also, its sad that the Viking Fan Way of Life (hateful, irrational, super-kneejerk fire everybody) has slowly seeped it way into Twins fandom over the last 5 or so years.
I kind of feel like it's more of a sports radio mentality even more than it's a Vikings fan mentality. The way to grab attention on the radio (or most media) is to shout louder than the other guy, or have really pointed opinions--the crazier the opinion, the better. It's never just "three consecutive terrible years for the Twins, are there any signs of hope on the horizon?" "Interesting question, let's break that down." It's usually "three consecutive terrible years for the Twins, THIS PERSON IS RESPONSIBLE AND HE MUST ANSWER FOR HIS ACTIONS!!!!!!!!" "ARE YOU KIDDING, THIS OTHER PERSON IS COMPLETELY TO BLAME!!" .... rabble rabble .... "FIRE THEM ALL!!!"
VOTE THEM ALL OUT OF OFFICE!!!
An alternative theory:
Football has been, for the last twenty or thirty years, more popular than baseball. Because of the difference in schedule lengths, and thus the difference in significance of individual games, football is a sport which lends itself to shorter narratives than baseball. Over the same period of time, our media has gone through structural changes which have radically changed what one might call the "refresh rate" of news stories – stories evolve faster than they once did, and are reported by more outlets, which must differentiate the way they report these stories in competition for audience share. The naturally shorter narrative of a football season, and a football game, lends itself much more to this form of storytelling than does baseball, and as a result, the way that these news outlets report football stories has had an undue influence on how they cover baseball stories, too. Over time audiences have internalized these new narrative conventions and now emulate them in their responses to moves by teams playing sports with different organic narrative structures than football.
Tl,dr: Football is ruining sports media and America in general.
Well put.
Especially the Spoiler.
I wouldn't disagree with that theory. I remember growing up not really watching that many Twins games on television. I'd hear bits and pieces on the radio quite often, I loved baseball cards, I'd check box scores (though not particularly regularly), and I'd watch This Week In Baseball pretty regularly. A weekly baseball show seems about perfect, in retrospect.
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this in the past, but I really think that FOX should make Saturday baseball a thing. They probably can't/won't because they have some college football rights, and that starts to interfere in Aug/Sep, but I think it could be a great platform. Instead of doing it like they do now, they should do it how football used to be broadcast: the local game is featured, with a nationally-focused pre-game, and then make it a double-header with a different game if there's an interesting game afterward. Make it a pretty regular time frame: 1ET/4ET/7ET/10ET. The game is the best advertisement for itself, and a lot of teams are stuck on cable right now. Open up one game a week to everyone and I think you'd spark some additional interest.
I remember growing up and not many Twins games were on television.
I'm impressed that you can remember that far back, are you an elephant or something? 🙂
hey, I didn't say I remember when there wasn't a television! 😛
I can remember when there were NO Twins games on television, at least not where I lived. You got one TV game a week, the national NBC game. If you didn't have a good excuse to stay inside and watch the game, well, then you didn't see a game until next week. We followed baseball on the radio, in the newspaper, and with The Sporting News.
No, I'm not going to tell you it was better back then. It wasn't. It does make me appreciate what we have now a lot more, though.
I remember when almost all road games were televised and almost no home games were televised. I also remember that besides the Twins I would watch the Cubs and the Braves because they were the only other teams you could see on TV. I saw more of the Cubs because they would have so many day games when the Twins weren't playing and I didn't have much else to do during the summer.
My mom didn't have cable, which meant no watching Twins games on MSC or WCCO, as our local CBS affiliate was located in Wisconsin. Pops had cable, but lived in Wisconsin. My options were either listen to games on the radio (KWNO or WCCO), or watch the few games Pops could get on the 4ltr or (shudder) WGN when the Twins were in Chicago. I'll forever cherish the time I spent with Herb & John, but it always stung a bit to miss out on watching the team on TV like all my friends.
