Time to reset and start playing near-meaningless games unless this team decides it can go on a run.
74 thoughts on “July 16, 2014: Second Half”
This article from Sports On Earth about Target Field is great click here
Minnesota Introspection is the new market inefficiency; it's become ubiquitous.
Here's the thing: We're very polite in Minnesota, so we're never overt about this, but if you live here, it's very easy to discern the undercurrent of us versus them, and the ballpark clearly isn't for them, it's for us.
edited to add, "Thanks for sharing - that is a great article."
Below is a link to a City Pages article on redevelopment of the Prospect North area. Although not mentioned, I was interviewed for this article and probably half of my work week is dedicated to redeveloping 14.5 acres in the Prospect North area. While some of the district energy stuff mentioned in the article may never happen, this area is going to be absolutely transformed in the next 5-15 years. Plus Surly!! (btw, I've met Omar, he's about as down to earth as you can imagine. In some ways exactly who you'd think started Surly in other ways about as far from the guy you thought started Surly).
Thanks for sharing this free - I'm jealous you're involved in the project. My brothers live on Orlin and Malcolm, just up the hill from University Ave and the brewery, and they've often claimed that the area is ripe for bigger things. I don't think they knew how right they are.
Not to fan the flames of some of the discussion from yesterday's All Star Game but who DOES replace Jeter as the guy that everyone agrees is a great player -- first ballot hall of famer even -- but receives such overbearing fawning by the national media, that it's hard to separate the criticism of the player from that of the media coverage. Brett Favre was the guy before Jeter but who's next? Lebron is an obvious candidate but definitely "The Decision" and losing more NBA finals than winning (so far) has cut into media hero worship that Favre and Jeter recieved. Now if LBJ wins a couple of Championships for Cleveland, then yes, the scab of The Decision fades away.
But besides Lebron, anyone else?
Tiger.
Nah. Not Tiger. He's going to have Redemption! at some point, then slowly slide toward elder statesman status, with the occasional thrilling charge at a major, a la the older Arnie Palmer.
In baseball, we already have David Ortiz.
Ortiz doesn't have that kid next door je ne sais quoi that the cap'n had.
Not anymore, I don't think. But at one point that was certainly the case.
Tom Brady?
But LeBron is inner-circle Jordan-level, Bonds-level player, so I don't think he counts even if he counts.
Peyton Manning
All Star Game Notes
* It was just really fun being around an excited stadium crowd again. We've caught a couple of games a year since Target Field opened, and pretty much all of them have had a "alright, the team sucks, but hopefully tonight's game is good" atmosphere. The stadium was packed to the gills, obviously, and it's a cool place to be when that happens. Target Field comes off the event looking really good.
* This game may "mean something", but it's very, very obviously still an exhibition. Most hitters were going for the fences, pitchers were definitely giving it a little something extra. The mood seemed light.
* Since the program I got came with a scorecard, I decided to give scoring the game a go. I just now realize that I hadn't scored one since the strike after scoring every game I could listen to from 1992 to 1994. That was fun.
* Miggy can launch the ball. I've attended games in which Cabrera hit home runs, so I already knew this, but it bears repeating, because DAMN.
* Trout is freaking fast.
* The Jeter thing was actually fairly cool. Allowing him to get a proper sendoff (and the fans obliging with a nice, long cheer) was a moment I'll remember.
* I really wish Neshek had gotten everyone out in his inning.
* Someone tossed a sign over the top of the right field Jumbotron. The sign read "Love water, not oil". The message may have been lost as most of the people in our section were just wondering how they managed to get the sign up there.
* Aroldis Chapman is a lot of fun to watch. Even from the second deck, you could see that he's something a cut above a normal power pitcher. The crowd got excited about his assault on the radar gun. After about the second pitch, Linds turned to me and asked "whoa, who's THAT?"
* The fans in our section were good. There was some quality snark to be had, and when some folks a couple sections over tried to start the wave in the 8th inning, it died at our section every time.
* Perkins closing out the game was the highlight. When we all realized exactly what was happening (Perkins did some preliminary warmups in the 7th, but was obviously not getting ready just then), there was a lot of excited chatter. Glad he dominated the 9th.
