This week and last seem to be when "Spring Break" is falling for the schools around here.
I'm back to work after taking a week off, which is a rare occurrence. We survived our trip to Duluth and are resolved to cautiously explore the possible idea of taking the kids somewhere again in the future.
The kids flew back to school on Saturday. So, naturally, the Mrs has spring break this week.
That's the nice part of having the Mrs teach at the boys' school. Today is their last day of spring break.
MLB has banned personalized bat knob decals. Given how invisible these are to spectators, and that they have no effect on player safety, this strikes me as a ridiculous overreach by the Commissioner's Office. How are these things verboten while players can wear cleats, gloves, and other gear festooned with any color that isn't part of their team's palette?
That was the first thing I thought of, but I can't remember any comparable incidents with bat decals.
It's gotta be corporate $$ driven. It's all about the cash grab
I assume that's the real reason, but what I haven't figured out is how the bat knob is negatively monetized by players' personalized decals. I can understand & support MLB banning players from using their bat knobs as micro billboards for their corporate sponsors. But MLB is allowing the individual teams to use that space to put decals on the bats with player numbers. Unless that slowly devolves into the teams selling that logo space to sponsors (can you imagine, "This broken-bat change brought to you by U.S. Bancorp, the Official Bat Knob Sponsor of the Minnesota Twins!"? Barf.), this just strikes me as forced homogenization by MLB.
Well, in the example given, I could see Budweiser being miffed at the free ad space being given to Duff Beer.
To be fair, that one is probably still legal.
Shoes are not to be any color, but a uniform color (primarily black, white for the A's, maybe red or blue for others?). This is not enforced at the all-star game.
In one week all will be right with the world again.
Is it too early to request volunteers for game log/recap assignments?
I'll take Monday logs again.
Assign Away. I don't love Sundays, but will take 'em if necessary.
I could take Sunday game logs if nobody else is calling dibs.
Saturday logs will work again for me.
I can't promise much with the recaps.
Happy Twins Baseball is One Week Away Day, fellows! To celebrate, here's Reusse's article calling Sano lazy in the Strib! Perfect!
*smdh*
Between this, and the people who are convinced that Buxton is already a bust, I'm sure that these future faces of the franchise are going to want to stick around here for the long haul.
Someone needs to replace Mauer as the default punching bag.
I nominate Reusse.
I think for players it's more important how the team treats them than the media. Granted, if the media is taking their cues from the front office...
Mauer was hated even before he signed the big contract. Granted, he's from Minnesota, but if players let that drive their decisions there wouldn't be a lot of marketplaces most superstars would be happy.
And here's an article on the Twins website a month ago talking about Sano taking extra work in the outfield had become his morning routine.
Let's not forget Sano's newborn daughter died 18 months ago. Some of the complaints in Reusse's column is that Sano didn't lose as much weight as he said he would. Well, depression has a way of making it hard to work out and also can cause some people to eat more.
His baby daughter died? Oh, that's awful.
Good lord. I don't think I heard about that at the time.
Mientkiewicz didn't know about it till during the season when he pulled Sano aside to talk to him about his mental approach or something like that. Once he found out, he said he managed him differently after that.
So we're setting the narrative. If Sano can't handle right field, it's not because the Twins made a bad decision to put him there. It's because he won't work hard enough.
Please don't use "we" in this context.
"We" was meant to mean the Twin Cities media, not the wgom.
that's an uncomfortable confusion
It will be interesting to hear the narrative Bremer and Blyleven take if Sano struggles, they tend to push the most unfiltered version of what the front office wants people to think.
Observations from my first ever Timberwolves game, watching from the nosebleeds, knowing very little about basketball:
--KAT has such a presence. He's always around when there's a rebound. He's good at getting separation on offense and getting good looks for jump shots. However, it seemed his defense was lacking at times and he let several people dribble right past him. I'm guessing he was tired, too, on the second night of a back-to-back.
--Wiggins had a terrible night. Never got himself open. I forgot he was there.
--The offense had no rhythm at all. Nobody was getting open and there were so many off-balance, running jumpers from 15 feet out. Just brutal to watch. They eschewed several three-point attempts to take 18 foot jumpers.
--It was fun to see Ricky Rubio on fire, making almost every shot he took. He only had one great pass (and had a few turnovers) but he was a ball hawk and had a couple great steals. He's a delight to watch. If he can shoot like this regularly, he'd be John Stockton.
--Gorgui seems really uncomfortable with the ball on offense and didn't seem to be anywhere near shots on defense.
--Tyus Jones has a huge presence and seems to be working harder than he should. He had a decent night I thought, but he reminds me a bit of Beasley.
--Lavine is indeed perfect for shooting guard.
--The defense was brutal at times. It seemed like five times per quarter the Jazz had players shooting threes with nobody within 10 feet of them
I didn't realize Lavine's shooting 39% on 3s, that's up 5 points over last year and huge for this team since there are so many poor 3pt shooters.
Watching Rubio is a joy; he's such a smart, competitive player.
Lavine strikes me as someone who could become a more athletic (!!!) Doug Christie.
That is a compliment, btw. Christie in his prime was an elite defender who filled up the fantasy stat sheet with a bit of everything and became a perimeter threat.
Given that the starters went 45-48 minutes the game before no doubt there was some tired legs.
But that sequence when Rubio stole the ball, shot a three, then stole another ball to assist Wiggins on a thunderdunk was super awesome unicorn time. I hope the Wolves never trade Ricky Rubio.
That was the one exciting moment from the game. I was hoarse all night because I went nuts right there.
Twins twitterdom seems to be in an ornery mood today.
Ever go to the Twins' facebook page? The comments are almost all "Mauer sucks", "Buxton's a bust", etc., etc. I don't know why you'd bother to be a fan of a team that you hate so much.
Just wait until they're 161-0 going into the Oct 2nd game against the Pale-Hosers! These "fans" will be out of their minds.
But if they lost they 162nd game, it would be because Mauer sucks.
Did an unsuccessful half-baked search... but I just know that somewhere out there is an image of Joe drinking a Slurpee that we could use for a banner.
Pirates clubhouse got a visit from Steeler's coach Tomlin today: "Be where you are." I just double-checked, and thankfully, I am where I am. Wgomily, you might want to do the same.
Buckaroo Banzai ripped off again
Hey, hey, hey, hey-now. Don't be mean.
Yup...I am where I am too.