D. Hocking

I had a really good weekend at Mystic Lake.

I don't have cable, and the streaming option is a pretty decent price. This year might be the most Twins games I watch since channel 29 stopped showing the weekend games.

I think everyone has missed the obvious choice. I wonder if they take PayPal.

Did you not read your own article? His kids are biking over to your house with rolls of TP right now.

I would go to the local markets and purchase the food there. I bet their Chef Boyardee is amazing. Even when they were winning games and had a good record, they often seemed a little flat this year. That is a bit true of last year as well, the pitching kept them in the race until the offense finally caught fire later in the season.

Almost feels like the inverse of Molitor's last season where they had a bad start, and they officially threw in the towel and traded Dozier etc at the trade deadline. I think Buxton was also sent to the minors for the rest of the year. I thought the team would further crater, but instead they improved and finished the rest of the season playing above 500. It would have been easy for them to get the attitude, the owners etc don't believe in us and just mail it in, but they ended up finishing playing respectably. Not necessarily World Series level, but at least the games were not painful to watch. I can see why they wanted to completely start over and got rid of Molitor after that season but wonder if he did not get enough credit for getting that team to show up in August and September.

Mary doesn't think he has anything to complain about.

I remember reading an interview somewhere where some scout was telling a story of how he was in Minnesota to scout someone in basketball and saw another player who interested him more. Someone told him, sorry that is Joe Mauer -- you will have to get around the football and baseball recruitment [really paraphrasing],

I remember your thread when you got your dog. That must have been more than 5 years ago (I feel like that might have been a highlight during one of the down years) - time flies. I think my dog would have enjoyed the people watching and the only issue would have been if a squirrel ran on the field or someone decided to bring their cat.

I think it took a bit for Corey and Gladden to hit their groove. If I remember correctly, he was pretty respectful to Gladden as the senior member of the team and Twins "legend" at first and I feel like their rapport got a bit better when he became less deferential and didn't take Dan's gruff (although he was able to do that in a good-natured way).

I have heard a few interviews today of teammates etc. saying how he might even be better human being than ball player. I guess nothing shocking considering his reputation, but nice to hear. It ended up being a little closer than I would have liked, but all that matters is the end result.

His concussion years always kind of get lumped together, but I wonder if the voters noticed how he got better the further he got from the concussion, highlighting how much it did mess him up. 2014- 15 were kind of the bottom, 2016 you could sense some improvement, and 2017 he batted over 300 for the first time since the concussion (and he developed into an excellent first baseman). The concussion he had in 2018 set him back again, but when some time passed, he finished the season pretty strong. I always thought it was kind of funny, for someone who is so uncontroversial in almost every way -- he inspires such strong reactions on both ends of the spectrum. In some ways he is both an underrated and overrated player. Hopefully, tomorrow the people complaining will be the end of the spectrum that does not think he should be part of the hall. Semi-related, he has had some nice press with the children's book that Joe Schmidt wrote.

and the Twins did retire my number, and most importantly, I am a verified Twins Daily member. I am pleasantly surprised at how the vote is going.

I sometimes think about if TwinsDaily had been around when I was growing up, how much more knowledgeable and well-rounded I would have been. I feel like my life would have turned out a lot differently.