* Overall, the whole experience was a lot of fun, and I'm very glad we went, even if we got back home at 2 and turned around just a few hours later to get to work.
Did they include the typical scorecard? I know I was seriously disappointed with the number of lines they give you at Spring Training games, and the All-Star Game has even more substitutions than that.
There were thirteen lines, but they were all split in half, so if there was a substitution, you could put the replacement directly under the person they replaced, and still have it on the same line. I didn't do it that way, but I've always done subs a bit different.
I'll upload a pic this evening, it was a good scorecard for an All Star game. The double-sided aspect of it was a little annoying, since I had to keep flipping the book over, but I dealt with it.
Addendum: Yasiel Puig had a horrible All Star weekend. Zero homers in the derby, three strikeouts in the game, plus the indignity of having name misspelled on the little "Diamond Facts" scoreboard (they spelled it "Yaiel").
The s is invisible.
(It's a diacritical mark used in the Cuban dialect of the Spanish language. Html code: &sinvis;)
Holy hit! It works!
Holy hit! It works!
Well, 50 percent of the time.
I'd like thi comment if I liked thing.
The fans in our section were good. There was some quality snark to be had, and when some folks a couple sections over tried to start the wave in the 8th inning, it died at our section every time.
I could hear the wave starting on television. I was embarrassed.
Oh, and I'm glad you had fun. I shall start my "I regret not spending the $300 to do the same" cycle, which will last about 30 years.
I started wondering if I should haven taken the boy. Then he told me he would rather watch cake masters with his sister than the game with me. That cleared up that the game would have been for me, not him.
This is where I'm at. I wish I would have just bought the bullet and taken the boy to either the derby or the game. The fact that he fell asleep before either ended gives me solace.
Feel you guys. If any of my daughters had expressed any interest, it would have been a simple choice.
I can't believe I missed out on CBS sports tweeting congratulations to Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle last night.
#MichaelJeter
I didn't get in on the conversation yesterday re: Minnesotan not-nice, but I definitely wanted to contribute.
I experienced the same phenomenon re: people not introducing themselves, etc. in D.C. In fact, most people in D.C. who were spontaneously friendly turned out to be Midwestern, with lots of them being Minnesotan. I think it's largely a setting thing. Because coming back to MN, there have been plenty of times when I've felt like people aren't friendly enough, but lots of times when I've been impressed (church and customer service jump to mind). So I think there is some Minnesota nice, but it's not consistent.
That said, until I left and came back, I never realized how bad some of the problems were. I am constantly irritated by the passive-aggressive thing, and even more so by the "that's how it's always been, why should we change it for me/you/anyone" ideology. Those two pieces probably account for 90% of my non-kid-related frustration these days.
At our office, we're friendlier to our international co-workers.
We know they're not seeing family for Christmas or anything.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see that anyone had yet linked to Weird Al's site, where he's releasing daily videos this week.
Yesterday's will probably be very appreciated by many in the Nation.
httpv://youtu.be/8Gv0H-vPoDc
Hee hee! I won't say I'm a fan of the music (and I've never heard "Blurred Lines"), but there are a few very good bits in there. And the video itself definitely appeals to my inner word nerd.
I'm happy I can try to listen to the song again. The lyrics in the original are horrible.
Not bad in the sense of artistry (though maybe), but in the sense of expressing bad things.
I finally got around to watching and it reminded me how much more tolerable top 40 music is for me when Weird Al does it. My wife listens to the original all the time (because Pandora shuffle is terrible, or she's bad at setting up stations) so I've unfortunately heard it more than zero times.
My favorite:
Like, "I could care less."
That means you do care.
At least a little.
ht to wattsy (never ready Sports on Earth before) - this story is a pretty credible summation of the Jeterbation phenomenon. There's even a Vonnegut quote.
Very good article.
Pos wrote there for a fortnight or two.
A really creepy horrible story about former player Mel Hall. I remember a bench-clearning melee involving Mel Hall taking a ridiculously slow homerun trot at the Metrodome when I was younger.
Yuck.
Yuck, indeed.
