Dave Overlund

In Part 2 of this adaptation of a Dickens classic, Jim Pohlad finds himself awoken by, well, you're going to have to read on to find out. Image courtesy of graphics by Brock Beauchamp In Part 2 of this adaptation of a Dickens classic, Jim Pohlad finds himself awoken by, well, you're going to have to read on to find out. A Minnesota Twins Christmas Carol - Part 1 Jim Pohlad enters one of his many estates, muttering to himself about the nerve of his employees trying to ‘extort’ him for pitching. He hands Rudy his fur coat and takes the elevator up to his bedroom. “125 million dollars for a pitcher… not in this lifetime,” Pohlad says as Rudy helps him into his silk pajamas. “What do they expect me to do? Sell my Porsche dealership? One of my many houses,” Pohlad asks while Rudy silently nods in agreement. Pohlad puts on his nightcap and tucks himself into the covers. Pohlad falls asleep but is quickly awoken by the sound of cleats on the marble floor in his bedroom. He grabs his smartphone to turn on the lights, but before he can find the app his room is aglow with a backlit figure standing in the doorway. “Rudy? Is that you?,” Pohlad asks. “No, Jim, I am not Rudy,” the figure replies as Pohlad squints to adjust his eyes to the glowing figure in his cavernous bedroom. “I am the Ghost of Twins’ Christmas Past.” Then it becomes clear who is standing at the foot of the bed. It is, unbelievably, Kirby Puckett. “Kirby! It can’t be! I thought you were….well….,” Pohlad stutters. “Dead? Remember Jim, there's heroes and there's legends: Heroes get remembered, but legends never die,” Puckett said. “I am here to show you the error of your ways.” Puckett and Pohlad suddenly appear on Chicago Avenue during the Twins 1991 World Championship parade. Chili Davis and Jack Morris roll by in floats while the fans celebrate and cheer. “You see, Jim, this town LOVED the Twins and all it took was a few big free agents to complete the puzzle,” Puckett said. “You could have OWNED this state if you could have kept the momentum. But you stopped spending.” Suddenly a montage plays out in front of Puckett and Pohlad. Disappointing seasons in ’92 and ’93. The 1994 strike and Kent Hrbek’s retirement. Puckett’s glaucoma. The awful, awful seasons from ’95-2000. Puckett reaches out and takes Pohlad by the hand. Suddenly, the room begins to spin and spin until they find themselves inside the Hubert H Humphrey Metrodome. It is 2001. On the field, the Twins are playing against the White Sox. It is an exciting young Twins team featuring up-and-coming players like Torii Hunter and Corey Koskie. Although the crowd is sparse, it is far better than even three seasons ago. Fans seem to be getting interested in the team again after a dark decade of losing. Puckett and Pohlad find themselves in the offices in the bowels of the stadium. “Is that my dad?” Pohlad nervously asks. “Who is that man he is sitting with?” Puckett laughs and gives Pohlad a dumbfounded look. “You know who that is, the Commissioner of baseball Bud Selig,” Puckett says incredulously. Selig and Carl Pohlad are looking over some documents while lawyers observe from the background. Suddenly, Selig smiles and begins to speak. “There we have it, Carl, your team will officially be contracted before next season. The owners will buy out your stake and there will no longer be Major League Baseball in Minnesota,” Selig said. A single tear fell from Puckett’s eye as he watched Carl Pohlad sign the contract. Jim Pohlad instantly became defensive. “You don’t understand, the state wouldn’t buy us a new stadium! Our family simply couldn’t afford to pay for our own ballpark, we needed the charity of the citizens of Minnesota,” Jim Pohlad said. “Ah, so you admit, you NEED the fans,” Puckett asked. “Is that what you are trying to say?” “No, we need the fans’ MONEY. We don’t care what the fans actually think about the team as long as they are giving us their MONEY…. can’t you understand that?” Jim Pohlad seethed. Suddenly, after climbing about 6,000 stairs, Puckett and Pohlad are in the Twins clubhouse. Players are hearing the news of contraction and calling their families confused and scared about what the future may hold. Employees are being encouraged to find employment elsewhere in case there is no team in 2002. “That’s IT. I’ve seen enough of this and I DEMAND to go back home,” Pohlad yelled. “As you wish,” Puckett said, and suddenly Jim Pohlad was back in his California king-sized bed. Part 3 is coming soon! A Minnesota Twins Christmas Carol - Part 1 View full article

“ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE MILLION?! DOLLARS?!,” an angry Pohlad replied. “For ONE pitcher? Did I not just give you four million dollars for Dylan Bundy?!” Image courtesy of graphics by Brock Beauchamp “ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE MILLION?! DOLLARS?!,” an angry Pohlad replied. “For ONE pitcher? Did I not just give you four million dollars for Dylan Bundy?!” Interior: Target Field. It is December 24th. The snow is falling. It is dark outside and the staff is working in candlelight. A Houston Astros-logoed trash can burns in the corner of the room for heat. Derek Falvey and Thad Levine are at their desks, tired and nodding off, poring over the Bill James Handbook from 2018 and a back issue of Baseball America from 2017, looking for pitchers. Always looking for pitchers. An old, chipped rotary phone across the room rings. Falvey stands up, blows warm air on his hands and picks up the receiver. “Well, that certainly is a great deal for us,” Falvey exclaims before his face suddenly drops. “I just don’t think Mr. Pohlad will go for it, certainly not around Christmastime when budgets are even tighter.” Falvey listens to the voice on the other end of the phone before agreeing to ask his boss about this proposition. He tentatively approaches Levine and whispers into his ear. As he listens, Levine begins to perk up and get excited. He agrees that Falvey should approach Mr. Pohlad about this proposition and even offers to accompany him to Pohlad’s office. Behind a cracked door, Minnesota Twins owner Jim Pohlad sits at a large desk in his office. He is carefully counting receipts from hot dog sales and entering them into a primitive counting machine. There is a knock at the door. “WHO IS IT,” Pohlad’s voice booms from behind the door. “It’s us, Thad and Derek, sir,” Levine sheepishly replies. “WELL COME IN, YOU ARE LETTING ALL THE HEAT OUT OF THE OFFICE,” Pohlad impatiently replies. Falvey and Levine hesitate, with each of them wanting the other to enter the room first. Finally, Levine sighs and heads inside, trailed by Falvey. They approach the desk holding a notebook. “Good evening sir and Merry Christmas,” Lavine says before cringing as he hears Pohlad’s response begin to leave his lungs…. “CHRISTMAS?! THE SEASON OF GIVING?! BAH HUMBUG!.” Pohlad snarls through gritted teeth. “I CAN’T STAND THE THOUGHT OF SPENDING THE MONEY I WORKED SO HARD TO EARN. “Do you see these hot dog receipts? EVERY one of these hot dogs sold for $8. Do you know how much they cost us? One dollar!,” Pohlad said with a devilish grin on his face. “Now THAT’s the kind of GIVING I like, people GIVING me their money for MY hot dogs. I call it ‘the Target Field Experience,’” he said before trailing off into a soft cackle. “Never mind that, what is it that you interrupted me for?” “Well, sir, you see, free agency has been really wild this year, and a lot of the top pitchers have already gone off the board…..” Levine began, but he was cut off immediately by a furious Pohlad. “TOP pitchers? TOP?!? Haven’t I already explained to you that we cannot AFFORD TOP PITCHERS,” Pohlad raged. “That’s why I got you the Bill James Handbook from 2018 at a garage sale. You are to find pitchers who performed well during that season and figure out how to make them good again.” “Yes, sir, I understand, but I just got off of the phone with the agent for Kevin Gausman and he wants to sign with the Twins… it’s a Christmas miracle!” Falvey said. “He is willing sign for five years and $125 million… it’s a bargain for us---“ “ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE MILLION?! DOLLARS?!,” an angry Pohlad replied. “For ONE pitcher? Did I not just give you four million dollars for Dylan Bundy?!” “Yes, sir, you did and that was very, very generous of you,” Levine said. “However, Gausman is a major upgrade over the pitchers we have now and a proven commodity.” Mr. Pohlad frowned and pointed his finger toward the door. “We are a small market club, Derek, and I don’t appreciate you coming in here trying to convince me to spend money we certainly don’t have here.” “But, sir, the fans would really…,” Falvey begins before he is shouted down by Pohlad. “The FANS?! The FANS?!,” Pohlad yells. “The FANS are lucky to have a baseball team at all! I will hear no more of this about the FANS! “The FANS are expected to buy tickets, a jersey to wear to the game, a $12 beer and $8 hot dog and just be happy to be outside watching baseball. ‘Your ticket to summer,’ remember?” Pohlad stands up, puts on his overcoat and summons his butler, Rudy. Rudy emerges from a side room and helps Pohlad put on his gloves, hat and shoes. Falvey and Levine watch out the window as Pohlad climbs into his Porsche and heads to his home in Edina. Falvey and Levine watch to make sure Pohlad is gone then carefully pack up their supplies to head home for the holidays. Falvey puts a grocery-bag book cover on the Bill James Handbook and Levine carefully puts out the fire in the Astros trash can. “Merry Christmas, Thad, “ Falvey says. “Merry Christmas, Derek,” Levine replies. Check back for Part 2, coming soon! View full article

