Cup of Coffee

July 18, 2016: Happening Town

80 Comments

I was down in my hometown - Blue Earth - yesterday, and learned that they took out a walking trail that previously qualified as one of the only things to do in town. That seems like a mistake, but so does living there in the first place, so whatever.

80 thoughts on “July 18, 2016: Happening Town”

  1. Hey, it looks like I will be out of town for the Drive By Truckers-Lydia Loveless show on September 24th. I have two tickets that I will need to sell. Let me know if interested. I will send out occasional reminders as the show approaches, if they aren't sold.

  2. When I need lube
    I hold out my hands and I touch lube
    I never knew there was so much lube
    Keeping me warm night and day

    h/t to the Padre for the song reminder!

  3. I got a Spam friend request from Zack on FB. I figured it out when he said, "I'm with so much joy right now. You hear the good news?"

      1. I swear, some people must click accept every friend request blindly without thinking if they're someone they're already friends with. It's pretty obvious.

        1. I mean, when I opened Facebook I had a notice in the app that someone opened an account with my same name and asked if it was legit. It was deleted 2 minutes after I reported it.

  4. The Twitters tell me that Terry Ryan is out as GM. Rob Antony takes over on an interim basis.

    2. This seems like odd timing.

      The Twins phrased it as "Relieved of his duties" vs. something with a more mutual tone like I would have expected. No shock that Antony gets the interim role, I just don't want it to become more than that.

      1. I agree. I'm okay with Antony as an interim, but I still think that, long-term, they need to bring someone in from outside.

      2. I completely agree.

        I'm not sure who I want to take over, but I'm just hoping that whoever they give the job to has a more modern approach than TR. Cherington, maybe?

          1. This is surprising. I get wanting someone for the trade deadline (either of them) but you don't want to rush into hiring a new GM.

          2. This makes me worried they've already identified the internal candidate they're going to hire after conducting a perfunctory search.

      3. The timing does make a little sense in that if the Twins had decided to fire TR over the All-Star break. I'm sure they didn't want to do it a day or two before the Hall of Fame inductions because that would take all the attention away from that. My guess would be that they decided to wait till today to give Torii and Gordon their days in the sun first.

        1. If Terry Ryan's firing is the punctuation on I-i's association with the team, I'm fine with that.

                2. I do like the idea of an African American being given a real shot at leadership. Torii learning in an organization is even something I'd be open to. His flaws as a player don't mean he'd be a bad exec.

    3. This seems really odd considering we're so close to the trade deadline. Hope it's not health related.

      1. I agree that the timing is really strange. I'm guessing (absent a health issue) that there was an argument over how aggressive the Twins should be in selling off veterans and going with kids.

        1. That's what I'm thinking too. If that's the case, I guess we'll see which side prevailed in the next couple weeks.

      3. I think if it was health related, the release would have had a different tone to it. "Relieved of his duties" to me is just a polite way of saying fired. Didn't sound like anything mutual there. I do agree that the timing seems odd. But we're on the right track here. Being so close to the deadline makes me wonder if the Twins have a new GM lined up and just wanted to give TR a clean exit before announcing the new guy.

    4. I am actually surprised by this news. I hope the Twins do a thorough search and make an outside hire.

      1. This. Had a conversation with Trueblood a week ago and we agreed Ryan would probably step down this offseason. Just seemed right.

        I think the trade deadline must have been a key issue here. I've made note of a general lack of activity on mlb trade rumors re: the Twins, and a Ryan quote saying "we'll listen to all offers" which was decidedly not "we are looking to do x, y, z", at least to my ears.

    5. Does Molitor come back for next season? I have to think the new GM would want their own manager and Molitor will be let go.

      3. "Don't clean house until 2018."

          1. I agree, that seems likely. As pointed out elsewhere, a GM from outside, at least an experienced one, is going to want the authority to make that decision. It seems to me the only way an outside GM gets hired is if it's someone who's never been a GM and is eager for a shot at the job under any circumstances, or a GM who's been out for a while and is desperate for another chance.

    6. I do not like this at all. Any GM worth anything, especially one coming from outside the organization, is going to want to have complete control of baseball decisions. I would think most GM candidates, even those who actually would seriously considered keeping Molitor on for next year, would pass on the job just based on knowing that they wouldn't have full control of baseball personnel decisions.

      1. I agree, the Twins don't need to put roadblocks in the way of attracting the best front office talent and this could be a big one.

        Also reading that Dave St. Peter will be one of the decision makers, they might consult with an outside company to help with the search, and that Antony isn't out of the running.

        Obviously a long way to get from today to the next GM, but the early signs don't fill me with optimism. I'd like to be wrong.

    7. Mackey is tweeting info from the presser. Here are a few that have jumped out at me.


      Advanced scouting!


      I know several good GMs are no longer GMs and have moved up to "president of baseball operations", making the GM title an empty one. I was curious about what that meant for the Twins and I think this is it. DSP is the person in charge. He's already listed as "President".