A couple things that struck me: some of those parents sounds really terrible and maybe it's time that the AAU stops being a thing. I never hear anything remotely positive about it and it seems way to fertile ground for this type of power abuse.
The older I get, the more I think it might be better if we, as a country, stop giving a shit about being really good at sports and start being more concerned about how those sports can be a positive force in our lives.
It's great to wake up back in Wisconsin. I don't think I will ever fly again with children until they're old enough to carry things. Yesterday's airport experience was horrible because we had to get six carry on bags and two kids into the plane with just the two of us because of my wife's awful sister. (I also asked that she pay $100 for rental car, has, and airport parking. She gave me a check for 99.99 and put a penny on the table. I am very glad that I can keep her away from my family now. Some people...)
Anyway, we took second in the spiel despite being the top scoring team going into the final match. We were sitting so much people thought we were Canadian because we were curling out of Poynette, WI as only two teams per club were allowed in. We lost to Anne Swisshelm (lead from the US team) playing third and her husband skipping. Not sure if that's good or bad. So, the vacation turned out on the wrong side of relaxing, but the curling was good and it felt great to get back on the ice.
She gave me a check for 99.99 and put a penny on the table.
Wow. Just wow.
I say this not having met her, but from your descriptions she seems like the kind of person the c-word was invented for.
This all resulted from her not getting to go paddle boarding on the specific day she wanted to because of extenuating circumstances. She's only 20, but this is the type of behavior her mom engages in, so I don't think it'll go away when she gets older.
At least she returned my nice luggage in ok shape.
That sorta behavior would hardly be acceptable if you dropped the 0 off her age.
Then she wouldn't have a checkbook though!
She gave me a check for 99.99 and put a penny on the table.
I'd have been much more miffed if she'd wrote the check for $00.01 and put 9,999 pennies on the table.
Actually, I wouldn't. I love pennies. Coins are awesome.
That would definitely have been much worse, especially now that I've got online deposit.
Now that I'm back, I plan to relax this weekend by making a lightly smoked hefeweizen.
Wouldn't it be more relaxing to drink a lightly smoked hefeweizen? Or six or twenty?
To be fair, I plan to drink a number of Hopaliciouses while I do it.
Wouldn't it be more relaxing to drink a lightly smoked hefeweizen?
Or to smoke a lighted jefe...
Did anybody catch Trampled by Turtles on Letterman last night? I stayed up late to watch because my boss's brother is in the band. They were quite good and did a cut from their new CD, Wild Animals.
Is anyone going to the Minnesota United-Swansea match Thursday in Blaine? For some reason I thought it was mentioned by someone. If so can I tag along?
It looks like Thursday is a league game. Swansea is on Saturday.
Son of a...
So the company my wife applied for had her do eleven hours of interviews and then landed on the only other person left. I would have thought after that much time she was really the only one left being considered. We're pretty crushed right now. This would have tripled her income and there's really no other job at the same company worth looking into for her path.
Sucks.
I had a similar experience last year, only 4 hours of interviews, but they went with the only other option as well. 2nd place is a bummer.
It ain't always about being the best candidate, unfortunately. There's always something else out there, hopefully her luck changes for the better soon!
That sucks, man. I wish more companies would be more honest/up-front with candidates during the interview process. Best of luck to her going forward.
I pulled a butt load of radishes out of the garden today. Does anyone have any recommendations other than in a salad?
I just eat them cut in half and lightly salted. I've also had them sliced with onions and cucumbers and soaked in apple cider vinegar. I remember eating a radish slaw at a potluck one time. And I've seen them in mixed pickles before, too, but don't recall ever eating them that way.
I'm guessing either in a salad or by themselves is partially how they'll most likely get eaten.
I actually just made an omelette with radishes a couple weeks ago. I think you can google the recipe that I used.
I was recently notified that a good friend of mine had a fairly interesting blog (for this audience). He gave me a shout out so I thought I'd help him out as well. This is a good place to start.
That's an interesting blog-niche. Pancakes are awesome.
Agreed on both counts. The only bummer is that I don't have any of that dunkelweizen left to try those pancakes.
I'm gonna "tsk, tsk" about the Log Cabin syrup, however. Get some real maple syrup!
