86 thoughts on “October 12, 2012: Maximum Drama”

  2. Who said scientists were boring?

    "The way in which this type of rock forms ... is like how applejack liquor was made," geologist Edward Stolper, with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told reporters.

    In colonial times, hard apple cider was put into big barrels and in the winter the liquid would partly freeze. "You'd crystallize out ice and you'd make more and more and more concentrated apple-flavored liquor," Stolper said.

  3. I think folks here might enjoy this new blog.

    An excerpt from today:

    Moreover, in both of the other major sports, defense can transition directly into offense. You can return an interception for a touchdown, but good luck getting a run added to your team tally for turning a double play. A steal becomes a fast break dunk, but a strikeout doesn’t become a towering home run.

    All of that to say this: there’s exceptional excitement to be had in baseball, especially late in close playoff games, even if the result of the key confrontation therein is not new runs on the scoreboard.

    1. Baseball is also the only sport in which the defense has the ball to start each play.

  5. Beem a while since I posted, mostly been lurking during the ugly 2011/2012 seasons, if anyone's interested, I've updated my top300 Twins list though 2012 numbers. I don't think I put my list on a site since the end of 2010 when it was still SBG's site. I'll spare all the stats as they never format well, but in 2 years there are 9 new members (Willingham, Revere, Plouffe, Diamond, Doumit, Capps, Carroll, Burton, Parmalee

    Rank Player
    1 Harmon Killebrew 14 1961-1974
    2 Kirby Puckett 12 1984-1995
    3 Rod Carew 12 1967-1978
    4 Tony Oliva 15 1962-1976
    5 Joe Mauer 9 2004-2012

    Spoiler SelectShow

        2. Yep, not a ton of 1 year Twin wonders: Morris, Willingham, Smiley, the Gambler, O-Hud, Pedro Ramos, and Otis Nixon are the only ones in the top200.

    2. Nice to have you back. If you don't mind, I can edit your table to make it look and act like the ones on B-R.

      1. Do you want me to email you the spreadsheet? I assume that works better than me attempting a copy/paste here?

        1. Sure, but I won't be able to post it until tonight. I would suggest trying what I said below. I just made you an author, so you can test it out by starting a post. Then you can edit and preview as much as you want until it works.

          Edit: Oops, forgot to include my email address. Use <my name> at katron.org

          1. well, I gave a shot at posting, feel free to remove it or clean it if I did something wrong (looks like I should have given it spoiler or something to make it not take too much of the page. Gracias

      2. Also, since this would also format the stats well, I could do that if you want to email them. Or, you could probably do it yourself. I'm guessing you have this in Excel? If so, should be easy to export it as a CSV file and add the necessary shortcode to format it. An example is available; look under the "Mimicking Sports-Reference Tables" section.

      1. Matt Tolbert
        Pete Mackanin
        Dave Edwards
        Rich Chiles
        Jim Nettles
        BIlly Martin
        Steve Luebber
        Jack Cressend
        Garry Roggenburk

        Not exactly a who's who of Twins history. 715 individuals have now worn a Twins uniform. The leaders for most at bats and innings respecively to not make my top300 are Tolbert and swizzlestack

        1. Not exactly a who's who of Twins history.

          Maybe not, but I remember all of them as players except Martin.

    4. Quick and dirty BR table. I had to delete first names because text-to-columns split the names, and I couldn't figure a quick way to re-merge them.

      Spoiler SelectShow

    5. have we had an all-time favorite twin conversation before? i can't remember if we have or not. i'd probably choose someone obvious like mauer or puckett, but i'm not too sure...

      1. We have. Or, I have, and I assume it was here. Or maybe it was just on my "Better Know a Citizen" thing.

        For me: Mauer, Mack, Lawton, Chili, Viola, Santana, Nathan.

        That's not strictly in order. Mack's probably first.

        2. Oh, jeez. Koskie, Gagne, Hrbek, Bruno, Herr (just seeing if you're paying attention), Radke, Milton, Hunter (he used to be way up there)...

          It's probably shorter to list non-favorites.

          1. You know, this "favorite Twins thing" probably deserves its own post.

            What about something like this, with a wgom twist: a post where the author makes a case for what number he/she would wear if the author were a Twin -- what number and why?

            that would be fun.

            I can't promise to get such a post done today, but if someone else were interested....

            2. i'd probably go for 23. it was a weird thing, and i dunno, i just sort of adopted the number. barring that, i'd probably go for 77 if i could. that was my number one year in baseball, and i took a shine to it, i guess.

