45 thoughts on “August 15, 2019: Trips”

1. There needs to be a c-store that spells it Quic. Maybe in Canada or something.

   1. Yet another plug for Pepper's book referral,
      Convenience Store Woman.

2. Stopped by the local card shop to pick up some baseball cards, and showed the owner the recent $700 WAR game. After about an hour, his response was "Thanks. Thanks a lot."

   1. What WAR games is this?

      1. The one we've been wasting spending lots of time on this week.

         1. Ah, I was thinking an entirely different type of war game. Been too deep into tabletop gaming.

3. There will be no game recap or Minor Details tomorrow. Today would have been my parents' wedding anniversary (and I guess it still is, really), so I'll be leaving soon to spend some time with Mom A.

4. Having clashed with the senior management of Kwik Trip/Kwik Star (and knowing about their political positions), I can tell you which one I definitely do not prefer.

   1. There has been a bit of controversy with QuikTrip as well; it's stations are corporate owned, so when times are tight the individually owned stations have difficulty competing.

   2. Indeed. Your tale and your parenthetical are why its nice that a Casey's opened up in town recently. (though I imagine their politics aren't a ton different.)

      1. Unfortunately, Kwik Trip end-ran its thwarted entry into our neighborhood — and the rest of the People’s Republic — by buying 30+ employee-owned PDQ stores. I’d like to think strong competition will help, but I’m not convinced that it won’t make Kwik Trip simply double-down on the things I already dislike.

5. Relevant: https://www.quora.com/What-s-the-difference-between-QuikTrip-and-Kwik-Trip
   QT was founded in 1957, but stayed in Oklahoma until 1971. KT was founded in 1965. Can't tell when their first non-WI location went up.
   The chains overlap in the Des Moines, IA metropolitan area (though IA locations of KT are branded "Kwik Star").

   "Qwik Trip" seems a reasonable conflation of both to cover the area from Arizona to MN to the Carolinas.

   1. If I had to guess, the first non-Wisconsin KT location was across the river in La Crescent. I’d be shocked if its jump across the river was much later than the late 1970s. I had family working at a KT in Minnesota in the mid-Eighties.

6. Why Your Team Sucks 2019: Minnesota Vikings

   What has always sucked: Time for me to point out that the Vikings have the sixth highest all-time winning percentage of any NFL team. Fifteen of the top 16 teams on that particular list have won the Super Bowl. Guess which one hasn’t? I can believe that’s a statistical anomaly but, well now, I’ve talked myself into Kirk Cousins, haven’t I? I am a big gullible shithead, and the Vikings are here to draw in lumbering imbeciles such as myself with superficial victories and nothing more. They belong to Minnesota for this very reason. People from Minnesota are friendly mainly as a way of figuring out what exactly it is that they hate about you. And so it’s very easy for them, and for me, to hit it off with this team at first, and to then spend DECADES nurturing the ensuing, private resentment. I wish this team had never been born.

   1. I laughed out loud multiple times while reading that. The WYTS series is always great, but Drew's takedowns of his favorite team always have a little extra oomph to them.

      1. Sam's story at the end was pretty rough, man.

         1. Yeah, the laughs stopped there.

            1. So appropriate. With the Vikings, the fun always ends in crushing heartbreak and depression.

         2. Yowser. That one wasn't there when I first read the article.

      2. Jeffrey's description of the Viking fan base was amazing.

         1. Yes

         2. Yep. Best fan letter by far.

   2. Ross:

      The last time the Vikings went to the Super Bowl, the original Star Wars film was not yet released. Elvis, Bing Crosby, and Charlie Chaplin were still alive. The last person to be executed by guillotine in France happened 8 months after the Vikings made their last Super Bowl appearance.

      That is maybe the strangest way to look at the extended period of futility the Vikings are going through, but it made me laugh.

      And dang, I really, really didn't want Kirk Cousins, but I even more do not want to be right about Cousins being... not good. Such a weird combination of good numbers and poor results.

      1. He's the automatic 9-yard passer on 3rd-and-10.

   3. I, for one, am waiting for the Detroit Lions to go to the Super Bowl. They are the only team in the NFC with a longer Super Bowl drought.

7. Sano and Kepler for the next (today's?) game.

   Last night on the MLB channel, the guys were GOMLing about Today's Game and saying how much fun it is to watch KC, even though they suck, because they "try to make things happen."

   Ugh. Then Harold doubled down by claiming that nobody runs any more because they are worried about their WAR going down if caught stealing or trying to advance.

   Dude, nobody runs because management mostly got a clue that giving away outs is stupid. You only run when the situation and runner are favorable enough.

   1. You still listen to Harold??

   2. Harold also claims that sabermetrics were born out of the 1994 strike because that's when ownership started seeing players as just numbers. He's a hoot.

      1. To be fair, Harold has strong feelings about running because that’s what his mouth does best.

         1. To be faaaaaaaaaiiiiirrrrrr

            1. I chuckled. I have to bite my tongue when I hear that phrase around town.

   3. Polanco and Kepler

      1. Nelson and Cruz.

         1. Oy, no Cruz tonight. We'll take the DH spot with Gonzalez.

   4. Harold also came up in the '80s, the runniest decade in the post-deadball era. Szymborski conveniently had a graph yesterday that showed stolen base frequency and the current level is close but not at the lowest levels from the '50s.

      1. I'm surprised there hasn't been more talk of the newer stadiums changing the game. Deep outfields with artificial turf play much differently than short outfields with natural grass.

8. There will be TWO Sano bombas tonight.

9. Kepler and Castro tonight.

   1. Sano and Rosi.

   2. Kepler

   3. Rosario

   4. Castro

10. Texas in August. I'll say that's enough to get a home run for Arraez.

    1. This deserves a fair chunk of meat's points.

11. Former Twin Fernando Abad and former Twins draft pick (and son of Ivan) Dereck Rodriguez have been called up by the Giants. Rodriguez will start tonight against the Diamondbacks.

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