I went back to my old school over here, and it’s been improved by about 1,000% (and that’s not really an exaggeration). I wanted to grab some of the current students by the shoulders and scream, “You don’t know what it was like!!!”
Monthly Archives: January 2020
Happy Birthday–January 7
Kitty Bransfield (1875)
Al Todd (1902)
Johnny McCarthy (1910)
Johnny Mize (1913)
Alvin Dark (1922)
Dick Schofield (1935)
Jim Hannan (1940)
Jim Lefebvre (1942)
Tony Conigliaro (1945)
Joe Keough (1946)
Ross Grimsley (1950)
Bob Gorinski (1952)
Jeff Montgomery (1962)
Craig Shipley (1963)
Allan Anderson (1964)
Rob Radlosky (1974)
Alfonso Soriano (1976)
Eric Gagne (1976)
Brayan Pena (1982)
Francisco Rodriguez (1982)
Edwin Encarnacion (1983)
Jon Lester (1984)
Jhoulys Chacin (1988)
2020 WGOM Draft: Round 3
Remember, no need to draft a player at his primary position as long as he played the position you want him at for a reasonable time or could easily transition. Also, if you change your mind later you can move a guy to a different spot.
Philospher
Algonad
Mike
SoCalTwinsFan
Freealonzo
sean
bhiggum
Nibbish
brianS
CarterHayes
Beau
TheDreadPirate
cheaptoy
hungryjoe
rowsdower
1991 Rewind: Game Ninety
MINNESOTA 11, BOSTON 3 IN BOSTON
Date: Thursday, July 18.
Batting stars: Kirby Puckett was 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs. Shane Mack was 2-for-4 with two RBIs. Scott Leius was 1-for-3 with a home run (his second), a stolen base (his fifth), two walks, and three runs. Chili Davis was 1-for-5 with a home run (his twentieth) and four RBIs.
Pitching stars: Jack Morris struck out eight in seven innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on three hits and a walk. Terry Leach pitched a perfect inning and struck out one.
Opposition stars: Jack Clark was 2-for-4 with a home run (his thirteenth) and two RBIs. Ellis Burks was 1-for-3 with a home run, his eleventh. Tom Bolton pitched five innings of relief, giving up one run on three hits and striking out two.
The game: The two teams combined for one hit in the first two innings, but that changed in the third. Gene Larkin and Greg Gagne opened the inning with singles, followed by a walk to Leius to load the bases. Al Newman then delivered a two-run double, Puckett had an RBI single, and Davis drove in a run with a ground out, making it 4-0. The Twins weren't done. Brian Harper singled and advanced on a throw, putting men on second and third. Mack then struck a two-run single to make the score 6-0.
The Twins added some more in the fourth. With one out, Leius singled and stole second (breaking an unwritten rule?). Newman reached on an error, Puckett had another RBI single, and Davis hit a three-run homer to make the score 10-0.
It was never close after that. The Red Sox got on the board on the bottom of the fourth when Jody Reed singled, went to second on a passed ball, and scored on Clark's RBI single. Burks hit a home run in the fifth to make it 10-2. Leius homered in the ninth and Clark homered in the ninth, and it ended up 11-3.
WP: Morris (13-6). LP: Kevin Morton (1-2). S: None.
Notes: Mack was again in left in place of Dan Gladden. Larkin was in right, making his first appearance since July 1. Newman started at second base in place of Chuck Knoblauch. He batted second, with Leius in the number one spot.
Jarvis Brown went to center field in the sixth to replace Puckett. Randy Bush entered the game in the eighth inning in place of Kent Hrbek. He went to left, with Mack going to right and Larkin moving to first base. Tom Kelly usually played Bush in right and Mack in left--perhaps the Green Monster changed his thinking for this game. Knoblauch replaced Gagne at shortstop in the eighth.
Harper went 1-for-4 and was batting .332. Puckett raised his average to .326. Morris lowered his ERA to 3.39. Leach lowered his ERA to 3.22.
Brown was 0-for-1 and was batting .167.
I referenced this above, but I wonder if there was any comment about Leius stealing second with a six-run lead. There shouldn't have been--it was only the fourth inning, they were in Boston, and the Red Sox had a pretty good lineup--but the unwritten rules are a tricky thing, and they seem to vary from year to year and team to team.
Morton, the Boston starter, lasted 2.1 innings, allowing six runs on six hits and a walk and striking out two. Morton had pitched decently against the Twins five days earlier, but they certainly figured him out in the third inning of this game.
I don't remember Tom Bolton at all, but he pitched in the majors for eight years. Most of that was with the Red Sox--he came up in 1987 and stayed with them until July of 1992, when he was traded to Cincinnati for Billy Hatcher. He was with Detroit in 1993 and Baltimore in 1994. He was actually pretty good for Boston in 1990, going 10-5, 3.38, 1.32 WHIP. 1991 was not a good year for him: 8-9, 5.24, 1.70 WHIP. He would make one more appearance, then miss a month due to injury--one wonders if he was fighting an injury most of the season. Or perhaps 1990 was just a fluke season, because his next lowest ERA for a season was 4.38 in his rookie season. For his career he was 31-34, 4.56, 1.59 WHIP. He played in 209 games, 56 of them starts, and pitched 540.1 innings. After baseball, he went back to his home town of Nashville and went into the real estate development business.
