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Game Thread: Twins v Rays, 5/27 @ 1:10pm CT

mickeymental

By mickeymental
in Archived Game Threads

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mickeymental FCL Twins

mickeymental

Verified Member
Posted
Posted

Back in the early 1980s, one of my college roommates became an All-American goalie the year after I’d graduated with a journalism degree. We each had a big problem: He was Division II with no real path to the pros and I was jobless. So I wrote a feature about his plight and walked it, unsolicited, through the front door at the Strib. They declined – but sent me across the street to The Associated Press. As luck would have it, the Minneapolis AP sports department was a one-man show. He bought the story and, not long after, called to ask if I'd be interested in working some Twins games.

 

Thus began a 10-year stint as a stringer – a freelance sportswriter – covering everything from prep state tourneys to Gophers football and basketball to Twins, Vikings, North Stars and Wolves with a few pro golf, tennis and other random events thrown in. It was not, not, not a glamour job. It was a (very) low-paying, time-consuming, often nerve-wracking and pressure-filled side gig that revealed itself, for a variety of reasons, as not my preferred career path. But there was a fair amount of satisfaction, fun, excitement, free hot dogs and the occasional byline.

 

post-3262-0-43043100-1495899711.jpg

 

The baseball gig comprised two jobs – one as "quote boy" and another as the writer with a quote boy of one’s own. The writer (often the boss) went into the winner's postgame clubhouse, while the quote boy was vanquished to the inner sanctum of the losers – all in pursuit of the almighty quotable quotes to be woven into the second and third versions of the game stories that the job required. (The first version, filed upon completion of the seventh inning as though the game was over, got updated, play by play, on the phone with the New York baseball desk in case things changed before the final out.)

 

Three lowlights out of roughly 100 Twins games:

 

1) My major-league debut. Early in the 1983 season, the Twins beat the Brewers by way of an ugly Metrodome bounce. My maiden stop as quote boy was the office of manager Harvey Kuenn, whose Brew Crew had lost the previous season's World Series in seven games. Harvey, wearing long johns and a tee, was leaned way back in a chair with his legs, including prosthesis, hoisted atop the desk. I was by far the youngest among at least a half-dozen scribes in the tiny room and, for what seemed like several minutes, no one uttered a word. Until I did. "So," I heard myself say, "do you just chalk up a loss like this to Metrodome quirks?" Harvey looked me up and down. He probably sipped his beer. Then he pulled both legs onto the floor, leaned forward and let the f-bombs fly: "I'm so ****ing sick and tired of hearing about this ****ing dome and its ****ing quirks. It's a terrible ****ing Little League ballpark and I don't wanna ever be ****ing asked about it again." Somewhat shell shocked following his diatribe, I headed into clubhouse, sidled up to several scrums of players talking to reporters and managed to scribble down a few decent quotes before heading upstairs to the press box. My boss, back from the Twins clubhouse and working on his alternate stories, greeted me with a huge grin. "You're already famous," he said. "Everybody's buzzing about your, um, conversation with Harvey!" A few weeks later I ran into a baseball-loving buddy, we started talking Twins and I told him my story. "Hey," he said, "I just read about that in Sports Illustrated!" So I hunted down a copy of the magazine and, sure enough, some reporter had written up the expletive-laced encounter as a sidebar. Not long after, I told the story to a softball teammate – and he'd seen a version in The Sporting News. Welcome to the big leagues.

 

2) Following a Twins loss, I found myself one on one in the office of Tom Kelly. He, too, looked me up and down before snarkily asking: "So who are you, the replacement's replacement?" (He was, of course, essentially correct.)

 

3) Once, in a clubhouse full of Texas Rangers, I'd collected all the well-formed postgame clichés I needed – only to hear Will Clark give a nearby writer an unusually lively quote. I stood several feet away and quickly scribbled into my notebook. Suddenly, as I looked up, there was Will the Thrill hovering over me. He actually poked his finger into my chest several times and said, "If you wanna quote me, you ask me your own questions." (He was, of course, essentially correct.)
--

Lineups:

 

Rays

1. Tim Beckham ® SS
2. Daniel Robertson ® 2B
3. Evan Longoria ® 3B
4. Logan Morrison (L) 1B
5. Steven Souza Jr. ® RF
6. Kevin Kiermaier (L) CF
7. Rickie Weeks Jr. ® DH
8. Derek Norris ® C
9. Peter Bourjos ® LF

