60 thoughts on “August 21, 2013: Trader Clete”

    1. ''I'm glad we have the means to find out that someone's hurt and do the right thing for them,'' Gardenhire said. ''For a long time, you had guys playing through these things, but now we have the tests to find out that something is wrong and take care of them.''

      This seems to be a rather radical change of viewpoint by Gardy.

      1. I really would like to know how it's possible to go from this:

        Joe Mauer will not catch at all this series, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. Gardy said Mauer is not dealing with anything serious, other than foul tips off his body, but the team is playing 27 games in 27 days and he wants to be careful with his players.

        to

        "I'm glad we have the means to find out that someone's hurt and do the right thing for them," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said after a 6-3 win Tuesday night. "For a long time, you had guys playing through these things, but now we have the tests to find out that something is wrong and take care of them."

        in less than six hours.

        1. Mauer did not have any concussion symptoms until then. He got dizzy and went to the trainers, which is when he was taken out of the lineup and the concussion test was then, or eventually, administered.

          1. The first quote was posed by LENIII at 6:32pm. Rhu_Ru posted the news in yesterday's CoC at 9:46. The second quote above was from the 4ltr story posted about 12:27 pm.

            My point is, if Mauer was having trouble taking grounders before the game (as Morneau said he was) and went to the trainers, it doesn't look good if Gardenhire says anything to the effect of "Mauer is not dealing with anything serious" and three hours and change later Mauer's on the DL with concussion symptoms. Either Gardenhire was hoping nothing was wrong and didn't make that clear, LENIII missed it, Gardenhire hasn't learned to simply say "We're waiting on more information from the trainers/doctors," or the Twins don't really care about how injuries get reported.

            1. When you're talking about The $23 Million Dollar Man, you don't use cautionary words like "We're waiting on more information", you downplay it, especially when you (and your players) are gearing up for a ballgame. I'm leaning towards Gardy couching it the way he did because he only has to explain why Joe's not playing in that particular ballgame, and he doesn't want to potentially feed the mediots something they can really run with.

              1. The mediots will be fed one way or the other. What the the Twins can control is how they to do it, either by saying "We are waiting on more complete information from the team's medical staff" and dealing with mediot speculation until then, or by downplaying injuries which often turn out to be worse than initial reports, and then having the mediots go nuts for weeks with stories about invented injuries, true gamers and guys not willing to play hurt, etc.

            2. "I'm A-OK," Mauer had told the Pioneer Press when asked how was feeling before batting practice. "I got beat up a little bit behind the plate (Monday), but nothing where I need to get out from behind there."

              Other quotes showed that many noticed the big hit on a foul tip. Mauer said he didn't have any problem on the plane ride. If anything, Gardy was doing a good job of protecting Mauer after the hard foul tip by saying Mauer wouldn't be catching in the Tigers series. I imagine Mauer wouldn't have been out of the lineup on Tuesday anyways if they weren't playing a team in a pennant race. Then when the symptoms started to show up during batting practice, Mauer was pulled out of the lineup. If a player doesn't show symptoms, or at least doesn't tell anyone, I don't know how the manager is supposed to take the heat for it.

              1. I'll grant that LENIII's initial report is a hot mess, but the way he writes it, it sounds like Gardenhire said Mauer was just a little banged up when asked about Mauer being scratched from the lineup, ie. he got the quotes from Gardenhire at some point between Mauer being pulled from BP and filing his report. Maybe the Pioneer Press' reporting was more accurate.

  1. Came across this while knocking around the internet last night. thought it was mildly interesting until I got to the end, which changed my opinion entirely.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DXRgb9vGrM

    Spoiler SelectShow
    1. I watched it with the sound off (at work ya know), then had to go back and do it again with headphones to see why it was only "mildly interesting."

      Spoiler SelectShow
      1. Spoiler SelectShow
          1. Glad to see I'm not the only one.

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              1. I've long considered that to be part of the greatness of the call. The words express the triumph in as banal a fashion as possible while everything else says "they weren't supposed to be able to do that." It's understated, and in that understatement is everything about the '91 Twins.