Oakland lost yesterday (when the Twins were idle) and lost to New York 3-2 today, so the Twins gained a game and a half on them. The Athletics fell into a second-place tie with California, which defeated Cleveland 5-4.
Record: The Twins were 52-38, in first place in the American League West, four games ahead of California and Oakland.
January 6, 2020: Dang It
A small part of me wanted to catch at least a bit of that game, even despite the time. Kept waking up all night anyway. Ah well.
First Monday Book Day: Discoverability
I love a good book review. I read far more reviews of adult books* than I read actual books, though I do occasionally request books from the library based on a particularly intriguing review. Sure, I hear about books in other ways, but I like to browse through review in the New York Times over lunch, and a review is most consistently what gets me interested in a book.
However, my final read of 2019 was a book I came across by accident. I was searching the library website for Japan travel guides, and an intriguing book called The Sakura Obsession by Naoko Abe turned up. I read the description and put it on hold, and it came in just before my end-of-year time off started.
Translated from the Japanese by the author, who is from Japan and now lives in the UK, the book explores the significance of the cherry tree (sakura) in Japan and how an eccentric British guy named Collingwood Ingram came to be a proponent of the cherry tree (and lived to the age of 100). Particularly interesting to me was information about how the cherry tree was used in WWII propaganda within Japan to link the idea of blossoms falling with the idea of dying gloriously for the emperor. For a little more detail about the book, check out a review here.
Throughout the year, I read a lot of books that I feel like I "need" to read for various reasons and that's not to say I don't generally enjoy them, but it was wonderful to read a book just because I'd stumbled across it and became curious.
So how do you find out about books to read? And what have you been reading lately?
*books for grown-ups rather than children, thank you very much
Snail Mail – Pristine
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Happy Birthday–January 6
George Shoch (1859)
Phil Masi (1916)
Jiro Noguchi (1920)
Early Wynn (1920)
Ralph Branca (1926)
Lenny Green (1933)
Lee Walls (1933)
Ruben Amaro (1936)
Don Gullett (1951)
Norm Charlton (1963)
Dan Naulty (1970)
Marlon Anderson (1974)
Brian Bass (1982)
Anthony Slama (1984)
Early Wynn was the Twins' pitching coach from 1967-1968.
Jiro Noguchi was one of the greatest pitchers in the early days of Japanese professional baseball, winning 237 games with an ERA of 1.96.
1991 Rewind: Game Eighty-nine
MILWAUKEE 4, MINNESOTA 3 IN MILWAUKEE
Date: Tuesday, July 16.
Batting stars: Kirby Puckett was 3-for-4 with two doubles. Mike Pagliarulo was 2-for-3. Brian Harper was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer, his fifth.
Pitching star: Kevin Tapani pitched eight innings, giving up two runs on seven hits and two walks and striking out four.
Opposition stars: Chris Bosio pitched seven innings, giving up one run on seven hits and no walks and striking out two. Darryl Hamilton was 3-for-3 with two walks. Paul Molitor was 2-for-5 with a double and two runs.
The game: Molitor led off the bottom of the first with a single, followed by Hamilton's bunt single. Another bunt moved the runners up and a sacrifice fly made it 1-0 Brewers. The Twins got a pair of two-out singles in the second but could do nothing with them. Puckett led off the fourth with a double but only got as far as third. They tied it in the fifth, however, when Greg Gagne got a two-out single and scored from first on a Randy Bush double.
It didn't stay tied long. In the bottom of the fifth, Jim Gantner singled, stole second, and scored on a B. J. Surhoff single, putting Milwaukee up 2-1. Puckett again led off with a double in the sixth and again could only get as far as third.
In the top of the ninth, though, things changed. Chili Davis walked and Harper hit a two-run homer, putting the Twins ahead 3-2. Rick Aguilera came in, and looked like victory was assured. The first two batters were retired on ground outs. Then, however, Bill Spiers singled and scored on a Molitor double. A wild pitch sent Molitor to third and Hamilton singled him home with the game's deciding run.
WP: Doug Henry (1-0). LP: Aguilera (2-4). S: None.
Notes: Shane Mack was again in left with Dan Gladden still out. Randy Bush was again in right and again batted first. Jarvis Brown pinch-ran for Davis in the ninth and stayed in the game to play right field, with Aguilera inserted into the leadoff spot in the lineup. Scott Leius pinch-hit for Pagliarulo in the ninth and stayed in the game at third base.
Harper raised his average to .333. Puckett raised his average to .324. Tapani's ERA fell to 3.16. Aguilera's ERA rose to 3.02.
Following his 3-for-27 stretch, Puckett was now 10-for-21 in his last five games, raising his average from .314.
Pagliarulo had a seven-game hitting streak. He was 15-for-24 and had raised his average from .244 to .290.
This was Aguilera's seventh blown save in thirty-one chances.
Texas lost to Detroit 6-5 and fell out of second place.
Record: The Twins were 51-38, in first place in the American League West, 2.5 games ahead of Oakland.
January 5, 2020: Late Night Gridiron Fight
Vikes are going to have to win this one (heh) without me as the game's on at 3 in the morning.