Baseball fandom, for many, begins with a moment or two. Maybe you had the opportunity to meet a big league player and he became your hero. Maybe watching your dad play softball and then watching a ballgame on TV together is what brought you to the game. For some, the love of the game began and flourished with a pack of baseball cards. And maybe for you, like for me, there is a single card that exemplifies that love of the game. Image courtesy of Scan via Dave Overlund (Card by Topps) Baseball fandom, for many, begins with a moment or two. Maybe you had the opportunity to meet a big league player and he became your hero. Maybe watching your dad play softball and then watching a ballgame on TV together is what brought you to the game. For some, the love of the game began and flourished with a pack of baseball cards. And maybe for you, like for me, there is a single card that exemplifies that love of the game. Baseball card collecting has become much more intense than it was in my childhood. Our biggest choice was whether to spend the 75 cents on a standard pack of Topps or spring for the $1.25 pack of glossy, flashy, hologram-y Upper Deck. Or, if we were really feeling fancy, we could go to KB Toys and splurge on a rack pack! I am going to sound like some kind of boomer here, but I can't keep up with the refractors, variations, jersey patches, etc... nor can I afford a box of cards from the local hobby shop at this point. So, with that being said, I have shifted my focus to trying to collect each and every Topps base-set Twins card in existence. No matter how many team sets I buy, or binders I fill with chronologically-cataloged cardboard Twins, my favorite card remains the same: The 1989 Topps Gary Gaetti card. Listen, I get it, it's a pretty unremarkable card for most people and it's worth MAYBE ten cents at the present time. However, for me it's about the memory associated with the card as opposed to its value. I can remember sitting on our rickety metal swing set as a seven-year-old when my dad returned from the store (to which he undoubtedly went to buy some dip). He handed me a pack of baseball cards, and I immediately began rifling through them looking for Jose Canseco, Cal Ripken, Kirby Puckett, and other superstars of the day, but mostly I was most stoked to get a Twins card. After flipping past Mike Moore, Jeffrey Leonard and other randoms from that '89 set, I saw it: a Gary Gaetti card. I excitedly showed it to my dad, who exclaimed "Wow! Not bad for a 75-cent pack of cards! Hang onto that one!" And I have. It's the only card I would never trade or gamble with as a kid. Why Gary Gaetti? I don't know. He is a Twins Hall of Famer, won a World Series ring and has two cool nicknames in "G-Man" and "The Rat!" Maybe it's some of this too... My latest mission has been to find autographed cards of the 1989 Topps set. I have acquired most of them in person, a couple off of Twins fan groups and one off of eBay of questionable quality. My white whale, of course, is a legit signed 1989 Topps Kirby Puckett. What is your favorite Twins card and why? What do you collect? Let us know in the comments! MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Order the Offseason Handbook — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email View full article

Target Field is an awesome venue with perfect sightlines, a great location and wonderful amenities. With that being said, I still miss the Metrodome. Image courtesy of Seth Stohs, Twins Daily Target Field is an awesome venue with perfect sightlines, a great location and wonderful amenities. With that being said, I still miss the Metrodome. I would imagine most of my love for the Dome is simply based in nostalgia. After all, it opened the year I was born and hosted many of my favorite team’s best moments throughout my childhood and beyond. But there are many other things I miss about the place. For starters, the ticket prices were so perfectly cheap, both through the box office and the ‘brokers’ outside the stadium. One year in the late 2000’s, I was able to buy a full season ticket for upper general admission for $99! With a seat to sit in and everything! There were relatively few price points to deal with and the most expensive lower level tickets were right around $50. Have you seen what it costs to sit in the Legend’s Club at Target Field?! It’s super nice to sit outside on a May night at Target Field to check out a game. It can be a bit miserable in April in the cold, July in the sweltering heat or September when it goes back to cold. At the Dome? Every game was 70 degrees, the perfect weather night in and night out. No phantom rain delays or rainouts. No checking the weather for two weeks leading up to the game to see if the drive from outstate would even be worth it. Plus, I am a hoodie and jeans guy pretty much every day, so the Dome’s climate suited me perfectly. Another thing missing at Target Field is the 50/50 chance you’d skin both of your knees when the heavily-pressured air of the Dome’s roof was pushed through the doors of Gate F as you left the building late at night. If you went through the revolving doors you were doing it wrong. For me, the biggest thing I miss about the Dome was the focus on the game itself, as opposed to all the bells and whistles that come with the “Target Field Experience.” If the Twins didn’t put a winning team on the field, people wouldn’t show up. Now, the Twins are ‘your ticket to summer,’ just another overpriced bar in downtown Minneapolis. People didn’t show up at the Dome to take selfies and check in on social media, they went to actually watch the baseball game and interact with the things going on down on the field. The home field advantage at the Dome was unparalleled, with 50,000+ baseball fans bellowing in an echo chamber for three hours. Try as it may, Target Field will never, ever provide the same advantage. I didn’t love everything about the Metrodome. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder at a trough was never my thing, the air felt really stale most of the time, and I definitely would have preferred to be outside on one of those all-too-rare perfect Minnesota nights. I will always have a place in my heart for my beloved Metrodome. May she rest in peace. Please share some of your favorite Metrodome Memories. View full article

