at the half, 40-0 in the third quarter, playing second and third stringers. I think the coach needs to start scheduling some tougher non-conference opponents -- SOS matters here for playoff seeding and such. (to be fair, tonight's opponent was in the playoffs last year and advanced to the second round; we beat them 49-35 last season).