Riverbrian

I hope Nunez gets to play somewhere when Plouffe comes back. Catcher maybe?

Ok that could be an issue with Suzuki. On the other hand... Polanco might get a chance to play. As Catcher but it's a chance.

I like that Murphy stuck up for the kid. He's been watching the strike zone all night and the inconsistent calls. Berrios is trying to build confidence and the ump is trying to take it away from him. You never want to get tossed but that was a good attitude display and I'm pulling him out of my doghouse and I'm going to let him come inside and watch the game with me.

It is stupid but I like it. I like Park's that have Character... and that includes Byung Ho Park.

I really really really like Park.

It was perfect... Like a finger in the eye. Twins playing ball tonight... Not trying to do too much... Just taking what they're givin... cause they're workin for a livin.

Twins playing ball tonight

Back to the last inning. I'm proud of Rosario... He approached that PA perfectly.

It'll keep... When you are ready to go... Just post it and we can take it from there. BTW... Spoiler Alert... The Bear is really mean.

I'd like to see the little Capabara's replaced by the Characters from Toy Story... Make Joe Mauer... Buzz Lightyear.

Another mistake of youth. They worry so much about leaving one where they shouldn't that they shoot for the black all the time.

I'd be looking for a new job. TV Repairman or something. Hello I'm David... I've come to fix your TV and watch it for 3 hours or so... Just to make sure it works. If you don't mind... I'd like some Popcorn.

Morris does nice work but I still like Tom Kelly the best. He isn't smooth but he knows baseball like very few do.

Bark We need to work on the Sano Capybara.

Unfortunate Home Run because it was actually a pretty good pitch.

I'm enjoying reading about everybody's first jobs. Good start to the game thread and a good start to the 2nd start of Mr. Berrios.

BTW... The interview actually turned out fine. It was Rick Allen (The Drummer) himself who made it OK by saying "It was alright" and he started making jokes about it and laughing and everything went back to normal. When the interview was over... I reached up and pulled an arm off the poster and gave it to Rick and he laughed and said "Thank You... I need one".

All of them... I always hit the post. I liked the songs that I could tell a story over. "The Late Great Randi Rhodes on Guitar... We lost him In an airplane crash with a pilot stoned on cocaine and other substances... buzzing the tour bus that Ozzy Osbourne was sleeping in... just to have some fun. That's how they crashed killing everyone on board... Randi Rhodes died because of actually Flying High Again. Post: Ozzy Sings "Oh No... Oh No... Here we go now"