Yeah, I plan on having words with him about that. Seems like maybe the "syrup not needed" comments are because the syrup is garbage.
This article from Sports On Earth about Target Field is great
click here
Minnesota Introspection is the new market inefficiency; it's become ubiquitous.
edited to add, "Thanks for sharing - that is a great article."
Below is a link to a City Pages article on redevelopment of the Prospect North area. Although not mentioned, I was interviewed for this article and probably half of my work week is dedicated to redeveloping 14.5 acres in the Prospect North area. While some of the district energy stuff mentioned in the article may never happen, this area is going to be absolutely transformed in the next 5-15 years. Plus Surly!! (btw, I've met Omar, he's about as down to earth as you can imagine. In some ways exactly who you'd think started Surly in other ways about as far from the guy you thought started Surly).
http://www.citypages.com/2014-07-16/news/prospect-park-steps-into-the-future-with-diy-urbanism/
Thanks for sharing this free - I'm jealous you're involved in the project. My brothers live on Orlin and Malcolm, just up the hill from University Ave and the brewery, and they've often claimed that the area is ripe for bigger things. I don't think they knew how right they are.
Not to fan the flames of some of the discussion from yesterday's All Star Game but who DOES replace Jeter as the guy that everyone agrees is a great player -- first ballot hall of famer even -- but receives such overbearing fawning by the national media, that it's hard to separate the criticism of the player from that of the media coverage. Brett Favre was the guy before Jeter but who's next? Lebron is an obvious candidate but definitely "The Decision" and losing more NBA finals than winning (so far) has cut into media hero worship that Favre and Jeter recieved. Now if LBJ wins a couple of Championships for Cleveland, then yes, the scab of The Decision fades away.
But besides Lebron, anyone else?
Tiger.
Nah. Not Tiger. He's going to have Redemption! at some point, then slowly slide toward elder statesman status, with the occasional thrilling charge at a major, a la the older Arnie Palmer.
In baseball, we already have David Ortiz.
Ortiz doesn't have that kid next door je ne sais quoi that the cap'n had.
Not anymore, I don't think. But at one point that was certainly the case.
Tom Brady?
But LeBron is inner-circle Jordan-level, Bonds-level player, so I don't think he counts even if he counts.
Peyton Manning
All Star Game Notes
* It was just really fun being around an excited stadium crowd again. We've caught a couple of games a year since Target Field opened, and pretty much all of them have had a "alright, the team sucks, but hopefully tonight's game is good" atmosphere. The stadium was packed to the gills, obviously, and it's a cool place to be when that happens. Target Field comes off the event looking really good.
* This game may "mean something", but it's very, very obviously still an exhibition. Most hitters were going for the fences, pitchers were definitely giving it a little something extra. The mood seemed light.
* Since the program I got came with a scorecard, I decided to give scoring the game a go. I just now realize that I hadn't scored one since the strike after scoring every game I could listen to from 1992 to 1994. That was fun.
* Miggy can launch the ball. I've attended games in which Cabrera hit home runs, so I already knew this, but it bears repeating, because DAMN.
* Trout is freaking fast.
* The Jeter thing was actually fairly cool. Allowing him to get a proper sendoff (and the fans obliging with a nice, long cheer) was a moment I'll remember.
* I really wish Neshek had gotten everyone out in his inning.
* Someone tossed a sign over the top of the right field Jumbotron. The sign read "Love water, not oil". The message may have been lost as most of the people in our section were just wondering how they managed to get the sign up there.
* Aroldis Chapman is a lot of fun to watch. Even from the second deck, you could see that he's something a cut above a normal power pitcher. The crowd got excited about his assault on the radar gun. After about the second pitch, Linds turned to me and asked "whoa, who's THAT?"
* The fans in our section were good. There was some quality snark to be had, and when some folks a couple sections over tried to start the wave in the 8th inning, it died at our section every time.
* Perkins closing out the game was the highlight. When we all realized exactly what was happening (Perkins did some preliminary warmups in the 7th, but was obviously not getting ready just then), there was a lot of excited chatter. Glad he dominated the 9th.