 

Jake Odorizzi ®

 

Twins

1. Brian Dozier ® 2B
2. Joe Mauer (L) 1B
3. Robbie Grossman (S) RF
4. Max Kepler (L) CF
5. Kennys Vargas (S) DH
6. Eduardo Escobar (S) 3B
7. Chris Gimenez ® C
8. Eddie Rosario (L) LF
9. Ehire Adrianza (S) SS

 

Adalberto Mejia (L)

 

Gametime Forecast: 70°F • Overcast • 0% PoP

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Squirrel GOAT

Squirrel

Community Moderator
Posted
Posted

mickey ... really fun, interesting stuff!!! Thanks for sharing! You can tell your stories any time you like! :)

 

Now, lineups ... really ugh! You'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to find a way to rotate needed days off to the starters without doing it all on one day! Yeah, I know ... what do I know? But still, from the perspective of my armchair ... really?

Squirrel GOAT

Squirrel

Community Moderator
Posted
Posted

Oh, man ... especially behind Mejia ... again, really? Is that a way to encourage a young starter to success? Okay ... whatever ... I'm likely not going to be able to watch the game anyway ... sigh.

Blake All-Star

Blake

Verified Member
Posted
Posted

I like the Will Clark anecdote. Shoot, the quote about Clark wanting you to ask your own questions, in and of itself, is a remarkable quote.

Jerr FCL Twins

Jerr

Verified Member
Posted
Posted

Sano, Buxton, Polanco, and Castro all on the bench today.

Gimenez starts against a RH pitcher.

Interesting...

To say the least
stringer bell Cooperstown

stringer bell

Verified Member
Posted
Posted

Sano, Buxton, Polanco, and Castro all on the bench today.

Gimenez starts against a RH pitcher.

Interesting...

Lots of RH pitching against the Twins lately. Day game after a night game.
jimbo92107 Cedar Rapids Kernels

jimbo92107

Verified Member
Posted
Posted

I'll go out on a limb on Mejia - He's going to be good. He does have stuff that should play. Keeps it low, downward plane, good action on the slider. If he commands his heater low in the zone, he'll be a horse. 

Riverbrian Cooperstown

Riverbrian

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

 

Back in the early 1980s, one of my college roommates became an All-American goalie the year after I’d graduated with a journalism degree. We each had a big problem: He was Division II with no real path to the pros and I was jobless. So I wrote a feature about his plight and walked it, unsolicited, through the front door at the Strib. They declined – but sent me across the street to The Associated Press. As luck would have it, the Minneapolis AP sports department was a one-man show. He bought the story and, not long after, called to ask if I'd be interested in working some Twins games.

 

Thus began a 10-year stint as a stringer – a freelance sportswriter – covering everything from prep state tourneys to Gophers football and basketball to Twins, Vikings, North Stars and Wolves with a few pro golf, tennis and other random events thrown in. It was not, not, not a glamour job. It was a (very) low-paying, time-consuming, often nerve-wracking and pressure-filled side gig that revealed itself, for a variety of reasons, as not my preferred career path. But there was a fair amount of satisfaction, fun, excitement, free hot dogs and the occasional byline.

 

attachicon.gifLocker_Room_630x457px_2953.jpg

 

The baseball gig comprised two jobs – one as "quote boy" and another as the writer with a quote boy of one’s own. The writer (often the boss) went into the winner's postgame clubhouse, while the quote boy was vanquished to the inner sanctum of the losers – all in pursuit of the almighty quotable quotes to be woven into the second and third versions of the game stories that the job required. (The first version, filed upon completion of the seventh inning as though the game was over, got updated, play by play, on the phone with the New York baseball desk in case things changed before the final out.)

