we last visited mr. beal a couple months back. well, his album came out a couple weeks ago, and the initial press is ready to embrace him as their current hipster darling.
here's a track from the album, with more analysis after the break.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7mdtSlgkN8
Continue reading Willis Earl Beal – Evening’s Kiss
(2 votes, average: 6.00 out of 10)
Loading... The hero closed his eyes as he concentrated on his hands. The rope had gone beyond chafing, he was now gripping it so tightly that he imagined the particles in the rough fibers and in his skin mixing and merging until they were indistinguishable from each other. He could hold on forever. For the rest of his life.
He could hear his enemy coming closer, heavy boots clattering across the flagstone court. He would cut the rope, he would let the hero fall into the void below to land amongst the rest of the twisted and broken bodies. The enemy would turn around, victorious, heavy boots would clatter again across the flagstone court, and he would watch the sun set and rise again. But the enemy would not break the hero's grip.
12:10 PM
Francisco Liriano vs. Dan Haren
So, the Twins are well on their way to 158-4, the best record in franchise history. I wanted to take this game log to look at some recent signings by today's teams.
| Josh Willingham | Albert Pujols | |
| Average | .353 | .222 |
| OBP | .421 | .333 |
| SLG | .941 | .667 |
| Home runs | 3 (on pace for 97) | 0 (on pace for 0) |
| RBI | 6 | 2 |
| Contract | 3 years/$21 million | 10 years/$240 million |
We're getting twice the production for a tenth of the contract. Is it really any wonder that the Twins are on pace to win 158 games?
Twins affiliates get three one-run victories. Madison Boer strikes out nine. Brian Dinkelman leaves early with an injury.
Vic Willis (1876)
Addie Joss (1880)
Bill Bailey (1888)
Eric McNair (1909)
Bill Wight (1922)
Bob Zuk (1927)
Johnny Antonelli (1930)
Charlie Lau (1933)
Terry Cooney (1933)
Woodie Fryman (1940)
Vicente Romo (1943)
Terry Harmon (1944)
Mike Macfarlane (1964)
Paul LoDuca (1972)
Antonio Osuna (1973)
Bob Zuk was a long-time scout who was responsible for signing, among others, Reggie Jackson, Willie Stargell, and Gary Carter.
There do not appear to be any players with connections to the Minnesota Twins born on this day.
Apparently, the Twins won last night. I, of course, was finishing up a pointless shift and wishing I was hanging out with y'all here.
I am posting this before knowing the outcome of last night's game.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSrEdpW3PoM
I hope that we can all laugh about this today. 1982.
(3 votes, average: 6.67 out of 10)Loading... Twins 6, Laaaaaaaaaaaaa 5
WP: Gray* (1-0, 0.00 ERA)
LP: Takahashi (0-1, 10.80 ERA)
SAVE(!) Shortening (1)
Fangraphs loves baseball. I do too.
Mlb Recap
Wow. Where to start with this one? The Twins had a lot of firsts tonight including the biggest first of them all, Matt Capps converted the Twins save of the season. Without Matt the local nine wouldn't have had their first win, and for that we thank him. Carl pitched perfect through three, but then he started looking a little shaky. He gave up a leadoff hit to start the fourth, turned a double play into a single play, and then a stolen base lead to a run off poo-holes's bat. Poo-holes forced himself out by trying to take an extra base, and Carl worked himself out of the fourth. JC Superstar stepped to the plate and stroked a double, Joe Mau Mau pussied a single to tie the game, the Mountie struck out, and Josh Willingham absolutely crushed a home run to take the lead. Carl was determined not to give the lead back, but accidentally left one up and Bourjos punished him. Actually, Bourjos punished everyone except LAAA fans. Carl pitched a scoreless 6th, but coughed up another run on a two out hit in the 7th. I was about to give up on the game when Doumit and Sweet Danny V hit back to back singles. Parmelee came to the plate and stroked a double that ii face planted into a triple to tie the game at five. Casilla and Span both went down without making much noise. I began to worry that we were being set up for heartbreak, but JC Superstar assuaged my doubt by singling in Parmelee to take the lead. Glenn Perkins took the ball for the 8th and destroyed the heart of the Angels order. The sequence of pitches to poo-holes was nothing short of magnificent. Capps was called on to close the game out, and other than padding ii's stats he was best there ever was. Perfect.