I listened to a lot of games at night on my crystal radio set back in the day....
I too remember many games falling asleep as a kid with Herb buzzing away in the crystal radio earpiece.
South Dakota early-October blizzard hits Buffaloans hardest.
We were very lucky here. We got over three inches of rain, but no snow. We needed some rain, but that much is really going to slow down the harvest. On the other hand, I think everyone is so grateful that it wasn't snow that they won't mind too much.
If somebody came up to me and asked if we did vegetables I would say no. I would say we do meat.
I would have at least a nickle.
So I just purchased the entire The Shield series for my winter biking watching, I've seen season 1, but I think I will start from the beginning, $80.00 for all 7 seasons on e-bay. So a little more than $11 per season. Not a bad deal.
Sheenie and I finished the show yesterday. I thought it started off incredibly well, and then went downhill at season 4 and never really recovered. I know others (Zack, for example) disagree. Still, it was decent enough for the most part.
Twins announce that Duke Welker is the player to be named later in the Morneau trade. Left-hander, will be 28 next season, has been a reliever since 2010. In 1 1/2 seasons of AAA, he's appeared in 74 games (94.2 innings), has 95 strikeouts and 49 walks, allowed 77 hits (4 home runs), has an ERA of 3.14 and a WHIP of 1.33. Hard for me to get too excited, but there's a chance he could turn out to be a useful arm in the bullpen.
EDIT--And I see that davidwatts already mentioned this in the comments to TWITT.
from what I see on the twitters, Welker is a hard thrower (96/97 mph) and has one option left.
Best case is that they find a way for him to keep the strikeout rate and drop the walks, but I'm not too enthused. For comparison:
9.4 K/9, 4.4 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9 -- Jim Hoey, minors
9.0 K/9, 4.7 BB/9, 0.4 HR/9 -- Duke Welker, AAA
7.2 K/9, 4.8 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9 -- Duke Welker, minors
Whatever, it's not like the Twins were really going to get any value from a month and change of Morneau.
Whatever, it's not like the Twins were really going to get any value from a month and change of Morneau.
True. I'd rather they'd gotten somebody like Sulbaran, the way they did for Butera, but maybe that just wasn't available.
That would be asking a lot to go along with Presley, who looks like he could be useful as a leadoff type guy, although his defensive metrics in SSS were not pretty. Once Hicks and/or Buxton is ready for CF, he'll probably be a solid 4th OF.
If they could've gotten a Sulbaran, I'd have been willing to do without Presley. But again, that may just not have been one of the options.
if the dude can strike people out, he is an asset on a Twins team. walks be damned.
General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the forces which threw both the French and Americans out of Vietnam, died yesterday at 102.
Sheesh, I had no idea he was still alive. I've had a big Vietnam-kick on my reading lately (I've read Karnow's Vietnam, A Bright Shining Lie, and most recently The Long Gray Line in the past six months), and yet I still haven't found much to put anything post-Tet into context (well, I know about Paris, but not what was actually happening in Vietnam).
If you're wanting to move on from Vietnam War history to Vietnam War literature, I've got tons of thoughts.
Hey, now. What day is tomorrow?
Speaking of which, I got nothing. Who wants to do a First Monday post?
I'll do it. I have a new idea for what to post.
I'll admit, the only Vietnam literature I can remember reading is The Thing They Carried and that was really, really good. Thanks for the recommendations. My other kick in the last year has been Russia (both literature and history), and I just got an email notification that Robert Massie's bio of Catherine the Great is ready for me to pick up at the library on Tuesday. I'll save the rest of this for tomorrow.
Fall is in the air today. It's been beautiful lately, but yesterday and today have signaled a change.
It's a shame that people have such a great opportunity for quality snark but instead are saying such incredibly stupid things.
Oh, it's on Facebook.
Shame- yes. Surprise- no.
the '#hirePhilMackey' comment made me laugh
also, its sad that the Viking Fan Way of Life (hateful, irrational, super-kneejerk fire everybody) has slowly seeped it way into Twins fandom over the last 5 or so years.