* Overall, the whole experience was a lot of fun, and I'm very glad we went, even if we got back home at 2 and turned around just a few hours later to get to work.
Did they include the typical scorecard? I know I was seriously disappointed with the number of lines they give you at Spring Training games, and the All-Star Game has even more substitutions than that.
There were thirteen lines, but they were all split in half, so if there was a substitution, you could put the replacement directly under the person they replaced, and still have it on the same line. I didn't do it that way, but I've always done subs a bit different.
I'll upload a pic this evening, it was a good scorecard for an All Star game. The double-sided aspect of it was a little annoying, since I had to keep flipping the book over, but I dealt with it.
Addendum: Yasiel Puig had a horrible All Star weekend. Zero homers in the derby, three strikeouts in the game, plus the indignity of having name misspelled on the little "Diamond Facts" scoreboard (they spelled it "Yaiel").
The s is invisible.
(It's a diacritical mark used in the Cuban dialect of the Spanish language. Html code: &sinvis;)
Holy hit! It works!
Well, 50 percent of the time.
I'd like thi comment if I liked thing.
I could hear the wave starting on television. I was embarrassed.
Oh, and I'm glad you had fun. I shall start my "I regret not spending the $300 to do the same" cycle, which will last about 30 years.
I started wondering if I should haven taken the boy. Then he told me he would rather watch cake masters with his sister than the game with me. That cleared up that the game would have been for me, not him.
This is where I'm at. I wish I would have just bought the bullet and taken the boy to either the derby or the game. The fact that he fell asleep before either ended gives me solace.
Feel you guys. If any of my daughters had expressed any interest, it would have been a simple choice.
I can't believe I missed out on CBS sports tweeting congratulations to Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle last night.
#MichaelJeter
I didn't get in on the conversation yesterday re: Minnesotan not-nice, but I definitely wanted to contribute.
I experienced the same phenomenon re: people not introducing themselves, etc. in D.C. In fact, most people in D.C. who were spontaneously friendly turned out to be Midwestern, with lots of them being Minnesotan. I think it's largely a setting thing. Because coming back to MN, there have been plenty of times when I've felt like people aren't friendly enough, but lots of times when I've been impressed (church and customer service jump to mind). So I think there is some Minnesota nice, but it's not consistent.
That said, until I left and came back, I never realized how bad some of the problems were. I am constantly irritated by the passive-aggressive thing, and even more so by the "that's how it's always been, why should we change it for me/you/anyone" ideology. Those two pieces probably account for 90% of my non-kid-related frustration these days.
At our office, we're friendlier to our international co-workers.
We know they're not seeing family for Christmas or anything.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see that anyone had yet linked to Weird Al's site, where he's releasing daily videos this week.
Yesterday's will probably be very appreciated by many in the Nation.
httpv://youtu.be/8Gv0H-vPoDc
Hee hee! I won't say I'm a fan of the music (and I've never heard "Blurred Lines"), but there are a few very good bits in there. And the video itself definitely appeals to my inner word nerd.
I'm happy I can try to listen to the song again. The lyrics in the original are horrible.
Not bad in the sense of artistry (though maybe), but in the sense of expressing bad things.
I finally got around to watching and it reminded me how much more tolerable top 40 music is for me when Weird Al does it. My wife listens to the original all the time (because Pandora shuffle is terrible, or she's bad at setting up stations) so I've unfortunately heard it more than zero times.
My favorite:
ht to wattsy (never ready Sports on Earth before) - this story is a pretty credible summation of the Jeterbation phenomenon. There's even a Vonnegut quote.
Very good article.
Pos wrote there for a fortnight or two.
A really creepy horrible story about former player Mel Hall. I remember a bench-clearning melee involving Mel Hall taking a ridiculously slow homerun trot at the Metrodome when I was younger.
Yuck.
Yuck, indeed.
A couple things that struck me: some of those parents sounds really terrible and maybe it's time that the AAU stops being a thing. I never hear anything remotely positive about it and it seems way to fertile ground for this type of power abuse.
The older I get, the more I think it might be better if we, as a country, stop giving a shit about being really good at sports and start being more concerned about how those sports can be a positive force in our lives.