            4. I'd have to go with the number 3, as the Twins have won the World Series twice. My jersey number would serve as a constant reminder of the ultimate prize, which is to win the World Series. And it would inspire my fellow Twins teammates to strive toward our common goal to become champions.

              2. UW, that is fantastic. I really, really hate that man and would love to award you one of Philosofer's points for mocking him so perfectly.

                  1. Speaking of which, I just spent nearly two hours sitting at a federal agency in order to spend less than two minutes talking with an employee. That's some fine efficiency.

                    3. Nah, this was a federal agency in Minneapolis. The people-watching in Metairie is way better.

          1. This. I won a bat at cost cutters signed my Brian Harper, Shane Mack, And Kirby. Probably the best day ever in my childhood mind.

            1. I got to throw out the first pitch to Brian Harper the summer after 4th grade. Probably the best day ever in my childhood mind.

                1. Butters I don't dislike. I don't want him on my team, but I don't dislike. He is who he is. Likewise Castro (and his Cuban Dictator mate Batista) or, for that matter, any of the other named individuals on that list.

                  1. I actually liked Batista77 a lot, I just disagreed with his results.
                    Hope he's doing well, would love to see him show up as a coach somewhere. (Just not a batting or fielding coach.)
                    I realized it had to be done, but I was saddened when Tony Batista was DFAd as soon as he walked off the field after dumping Gatorade on Jason Kubel following a walk-off grand slam.

          2. The two random Twins that I really, really disliked growing up for absolutely no reason were Bob Kipper and Marty Cordova.

          3. The only Twins I can remember disliking are the ones who made it clear they didn't want to be there. Tom Herr, Chuck Knoblauch after he signed the long-term contract, and Torii Hunter in his last year come to mind. It came out later that Rick Reed really didn't want to be there, but I don't remember him making an issue of it at the time, so I don't hold it against him.

            I don't dislike bad players unless there's some reason to think they're not trying, which is rarely the case. Bad players don't want to be bad players. Even a certain closer from the early '80s wasn't blowing games on purpose. They're out there doing their best. Sometimes your best just isn't good enough.

        2. I came of fandom age in the doldrums of the 1970s. Rod Carew and Bert are the obvious choices, I suppose, but for some reason I was never that invested in individual players. Perhaps because Cal was treating them like disposable, hired help. Lyman Bostock could have been That Guy for me.

      5. 1. Kirby Puckett

        2. Joe Mauer

        3. Lew Ford

        4. Corey Koskie

        5. Johan Santana

        6. Brad Radke

        I not only read Kirby Puckett's autobiography as a kid, I still remember a great deal of it.

  6. Joe Poz on the state of the NFL.

    "If they don't do something, stadiums all around the NFL will be half empty within five to ten years," he says. "You come back and tell me if I'm wrong."

    2. I don't think the attendance will shrink that quickly, but I agree that the demographics will probably continue to shift towards angry dudes who take the game way too seriously. I don't know if the problem is really limited to the NFL, though, sports these days are marketed less as an entertaining diversion and more like a Very Serious Endeavor.

      1. I don't think I buy his argument other than the hi-def tv side of it. I think his source is just getting old. The stadiums are still sold out. It is just different people going. Eventually, they will age and others will replace them.

        I could see that entire article being written about concerts. "They're too loud." "It is too crowded." "People are too drunk."

        They all point to the same conclusion. You are too old.

        1. Yea. I was at a 49ers game just last season. It was loud, obnoxiously so. The beer was bad and overpriced (so we didn't buy any). But it WAS fun. The experience was very similar to other NFL games I've been to (49ers a few years ago; Bears in the mid-1990s at Soldier Field, Chargers in the early 1990s at Jack Murphy, Redskins in the late 1980s at RFK).

          The prices and level of marketing (and the level of piped in noise) has gone up over time, but the basic product hasn't changed much. This is just GOML stuff.

        2. Surely age is a big factor here, but that is why I think the demographics will skew more and more to a narrower demographic. And that might work out fine for the NFL because it is a demographic that advertisers love. At the same time, with sports moving more towards luxury suites and cable tv, I could see them losing popularity because not as many people will feel as connected to the team. That's not really the point that was being made, though.

          1. I think he also overlooks the gambling tie-in and fantasy football.

            If it weren't for basketball pools, would March Madness be as popular?

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