I kind of feel like it's more of a sports radio mentality even more than it's a Vikings fan mentality. The way to grab attention on the radio (or most media) is to shout louder than the other guy, or have really pointed opinions--the crazier the opinion, the better. It's never just "three consecutive terrible years for the Twins, are there any signs of hope on the horizon?" "Interesting question, let's break that down." It's usually "three consecutive terrible years for the Twins, THIS PERSON IS RESPONSIBLE AND HE MUST ANSWER FOR HIS ACTIONS!!!!!!!!" "ARE YOU KIDDING, THIS OTHER PERSON IS COMPLETELY TO BLAME!!" .... rabble rabble .... "FIRE THEM ALL!!!"
VOTE THEM ALL OUT OF OFFICE!!!
An alternative theory:
Football has been, for the last twenty or thirty years, more popular than baseball. Because of the difference in schedule lengths, and thus the difference in significance of individual games, football is a sport which lends itself to shorter narratives than baseball. Over the same period of time, our media has gone through structural changes which have radically changed what one might call the "refresh rate" of news stories – stories evolve faster than they once did, and are reported by more outlets, which must differentiate the way they report these stories in competition for audience share. The naturally shorter narrative of a football season, and a football game, lends itself much more to this form of storytelling than does baseball, and as a result, the way that these news outlets report football stories has had an undue influence on how they cover baseball stories, too. Over time audiences have internalized these new narrative conventions and now emulate them in their responses to moves by teams playing sports with different organic narrative structures than football.
Well put.
Especially the Spoiler.
I wouldn't disagree with that theory. I remember growing up not really watching that many Twins games on television. I'd hear bits and pieces on the radio quite often, I loved baseball cards, I'd check box scores (though not particularly regularly), and I'd watch This Week In Baseball pretty regularly. A weekly baseball show seems about perfect, in retrospect.
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this in the past, but I really think that FOX should make Saturday baseball a thing. They probably can't/won't because they have some college football rights, and that starts to interfere in Aug/Sep, but I think it could be a great platform. Instead of doing it like they do now, they should do it how football used to be broadcast: the local game is featured, with a nationally-focused pre-game, and then make it a double-header with a different game if there's an interesting game afterward. Make it a pretty regular time frame: 1ET/4ET/7ET/10ET. The game is the best advertisement for itself, and a lot of teams are stuck on cable right now. Open up one game a week to everyone and I think you'd spark some additional interest.
I remember growing up and not many Twins games were on television.
I'm impressed that you can remember that far back, are you an elephant or something? 🙂
hey, I didn't say I remember when there wasn't a television! 😛
I can remember when there were NO Twins games on television, at least not where I lived. You got one TV game a week, the national NBC game. If you didn't have a good excuse to stay inside and watch the game, well, then you didn't see a game until next week. We followed baseball on the radio, in the newspaper, and with The Sporting News.
No, I'm not going to tell you it was better back then. It wasn't. It does make me appreciate what we have now a lot more, though.
I remember when almost all road games were televised and almost no home games were televised. I also remember that besides the Twins I would watch the Cubs and the Braves because they were the only other teams you could see on TV. I saw more of the Cubs because they would have so many day games when the Twins weren't playing and I didn't have much else to do during the summer.
My mom didn't have cable, which meant no watching Twins games on MSC or WCCO, as our local CBS affiliate was located in Wisconsin. Pops had cable, but lived in Wisconsin. My options were either listen to games on the radio (KWNO or WCCO), or watch the few games Pops could get on the 4ltr or (shudder) WGN when the Twins were in Chicago. I'll forever cherish the time I spent with Herb & John, but it always stung a bit to miss out on watching the team on TV like all my friends.
I listened to a lot of games at night on my crystal radio set back in the day....
I too remember many games falling asleep as a kid with Herb buzzing away in the crystal radio earpiece.
