What Is the AL Central Most Like?

Going into the season, the consensus was that the American League Central would be average at best and that only two or three teams had a realistic shot at clearing the very attainable bar of winning it.

That negativity has, if anything, proven overly optimistic. The godless Chicago White Sox have joined Kansas City in the divisional toilet, with Detroit managing to look improved only by comparison to those two. That leaves a wildly boring Cleveland team, currently a half-game behind the Tigers, and a fun but flawed Minnesota Twins team once again being the best of a bad lot.

Twins Daily is fortunate to have a lot of fellow bloggers, broadcasters, and weather-beaten sportswriters in its audience, and those folks need something with which to compare this ugly division. It’s our pleasure to provide this service to them and all of you: What is the AL Central Most Like? Not the worst thing in the world, but sorely lacking in aesthetics or ambition and the potential to really stink up the joint.

• A college student in his seventh year. He’s not dumb, but he likes to party, and there’s no real reason to rush as long as mom stays married to his well-off stepdad. His name is Sean or Max. He is majoring in poli sci, he thinks. His marijuana intake is remarkable.
• Indiana. You’re only going there if your job makes you or you watched Hoosiers at a vulnerable age.
• The fourth or fifth film in a movie franchise that no one really cares about anymore but enough people show up to keep it going. Transformers: Rise of the Bloodmoon or something like that.
• A used car with six figures on the odometer. You might be able to squeeze more miles out of it, but it’ll cost you. You called it your “work car” because that’s what you were going to use it for, but now it’s your “work car” in that it’s stuck in the work parking lot because the alternator is shot.
• A plain hamburger at a chain restaurant. The menu gives you the ol’ razzle dazzle for the Jalapeno Popper Butter Burger Bomb or Col. Saugatuck’s Old-Fashioned Double Bacon Patty Melt with Country Gravy but tucked away at the bottom is Plain Burger. They don’t even try to gussy it up with words like Angus or sizzling or traditional. If you want fries, the dishwasher with the strongest arm throws them at you and whatever you catch in your mouth, that’s it.
• The USA Network. If you’re a cord-cutter, you may not know that there’s a station that is no cable subscriber’s first, second, or even third choice for entertainment. But it’s always there, somewhere between Lifetime and TNT. You don’t even watch NCIS but you’ve somehow seen this episode. All the commercials are for reverse mortgages and laxatives for patriots.
• Maroon 5. Catchy enough, even played the Super Bowl, but they’re not anyone’s favorite band. Horny but in an annoying way, like they're coming on to you because they want to tell you about a time-share opportunity in Fort Myers. You can name two songs, but you're guessing on the second one's title (it's "This Love"). Nickelback fans make fun of them. Nickelback.
• A town where the biggest store is a Kohl’s. You really wish they had a Target, an Old Navy, or even a dumpy mall. But no. Kohl’s it is. Nice enough town, but none of the kids stay there after high school. Dutch elm disease killed the trees that the tornado didn't. The local newspaper went under in 2011, otherwise the lead story in this week’s edition would be the fire in the abandoned Pick 'n Save.

We hope this helps.