*Sworn enemy of DPWY
Culture Club: I've done this recap thingy for a couple of seasons and I usually follow up the post with a review of art or a cultural institution. I'm choosing to focus on printmaking workshops this year as a way to feature a large number of artists creating diverse images though a wide range of techniques. I'm also interested in promoting the collecting of original art, and fine art prints offer an inexpensive way to own works by famous, infamous, and unknown (me!) artists. I know that I've already featured them here several times, but, what the hell, Highpoint Center for Printmaking is one of the premier professional printmaking centers in the United States. Cole Rogers, a Tamarind Master Printer, and Carla McGrath have created a professional and community workshop, gallery, and educational outreach programs that are unmatched. From their professional shop they print original works from local, national, and internationally known artists such as Willie Cole, David Rathman, Julie Mehretu, and Todd Norsten to name a few. Their gallery is friendly and features a diverse catalog of work hat can accommodate every level of art patron. Stop by, or better yet take a class at the workshop, and visit Highpoint, and tell them I sent you down.
#Angels (2-2) vs Twins(0-4)
8:10 PM ET at Target Field
Radio: LAA: KLAA 830 MIN: 1500 ESPN
TV: LAA: FS-W MIN: FS-N
##Jered Weaver, RHP
1-0, 0.00 ERA, 0.17 FIP, 1.44 xFIP, 11.25 K/9
##Carl Pavano, RHP
0-1, 5.14 ERA, 5.10 FIP, 4.89 xFIP, 1.29 K/9
Papa Pavano is here to bring his expos experience to the table. . The Twins going for the first win of the season; get it. Everyone rejoices.
##LETS GO TWINS!
I used a random number generator to pick a season from the past with the idea that I would quickly highlight the Twins history that occurred today in that year. The generator sent me to the year 2004.
Detroit 6, Twins 5 (10 innings) - BR boxscore
The Tigers won the rubber-match of a three game series to improve to 5-1 on the early season defeating the Twins in 10 innings (after ending the previous season with just 43 wins). The Twins rallied from an early 3-0 deficit to tie the game 5-5 before losing. The Twins stranded at least two runners in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth innings. Henry Blanco tied the game in the eighth inning with an RBI double, but he was thrown out easily trying to reach third base. Gleeman wrote, "The throw beat Blanco to the bag by about 10 feet and Blanco went 'sliding' into third with some sort of belly flow/somersault combination." The following batter, Cristian Guzman, doubled but was stranded when Nick Punto struck out to end the inning.
Asked about his aggressive baserunning after the game, Blanco explained, "I was out of gas. . . . I was trying to see what could happen. Nothing happened." He added, "Seems like every time you make a mistake on the bases, the next guy gets a hit and you pay for it." Ron Gardenhire did not criticize Blanco's decision. "The play's in front of him, and he's trying to play the game," Gardenhire said. "We don't knock guys for trying to be aggressive."
In perhaps the least surprising quote in the history of quotes, Ron Gardenhire lamented, "We didn't get it done. We were battling. We were getting after it. They were getting after it." [ed. note: I swear on my life this is a verbatim quote from the Strib.]
The Tigers scored their first run when Craig Monroe scored all the way from first base when Lew Ford misplayed a Carlos Pena single. Later, they scored the winning run when Joe Roa issued a one-out walk to Rondell White (aka The Insanity). White was removed for pinch-runner Andres Torres who stole second base and then scored on Monroe's game-winning single. "A game-winning single like that -- I can't describe how good it felt," Monroe said. "I'd never done anything like that before up here."
Joe Nathan did not pitch in the game, but he had pitched in four of the first five games of the season. In fact, through the sixth game, Nathan, Roa, J.C. Romero, and Carlos Pulido had each appeared four times and Juan Rincon and Aaron Fultz had made five appearances.
Johan Santana lasted just five innings (and had thrown only nine innings in his first two starts). He allowed a homerun to Pena in the fourth inning - his first homerun allowed to a left-handed batter in 70.1 innings dating back to the previous season. Santana struggled to retire hitters once he reached two strikes. In fact, Gleeman documented that Santana threw 32 pitches in his five innings after already having two strikes on the opposing batter.
Other Twins notes: The Twins signed Joe Beimel to a minor-league contract that day and assigned him to Rochester. Beimel had a pathetic cup-of-coffee with the Twins in September, but then put together some pretty decent years after leaving the organization. The loss was the team's third of the season. In all three games, they had scored at least four runs.
A front-page story focused on the likely inability of the Twins and Vikings to contribute more than 25% to the cost of their new stadiums. The Twins explained that paying for a large-chunk of the cost "could impair the club's ability to field a competitive team." A stadium bill working its way through the legislature at the time would require the Twins to contribute one-third of the cost - an estimated $150 million - to the final stadium.
GM Terry Ryan expressed some concern that Joe Mays, after undergoing Tommy John surgery in September, was trying to rush his rehab. "We've got to slow him down some," Ryan said.
Blanco was playing because Mauer had been attacked by the warning track behind the plate in the Metrodome and Matthew LeCroy strained his oblique. Through his first fifteen plate appearances, Blanco somehow had hit 267/467/733.