It looks like not everyone in South Dakota is as lucky as Jeff A.
South Dakota early-October blizzard hits Buffaloans hardest.
We were very lucky here. We got over three inches of rain, but no snow. We needed some rain, but that much is really going to slow down the harvest. On the other hand, I think everyone is so grateful that it wasn't snow that they won't mind too much.
Paging meat.
And if I had a nickle for every time I heard
I would have at least a nickle.
So I just purchased the entire The Shield series for my winter biking watching, I've seen season 1, but I think I will start from the beginning, $80.00 for all 7 seasons on e-bay. So a little more than $11 per season. Not a bad deal.
Sheenie and I finished the show yesterday. I thought it started off incredibly well, and then went downhill at season 4 and never really recovered. I know others (Zack, for example) disagree. Still, it was decent enough for the most part.
Twins announce that Duke Welker is the player to be named later in the Morneau trade. Left-hander, will be 28 next season, has been a reliever since 2010. In 1 1/2 seasons of AAA, he's appeared in 74 games (94.2 innings), has 95 strikeouts and 49 walks, allowed 77 hits (4 home runs), has an ERA of 3.14 and a WHIP of 1.33. Hard for me to get too excited, but there's a chance he could turn out to be a useful arm in the bullpen.
EDIT--And I see that davidwatts already mentioned this in the comments to TWITT.
from what I see on the twitters, Welker is a hard thrower (96/97 mph) and has one option left.
Best case is that they find a way for him to keep the strikeout rate and drop the walks, but I'm not too enthused. For comparison:
9.4 K/9, 4.4 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9 -- Jim Hoey, minors
9.0 K/9, 4.7 BB/9, 0.4 HR/9 -- Duke Welker, AAA
7.2 K/9, 4.8 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9 -- Duke Welker, minors
Whatever, it's not like the Twins were really going to get any value from a month and change of Morneau.
Whatever, it's not like the Twins were really going to get any value from a month and change of Morneau.
True. I'd rather they'd gotten somebody like Sulbaran, the way they did for Butera, but maybe that just wasn't available.
That would be asking a lot to go along with Presley, who looks like he could be useful as a leadoff type guy, although his defensive metrics in SSS were not pretty. Once Hicks and/or Buxton is ready for CF, he'll probably be a solid 4th OF.
If they could've gotten a Sulbaran, I'd have been willing to do without Presley. But again, that may just not have been one of the options.
if the dude can strike people out, he is an asset on a Twins team. walks be damned.
General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the forces which threw both the French and Americans out of Vietnam, died yesterday at 102.
Sheesh, I had no idea he was still alive. I've had a big Vietnam-kick on my reading lately (I've read Karnow's Vietnam, A Bright Shining Lie, and most recently The Long Gray Line in the past six months), and yet I still haven't found much to put anything post-Tet into context (well, I know about Paris, but not what was actually happening in Vietnam).
As far as a book that's more satisfying on post-Tet than Karnow, you might try John Prados' Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War 1945-1975.
Since you're on a Vietnam kick, you've got to check out Lien-Hang T Nguyen's Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam, the first English language text to use North Vietnamese sources. It won the Coffman Prize for a first book in military history last year. A friend of mine wrote an excellent book on Vietnam & gender, Beyond Combat: Women and Gender in the Vietnam War Era.
If you're wanting to move on from Vietnam War history to Vietnam War literature, I've got tons of thoughts.
Hey, now. What day is tomorrow?
Speaking of which, I got nothing. Who wants to do a First Monday post?
I'll do it. I have a new idea for what to post.
I'll admit, the only Vietnam literature I can remember reading is The Thing They Carried and that was really, really good. Thanks for the recommendations. My other kick in the last year has been Russia (both literature and history), and I just got an email notification that Robert Massie's bio of Catherine the Great is ready for me to pick up at the library on Tuesday. I'll save the rest of this for tomorrow.