 

Three lowlights out of roughly 100 Twins games:

 

1) My major-league debut. Early in the 1983 season, the Twins beat the Brewers by way of an ugly Metrodome bounce. My maiden stop as quote boy was the office of manager Harvey Kuenn, whose Brew Crew had lost the previous season's World Series in seven games. Harvey, wearing long johns and a tee, was leaned way back in a chair with his legs, including prosthesis, hoisted atop the desk. I was by far the youngest among at least a half-dozen scribes in the tiny room and, for what seemed like several minutes, no one uttered a word. Until I did. "So," I heard myself say, "do you just chalk up a loss like this to Metrodome quirks?" Harvey looked me up and down. He probably sipped his beer. Then he pulled both legs onto the floor, leaned forward and let the f-bombs fly: "I'm so ****ing sick and tired of hearing about this ****ing dome and its ****ing quirks. It's a terrible ****ing Little League ballpark and I don't wanna ever be ****ing asked about it again." Somewhat shell shocked following his diatribe, I headed into clubhouse, sidled up to several scrums of players talking to reporters and managed to scribble down a few decent quotes before heading upstairs to the press box. My boss, back from the Twins clubhouse and working on his alternate stories, greeted me with a huge grin. "You're already famous," he said. "Everybody's buzzing about your, um, conversation with Harvey!" A few weeks later I ran into a baseball-loving buddy, we started talking Twins and I told him my story. "Hey," he said, "I just read about that in Sports Illustrated!" So I hunted down a copy of the magazine and, sure enough, some reporter had written up the expletive-laced encounter as a sidebar. Not long after, I told the story to a softball teammate – and he'd seen a version in The Sporting News. Welcome to the big leagues.

 

2) Following a Twins loss, I found myself one on one in the office of Tom Kelly. He, too, looked me up and down before snarkily asking: "So who are you, the replacement's replacement?" (He was, of course, essentially correct.)

 

3) Once, in a clubhouse full of Texas Rangers, I'd collected all the well-formed postgame clichés I needed – only to hear Will Clark give a nearby writer an unusually lively quote. I stood several feet away and quickly scribbled into my notebook. Suddenly, as I looked up, there was Will the Thrill hovering over me. He actually poked his finger into my chest several times and said, "If you wanna quote me, you ask me your own questions." (He was, of course, essentially correct.)
--

Lineups:

 

Rays

1. Tim Beckham ® SS
2. Daniel Robertson ® 2B
3. Evan Longoria ® 3B
4. Logan Morrison (L) 1B
5. Steven Souza Jr. ® RF
6. Kevin Kiermaier (L) CF
7. Rickie Weeks Jr. ® DH
8. Derek Norris ® C
9. Peter Bourjos ® LF

 

Jake Odorizzi ®

 

Twins

1. Brian Dozier ® 2B
2. Joe Mauer (L) 1B
3. Robbie Grossman (S) RF
4. Max Kepler (L) CF
5. Kennys Vargas (S) DH
6. Eduardo Escobar (S) 3B
7. Chris Gimenez ® C
8. Eddie Rosario (L) LF
9. Ehire Adrianza (S) SS

 

Adalberto Mejia (L)

 

Gametime Forecast: 70°F • Overcast • 0% PoP

 

Loved the story

 

Thank You

Riverbrian Cooperstown

Riverbrian

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

 

Weird, with the green letters on the uniform. I thought my TV had some sort of color shift problem.

 

My TV just has a shift problem. 

 

It won't capitalize because of it. 

jimbo92107 Cedar Rapids Kernels

jimbo92107

Verified Member
Posted
Posted

I'll never understand why so many pitchers seem to become Mister Nibbles around Robbie Grossman. He's a .260 hitter with not much power. Why shy away from the zone? Yet there he goes again, drawing a walk. Is it Grossman, or should everybody simply swing less?

Riverbrian Cooperstown

Riverbrian

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

 

Wouldn't be opposed to the Twins going green permanently.

 

Should be easy enough. They have been good at re-cycling players. 

Riverbrian Cooperstown

Riverbrian

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

 

I'll never understand why so many pitchers seem to become Mister Nibbles around Robbie Grossman. He's a .260 hitter with not much power. Why shy away from the zone? Yet there he goes again, drawing a walk. Is it Grossman, or should everybody simply swing less?

 

Most pitchers pitch out of the zone. Grossman just seems to be good at letting them do that. 

stringer bell Cooperstown

stringer bell

Verified Member
Posted
Posted

Archer has owned Sano; that day off should probably have been yesterday

Remember how Sanó struggled the last two in Baltimore? He had a day Off Thursday and looked hopeless yesterday.
Jerr FCL Twins

Jerr

Verified Member
Posted
Posted

On my deck listening to radio! Twins in green and looks good???

Sorry, but I hate all the changes MLB does on the uniforms as do the other sports.

I'm old school, a change when relocating or one each generation is fine here.

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