31 thoughts on “May 25, 2019: May Day!”

  1. Animal Kingdom jerseys and shirseys:
    Allen Iverson (Nuggets)
    Colton Parayko
    Mike Trout
    Jaylen Brown
    Robert Lewandowski
    Sergio Aguero
    Dwyane Wade
    Brandon Beal
    Derek Jeter
    Marcelo
    Terry Rozier III
    Paul Pierce
    Jackie Robinson
    Neymar, Jr.
    Ben Simmons
    Riyad Mahrez
    Lionel Messi
    Grant Hill
    Jimmy Butler
    Luka Dončić
    Luka Modrić
    Alexis Sanchez
    Antonio Valencia
    D'Angelo Russell

  2. As of this morning

    CJ Cron: .271/.335/.548/.883
    Max Kepler: .271/.345/.520/.865
    Jon Scoop: .271/.316/.530/.847

    1. Kepler gets these little hot streaks than drops back to .230-.240. I hope he can keep it up. .270 with 30 home runs would be a huge year for him.

  3. that Buxton double last night was ridiculous. It was a routine hit not all that much to the gap, and he made it to second without a play. That's ridiculous. 2Bux is So. Much. Fun.

            1. need to preserve those shortcuts for something ubiquitous, otherwise the mobile experience becomes unavailing. *puts away thesaurus*

              btw, the wrong side of the tracks is the east side

    1. When I saw it in the recap I thought for sure he took the base on a throw to home. Nope. Although the throw should have been to second instead of the cutoff -- good heads-up running.

  4. More evidence that the Twins seem to be embracing the modern world of analytics at long last.

    But the most dramatic change came with his changeup, which he switched over to a split-fingered grip similar to the one Jake Odorizzi uses and made a focus of his preparation this season. Littell said the new grip helps him throw the changeup for strikes more effectively in all counts, and he worked on it in earnest after Johnson showed him the advanced data that suggested it could be a particularly effective offering.

    "The changeup is a vastly underrated pitch," Littell said. "Everybody in baseball, especially right-on-right, left-on-left, it's being underused. Last year, I knew it was a small sample size, but the numbers on right-on-right changeups were incredible. I think that kind of prompted me to really kind of dive into the changeup development and make it a weapon, especially to right-handed hitters, but to both."

  5. Fishing is serious business

    “I knew that I had just caught the state-record walleye,” said Mr. Volk, 41, who serves as a city councilman in North Dakota and works in drug prevention for the state government. “It was a dream of mine.”

    But Mr. Volk does not have the state record. Instead, he has a written warning from the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. He has a collection of social media posts accusing him of being a fraudster. And he has a boat he is trying to sell because he does not care to go fishing again any time soon.

    The dispute about Mr. Volk’s walleye — which became the subject of a criminal investigation, a podcast and dozens of posts on the NodakAngler.com message boards — is an only-in-2019 chapter to a generations-old argument about what qualifies as a fishing record.

  6. One of the many amazing things about the roll the Twins have been on is that lately they've been doing it without two of their better batters--Nelson Cruz and Mitch Garver.

  7. Last night I went to the season opener of the PIerre Trappers, who play in the Expedition League. It's a wooden bat league for small college players. Some are from the area--there were several from Minnesota State and Bemidji State, and a couple from Northern State in Aberdeen--but there were also some from quite a distance away. It's a fun brand of ball. You've got good athletes, so you'll see some great plays, but you've also got kids, so you'll see some really bad plays. They've got something going on nearly every half-inning--games, contests, gifts thrown into the stands, most of which I assume is standard minor league promotional stuff. You can get a seat behind home plate for $6.00--it's a concrete bleacher, so you want to bring a cushion, but it's still a great seat. The concessions were pretty reasonably priced, too. There were LOTS of kids there, and they all seemed to be having a good time. It reminded me of a discussion on this site a while back--MLB's problem is not so much that kids aren't interested in baseball as it is that MLB has priced itself out of the market for a lot of people. Another way of saying that might be that there's nothing wrong with MLB that a few Bill Veecks couldn't fix.

  8. On the Smoker - Jerk Chicken Wings

    Yesterday afternoon I made a marinade:
    - chopped habanero peppers (couldn't find Scotch Bonnett but probably for the best)
    - chopped green onions
    - thinly sliced ginger
    - chopped cilantro
    - dried thyme (drat - I had fresh thyme earlier in the week but it went South)
    - sugar
    - ground nutmeg
    - cinnamon
    - black pepper
    - kosher salt
    - olive oil
    - dark rum (Black Seal)
    - soy sauce

    I put the spices into a food processor and made a slurry. Next, stirred in the liquids, then poured into a large Ziploc. Added chicken wings and sloshed around for a bit, then put into the fridge overnight.

    A little before lunchtime, I started about 10 Kingsford briquets in a chimney for only 12-15 minutes (don't want them too hot), then added them to the tray of equal batch of briquets in the bottom of the Pit Barrel Cooker, then added a large handful of soaked pimento wood chips to the mix.

    Placed the chicken wings on the grill surface of the PBC and cooked, covered up, for 1.5 hrs. You may get some fires as the pimento wood chips dry out and burn, but the overall smoke will subdue that.

    No BBQ sauces needed - the in-your-face Habanero blast, the smoky pimento flavors, and the kickass Jerk flavorings made this a memorable meal. Beautiful color, grill-lines, and texture. And pure heat.

    NBBW made an awesome companion Slaw with cabbage, carrot, green onion, cilantro, yellow pepper, and some oil and vinegar.

  9. Matt Harvey to the IL with an upper back strain. Probably from turning around so fast to watch all those homers.

  10. Cleveland trails Tampa Bay 6-1 through six. If the score holds, the Twins will be in first place by nine games.

  11. We're going to tomorrow's game. Tonight the jalapeño said to me, "I don't know why I said yes to going to the game. I don't like to watch baseball. I just like to play it." Now you tell me, kid. 🙄

    (I predict he'll actually have a good time...)

    1. Meanwhile, I'll also be there and my son has already confirmed he's only going to enjoy the food

      1. We’re going to the Angels game today with a work group, and I’m expecting a similar result for our kids. Forecast of rain later may make it a shortened trip, too.

    2. Hilariously, my son has decided he pretty much only likes watching baseball, not playing it.

      We're working on that, but... I find some humor in that juxtaposition.

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