      1. Just posted a little about this above. DSP might have a great mind for the business of baseball. But if he's the capital-P President of the entire organization, that's a pretty stark difference from someone like Theo Epstein.

        This is reading way too much into it, but if DSP is in charge it tells me the goal of the Twins is to be a profitable business venture first.

      2. Those 13 Phil Mackey posts are devastating in my mind. A leader who "doesn't know what he/she doesn't know" is ripe for poor decisions. That's where the Pohlad's are right now.

        DSP knows how to sell popcorn, there's very little evidence that he knows how to create a structure to build a baseball team in 2016.

          1. Having had an on-the-record conversation with DSP about activity around corporate naming rights several years back, I agree. He's operating like it's still 2002.

          1. I have a couple DSP stories. None of them good.

            I've heard Antony is a good guy.

      4. If TR chose firing.... That's quite a statement, isn't it? It means he sincerely believed in what he was doing, I think. With the Dave St. Peter stuff, and the Pohlad meddling with manager stuff already going on... Maybe we just lost the only piece doing right right now? That's my fear here.

        1. If TR wanted to make some moves to actually help the weak areas I'd apologize for the negative things I've said. I have many doubts, based on some of his public comments that I may be making up in my head that he was doing anything good, though. He seemed too old school to get with the times.

        2. I was very interested to see the direction they planned on going in, hoping that there could be a shift to a way more modern front office culture.

          Knowing that Dave freaking St. Peter is going to be part of the final decision making process and the "we can compete in 2017" mantra coming from ownership doesn't instill a lot of hope that they'll make the right decision here. I'm hoping I'm wrong.

          1. I wonder if that means Ryan wanted to rebuild/plan for 2018 or later but ownership wanted 2017 and interfered with potential moves.

          2. I was done trusting Ryan, but he did acquire a lot of talent. His free agent moves were terrible, but the trades he made made sense, even if they didn't work out, and his drafting was at least fair. As were some of his minor league moves. Some big roster constuction problems, and not pulling the trigger on other trades were glaring flaws. Still, looking at what Pohlad said today, I have to think only bad things about what remains with the organization.

        3. From LEN3:

          According to sources, Ryan and owner Jim Pohlad had a difference of opinion on how to move forward with the team, which got the wheels turning toward Ryan's dismissal.

          Sounds a whole lot like when Bill Smith got fired. Unfortunately, then and now could never get straight answer of who wanted what.

  5. CH - I never had the chance to try out Vincent before I left my job downtown to head over to the capitol campus, but my wife and I used to meet at Masa every couple of months and, though it's been a while, Ichiban was a fun place to take a date back in the day.
    The Times, They Are A-Changin'.

    1. Wow. When Ichiban opened, the Foshay was still the second-tallest building in Minneapolis.

    1. Soviet and Nazi architecture can be pretty awesome, ugly-ass Brutalist stuff aside.

      1. I just was in a conversation with The Girl, who is in St. Petersburg (Russia, not FL) this summer.

        After returning from a trip to Moscow, she remarked that it was a pretty city. Whereas Petersburg was a mismash of competing architectural styles. In her words, "every time a czar turned 16, he'd say `eff you, Mom, I'm building my OWN palace.' And then he would."

        add on some Soviet-era ugliness, and you have Petersburg.

        1. Moscow has some really incredible architecture that exists only in Moscow. St. Petersburg has nice-but-meh architecture that wouldn't look out of place anywhere in Western or Central Europe. It remains, in many ways, Peter the Great's city.

          Moscow also has some terrible architecture, though – particularly for living. I'm glad I had the chance to stay in my best friend's inlaws' Khrushchyovka in Novye Cheryomushki; it was a truly authentic taste of what Muscovites have endured for decades. A prefab, 323-sq ft, one-bedroom apartment for a family of four is not something you're likely to encounter here, particularly when both parents are well-established professionals. Squeezing five of us in there was a feat: my friend & I shared a bed in the tiny bedroom, while his fiancée & her parents slept on convertible couches in the living/dining room. The public area of their building reminded me of the smell of the combine & implement shed on my grandfather's farm.

  7. In a way, today was my first day back at work. I spent it being tutored by the attorney who used to work in the town where I'm setting up my shop. I am exhausted, and there is so much to learn, but I am eager and excited to start helping clients. This will be a very interesting adventure.

    1. Good luck!

      Sometimes things just work out. I am thankful that I don't have any of my old jobs

  8. You know, I was worried about a certain, short-fingered vulgarian. But this, THIS, is really troubling.
    Is Miguel Sano Broken?

    Oh, it's clickbaity titling? Ok, then.

    "He’s made a couple of impressive plays and he’s [missed] a couple that should have been made," Terry Ryan recently told reporters. "He’s got that agility that’s hard to come by. He can make that slow-roller play with the best of them. He’s got a power arm, and now it’s just a [need for] more repetition and consistency, but he can become a very good third baseman."

    1. If only he'd been given the chance to settle in at third earlier this season.

      Stuff like this is why I'm going to find it hard to be nostalgic about TR.

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