It's great to wake up back in Wisconsin. I don't think I will ever fly again with children until they're old enough to carry things. Yesterday's airport experience was horrible because we had to get six carry on bags and two kids into the plane with just the two of us because of my wife's awful sister. (I also asked that she pay $100 for rental car, has, and airport parking. She gave me a check for 99.99 and put a penny on the table. I am very glad that I can keep her away from my family now. Some people...)
Anyway, we took second in the spiel despite being the top scoring team going into the final match. We were sitting so much people thought we were Canadian because we were curling out of Poynette, WI as only two teams per club were allowed in. We lost to Anne Swisshelm (lead from the US team) playing third and her husband skipping. Not sure if that's good or bad. So, the vacation turned out on the wrong side of relaxing, but the curling was good and it felt great to get back on the ice.
Wow. Just wow.
I say this not having met her, but from your descriptions she seems like the kind of person the c-word was invented for.
This all resulted from her not getting to go paddle boarding on the specific day she wanted to because of extenuating circumstances. She's only 20, but this is the type of behavior her mom engages in, so I don't think it'll go away when she gets older.
At least she returned my nice luggage in ok shape.
That sorta behavior would hardly be acceptable if you dropped the 0 off her age.
Then she wouldn't have a checkbook though!
I'd have been much more miffed if she'd wrote the check for $00.01 and put 9,999 pennies on the table.
Actually, I wouldn't. I love pennies. Coins are awesome.
That would definitely have been much worse, especially now that I've got online deposit.
Now that I'm back, I plan to relax this weekend by making a lightly smoked hefeweizen.
Wouldn't it be more relaxing to drink a lightly smoked hefeweizen? Or six or twenty?
To be fair, I plan to drink a number of Hopaliciouses while I do it.
Or to smoke a lighted jefe...
Did anybody catch Trampled by Turtles on Letterman last night? I stayed up late to watch because my boss's brother is in the band. They were quite good and did a cut from their new CD, Wild Animals.
Is anyone going to the Minnesota United-Swansea match Thursday in Blaine? For some reason I thought it was mentioned by someone. If so can I tag along?
It looks like Thursday is a league game. Swansea is on Saturday.
Son of a...
So the company my wife applied for had her do eleven hours of interviews and then landed on the only other person left. I would have thought after that much time she was really the only one left being considered. We're pretty crushed right now. This would have tripled her income and there's really no other job at the same company worth looking into for her path.
Sucks.
I had a similar experience last year, only 4 hours of interviews, but they went with the only other option as well. 2nd place is a bummer.
It ain't always about being the best candidate, unfortunately. There's always something else out there, hopefully her luck changes for the better soon!
That sucks, man. I wish more companies would be more honest/up-front with candidates during the interview process. Best of luck to her going forward.
I pulled a butt load of radishes out of the garden today. Does anyone have any recommendations other than in a salad?
I just eat them cut in half and
lightlysalted. I've also had them sliced with onions and cucumbers and soaked in apple cider vinegar. I remember eating a radish slaw at a potluck one time. And I've seen them in mixed pickles before, too, but don't recall ever eating them that way.I'm guessing either in a salad or by themselves is partially how they'll most likely get eaten.
I actually just made an omelette with radishes a couple weeks ago. I think you can google the recipe that I used.
It was really good.
Roasted radishes.
I was recently notified that a good friend of mine had a fairly interesting blog (for this audience). He gave me a shout out so I thought I'd help him out as well. This is a good place to start.
That's an interesting blog-niche. Pancakes are awesome.
Agreed on both counts. The only bummer is that I don't have any of that dunkelweizen left to try those pancakes.
I'm gonna "tsk, tsk" about the Log Cabin syrup, however. Get some real maple syrup!
Yeah, I plan on having words with him about that. Seems like maybe the "syrup not needed" comments are because the syrup is garbage.
Yea. Tell him to stop disrespecting your dunkel.
Or...
Finally, a use for all those adjunct-filled macrobrews.
I'm with bhiggs - pancakes are awesome.
Also, I don't think I've ever made them using beer. I shall have to remedy that.
I wonder how beer would go in waffles for chicken-n-waffles....hmmmm