I always kind of felt like Denard Span was partly to "blame" (please note the quotes, blame isn't exactly the right word). He was the heir apparent to Torii in center but he had seemingly stalled out a bit in the minors, so the Twins felt like whatever they got for Santana had to include a CF. On the flip side, the trade seemed to light a fire under Span's butt and he was a much better player after the Twins got Gomez. Also, don't forget the impact of Terry Ryan leaving Bill Smith to hold the bag that offseason.

Marwin hit better on the road in 2017 than at home. Must not have cheated.

He also hit much better on the road in 2017.

Per NBC Sports "First, let’s be 100 percent clear about something: the Astros and the Red Sox were not — not by a long shot — the only teams stealing signs. To suggest that they were is to live in fantasyland. Tom Verducci reported the other day that the investigation of the Astros led to at least seven or eight other teams being mentioned. Last night Michael Baumann of The Ringer linked to stories over the past couple of months in which sources said they believed that the Diamondbacks, Indians, Rangers, Cubs, Blue Jays, Nationals and Brewers have engaged in sign-stealing shenanigans as well." I am not saying that the Twins cheated. Clearly, I am just some guy that doesn't have inside information. I just think it's interesting that no one has even thought that it was a possibility.

My point is that we simply don't know. Obviously I don't have any information implicating the Twins, but I am guessing you don't have information proving for sure they weren't.

As the story goes, many teams and players noticed something was up, but MLB swept it under the rug until Fiers took the nuclear option and went public.

Here’s a “fun” question no one is asking: what if the Twins hitting a MLB record of home runs the first year Marwin is in town isn’t just a coincidence?

I think the stats show that Marwin was actually a better hitter on the road that season.

My main takeaway from this was how Terry Ryan left Bill Smith to hold the bag when it all came down with Hunter and Santana. The going got tough and Terry got going. Maybe harsh, but that's how I remember it.

According to Twitter user Tony Adams, Marwin Gonzalez may have cheated more than any other player in 2017. He watched every Astros game he could find video on, then compiled the number of times he heard the ol' garbage can bang per player. Gonzalez heard the bang 147 times in 776 pitches (18.9%). The data is here. What a massive undertaking by Adams. http://signstealingscandal.com/

Those titles should 100% be vacated. There is iron-clad proof that they cheated not only during the season, but during the World Series itself. The 2017 World Series should read "Title vacated-cheating," and I am guessing the Red Sox did the same thing. The Astros should not be able to proudly display a giant World Series banner for all of eternity in their stadium. It's a joke. Stark's column was terrible and was roundly bashed in the comments as well.

22 Games, 97 PAs, .373/.464/.819, 1.283 OPS 10 HR, 21 RBI

"...they needed to announce themselves as serious about acquiring stars and about winning games." Well stated. Free agents don't want to sign here for this reason, not the weather. While I am dubious about the on-field impact Donaldson will make at this point in his career, I am 100% on board with this signing for this exact reason.

Can anyone give me a good reason, even from the Pohlad's perspective, why you don't just give Berrios the money he is asking for? Precedent? I really can't figure out the Twins' angle here except keeping the pocket change.

Thank you for providing this forum, and thanks to all the writers and commenters for putting up with my perpetual grumpiness when it comes to the Twins. You all do great work here, here’s to even bigger things in 2020!

In my opinion, speculation about using PEDs without a suspension should not be enough to keep you out of the HOF. However, as is the case with Cruz, getting caught and suspended should rule you out forever.

That's a fair point. He just seems so old to finally be a full time player!