                1. I don't mind understatement, but the problem is that, at least in my mind (and apparently a few others), the call wasn't understatement but disappointment. In a Series like that, after a game like that which had to push the whole thing to "obviously something historic and incredible", how can you not lose your mind that it gets to continue for one more day in the most dramatic way possible?

                  1. What I'm saying is that I love the disappointment in the announcing. I was very young, but I still remember the NL homerism of Buck. And I loved that he had to make that call for that very reason. The disappointment tastes so sweet!

                    1. Ah, now I'm picking up what you're putting down. I don't have much recollection of the call when it happened, so my opinion of it is based on a viewing of the game a couple years ago, which could be my problem.

                2. Understatement is one thing. Blandness is another. Buck's call was just incredibly bland. It could have been the end of an 8-1 blowout for all you can tell in that call.

    2. I notice the Twins were storming the field long before Gladden hit home. The ball was still in play. Could the umps have been jerks and called Larkin out?

  2. Your longform counterfactual read of the day: What might have been: Visiting Mars and Venus with Apollo-era hardware.

    Imagine three astronauts, 125 million miles from the Earth, talking to Mission Control with a four-minute time lag. They have seen nothing out their windows but stars in the blackness of space for the last 150 days. With a carefully timed burn, they slow into orbit around Venus, and as they loop around the planet, they get their first look at its thick cloud layer just 7,000 miles below.

        1. Nothing a six-foot block of lead (or concrete) can't fix!

          Double-yikes. Gonna need some advances either in shielding or in space mining/construction before a trip like that happens, I'm guessing.

      1. But of course, that would have been one of the discoveries!

        Thanks for sharing CH, that was pretty cool.

  3. Oh, for dumb: Netflix renames Instant Queue "My List." Big words are scary!

    Not cool:

    Just how do Spiegelman and Co. plan to "improve" a core fixture of the service? Well the list is sticking around, but Netflix will now automatically reorder it based on what it thinks you'll want to watch at any given moment. Once you've added a few titles to My List, the company's algorithms go to work, placing films and shows you're likely to click "play" on up front.

    This, however, is okay:

    Netflix is also making improvements elsewhere. Namely, customers will now see a special "call out" when a movie or TV show will soon vanish from the service due to an expired license. It's not quite as useful as a dedicated "Expiring Soon" row of content would be, but it's something.

    1. I tried the "Max" game thing the other night and it didn't come even close to anything I was interested in. I don't think their suggestions will work for me. I wish they'd make it easier to browse content on a Roku, PS3, etc. than try to rank the stuff in my queue.

    2. I'd like to see a wish list. Then they could notify you when items on your wish list become available, or better yet automatically add them to your instant queue.

    3. I've been on Cloud Nine. One of the reasons it's called "my list" is that now there can be more than one per account. No longer does the fact that Lindsey gave five stars to One Tree Hill and The Secret Life of the American Teenager mean that I have to have every ABC Family teen drama recommended to me.

      That is worth nearly anything that they could ever take away.

      1. Yep, I'm in love with that too (though, not the term "My List." It ain't broke).

        I would love an "Expiring Soon" tab of things on...um...My List.

        I'm not sure about reordering the list based on what it knows of me. Netflix's algorithm seems to really get me. On the other hand, some of the stuff in my queue has been there so long I know exactly where to find it.

      2. “my list” is that now there can be more than one per account

        Yay! No more kids' shows in my "Recommended for Bret" list!

        1. cheap toy likes this

          Now if I can just petition them to remove Caillou from their algorithms so the Trinket can't accidentally play it again.

          Since my wife is a stay at home mom, Netflix definitely "ges" her and the trinket much better than me these days.

  4. Doug Mientkiewicz was named FSL manager of the year. It seems strange to me that they name the manager of the year with a week and a half left in the regular season, but good for him, anyway.

      1. I combined those first two names into "Kenny Rogers". At least I was thinking of the pitcher instead of wondering why Jeff was bringing up The Gambler.

    1. I'm more excited for Manager Mintyfresh than I am for Manager Steinbach.
      I guess I feel more allegiance to the brotherhood of tricky surnames than I do my Funkytown hometown.

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