Now I see... That's why he kept calling me Mr. Hart

For the lucky few... you get to play baseball for a living. There is a tremendous amount of pressure, but when you boil it all down... it's a pretty good job. You don't have to check the cap tightness of thousands of shampoo bottles every day on an assembly line. Each player is well compensated and each player has a specific job to do: -Jepsen has the job of pitching the 9th inning and protecting a lead. -Sano has the job of catching routine balls out in RF and hitting an occasional ball 450 feet. -Polanco has the job of sitting on the bench and waiting for 3 players to get hurt in a single game to do something different. Everyone has a role and right now only Polanco is doing his job to perfection. Here are some things to think about: 1. My First Job -- I was 13 and I had a paper route. Do you remember newspapers? Back in 1978... a staff of writers and editors would compile all the news and print it into something called a newspaper; and then load them into trucks and circulate them around the city and surrounding area. I was a part of that circulation. I had a snowmobile route... every morning at 4AM... I'd wake up... start up the beast and put the newspaper in the right mail box and then it was off to school. I did this for 3 years and that was about the time that I discovered that it was more fun to stay out late with your friends and getting up at 4AM sucked. BTW… if you run over a mailbox with your snowmobile, it can collapse and fall onto the hood of your snowmobile and rip right through that fiberglass; and it will turn out that your dad will have to pay for the hood of the snowmobile and the mailbox. I learned that lesson pretty good. 2. My 2nd Job -- I was 16 and I left the newspaper industry to work in food service at McDonald's. I was really bad at this job... too many buzzers going off at the same time while burgers needing flipping. My boss told me... you really suck at this but I like you... so I'm not going to fire you. When my boss heard the corporate inspector was coming around, and we didn't know exactly when, he said he was going to try and schedule me when he thought for sure the inspector wouldn't show up, so this meant late night/close. One night a bus full of hungry kids came in and we got really busy and sure enough… also walking in around that time was a guy with a stop watch. My boss turns around and says to us... "He's Here." By some miracle... everything slowed down for me and I was kicking ass... burger flipping... buzzer answering... I was producing works of art and producing them quickly and my boss even gave me a thumbs up. That was until I ran out of the chicken sauce. I had to put a new canister into that caulking gun-like thing. To secure it in place... you have to give a little tap on the back. I may have over-tapped because a glob of the chicken sauce (mayo, I think) went flying over the counter and hit the inspector right in the glasses. 3. My 3rd Job -- McDonald's wasn't a good fit for me so I left to become a busboy at a local restaurant. What you have to understand about me is that I just can't pick up stuff off a table and carry it to the back… That's too routine. I had to load the tray up to capacity and then I would one hand it over my head and carry it back because that way had style. My boss would tell me that one day I was going to spill it; I disagreed because it never felt like it was going to spill… I swear to God… I had it under control. One Sunday morning... the church crowd had packed the place and I was picking up carafes of water... must have had about 10 or more of them on my tray of varying fullness with the lemon slices still floating in the water. As per my style… I lifted it over my head and was bringing them to the back like I always do when some punk kid decided to stick his leg out and trip me. I didn’t just drop the tray… I fell to the ground and I ended up throwing the tray full of water with lemon slices floating in the water forward on to an 84-year-old lady in her Sunday dress. She was drenched… she looked like Jennifer Beals in 'Flash Dance;' she even fell back in chair like Jennifer did and she had a couple of lemon slices stuck to her but they were hard to spot because they kind of matched the pattern on her dress. 4. The Rock Band Era – I sang and could play some chords on the keys to fill out some sound with various rock bands over many years before it got too tough to get home from a gig at 5AM and have to be a Dad that same morning. It was never a full time job but it was a lot of fun to do on the side and the girls loved me. I remember one time driving home around 3AM and stopping at a gas station to use the bathroom and get a Mountain Dew for the rest of the trip home. In the bathroom I found that someone had thrown up in the sink… It was all pink and congealed, it filled the entire basin and the smell was about as bad as it gets. I got out alive… thank goodness… grabbed my Dew went to the counter and some kid was working the overnight shift and I asked him if he had been in the bathroom recently. He said, “No,” and this 'don’t-even-tell-me' look came over his face. I said… “You better go check it out.” He didn’t even complete my Dew transaction… he immediately left the counter and went into the bathroom. About 30 seconds later… he came out… walked right past me and said, “I Quit,” and he walked out the door, got in his car and drove away. It was 3AM and I was in a gas station convenience store in a strange town all by myself. I was nervous for a second that I would have to finish his shift for him. 5. Radio – I’ve worked in Radio for 30 years and there are so many stories. I once threw John Houseman out of my studio for being rude. My program director came running into the studio asking, “Why did you throw him out?” I replied, “He was being rude… didn’t you hear the way he was talking to me… all snobby and pompous?” He replied back, “He’s English… his accent just sounds that way.” A few years later… I was working Rock Radio and we had a few posters on the wall of the studio. Somebody on the staff cut an arm out of a magazine and just taped it on our Def Leppard poster. Not sure who did it… just one day it was there for all to see. Most of you know that the Def Leppard drummer lost an arm in a car accident. Not a funny story when you think about it but someone on the staff found some humor in it. As time went by… more people started doing the same until the poster was filled with random arms cut out from magazines. All you could see was the Def Leppard Logo and a bunch of arms all over it. I want to be clear that I never participated in this… It didn’t matter to me at all either way... It just became part of the studio and it stayed that way for quite some time. Fast forward… I got the chance to do an in-studio interview with Def Leppard and I forgot about the poster. I asked the first question and noticed they were all looking off to the right at the poster and I got silence at first until… I think it was Joe who started talking about the arms on the poster being in poor taste or something like that. He sounded rude and pompous and I thought about throwing him out but I remembered that it was the accent that made him sound that way. In Conclusion… I’ve made and seen enough mistakes that I’ve forgiven Sano for his attempted triple yesterday. -------------------- Lineups: TWINS Danny Santana(S) CF Brian Dozier(R ) 2B Joe Mauer(L) 1B Miguel Sano(R ) RF Byung Ho Park(R ) DH Eddie Rosario(L) LF Eduardo Escobar(S) SS John Ryan Murphy(R ) C Eduardo Nunez(R ) 3B Berrios P ASTROS Jose Altuve(R ) 2B George Springer(R ) RF Carlos Correa(R ) SS Colby Rasmus(L) CF Evan Gattis(R ) DH Preston Tucker(L) LF Marwin Gonzalez(S) 1B Luis Valbuena(L) 3B Jason Castro(L) C Keuchel Game-time forecast: 73 deg F, overcast, 15% chance of rain, winds from the N at 12mph. Go Twins. Click here to view the article

He better be doing crappy or else I'm really going to be pissed.

Some people will say that Clubhouse Presence doesn't mean anything. I think it's important and I think baseball players are just like accountants or dairy queen workers. Sometimes that Gal making your cone doesn't care if there is a little swirl on top because she's got to make a hundred more before she goes home. In my opinion... Baseball can be a job to them just like it is to us and I assume that there are days when they don't show up and play like they can because there is another game tomorrow and another one after that. Now I say that I believe in clubhouse presence but that doesn't mean I have any idea if Hunter has one or Mauer has one or Molitor has one. With Tonkin... I'm not sure if he was handled badly or wonderfully. But It's my opinion that he should have been squeezed off the roster by the addition of a top flight bullpen arm (or two). That top flight bullpen arm (or two) would have pushed everyone down a spot (or two) and eventually Tonkin off the 25 Man roster and on to waivers where he would have been claimed by someone else... most likely. Or maybe not. I don't mind Tonkin... but... I'd like a hard throwing lefty with a track record instead.

I ain't throwing him away. I think the Twins can play with him until 2017 concludes so they don't have to either.

I raised a family on those flashes of eptness.