mikelink45

I love this and I hope the Twins are really aggressive with him, Rooker, and Lewis. Remember the Kid? Griffey at 19 in mlb. I love it. move fast, get the talent to the bigs and soar with it.

Its over with. The only thing worth discussing is what we are going to do with the assets we have of the players we can still sign or trade for. I was tired of the Darvish posts already, please lets stop - the Cubs have him. What will we do?

I have enjoyed your responses to my posts. I love to write posts that might agitate and get discussion going. Thank you for reading what I write and responding with interesting and challenging posts.

If you have followed my posts (rants) I am not unhappy. Good luck Cubs. I do not know about the other pitchers - of course on an early posting I said why Garcia is an absolutely nooooooo for me. One good year - 2015, lets go young. See what our minor league pitchers can do and look at 2019 if they cannot perform. Lynn or Cobb for one or two years is okay, not my choice, Archer is preferred, but make sure we can afford him and trading Kepler is okay. The best thing is, I do not have to read anymore Darvish essays. He did not want us and I did not want him.

Lets stop the collusion talk. The slow movement is the Darvish factor. He wants to be in LA and they aren't offering him anything. He is controlling this and the major players are waiting for him to finish his own shopping for a team before doing anything else. ​All I can say is look at the new Baseball Prospectus - mine came yesterday and check out both his listing under the Dodgers and the Percota projections. Nice pitcher, not a Kershaw or Verlander or Scherzer. His projections are downward and the only reason that I want to see him sign with someone soon is so I can quit reading about him and his fishing expedition.

I have been pouring over my Baseball Prospectus and trying to see justification for overpaying Darvish and I cannot. I do not find it in the stats or comments on Darvish - found in the Los Angeles Dodgers section, or in the Percota projections at the end where I look to find him in the leader boards. Yes he is there in a couple, but his rankings do not give me confidence that he is a true ace - I see him as a B+ pitcher, which is still good, but his projections are going down and a large multi-year contract certainly is not supported in this book which I just received yesterday.

I have stopped thinking Kohl Stewart will amount to anything in the majors, I think I gave up on him completely last year. Now I am getting serious second thoughts about Ben Rortvedt. His progress is not what I expect from someone so highly touted. I hate to say it, but I do not know the other names on this list, but that is to be expected when you are still in the thirties.

As you probably know, if you have been ready my blogs, I like the stories that are part of the lore and history of baseball more than the gold rush for free agents. Maybe it is because I am old I like to think about players who really loved the game and not the agents and owners. I recognize the talent and the ability of the Hall of Famers and even those who struggle for years in the minors without making it to the big spotlight. In fact I have my own strange sense of hall of fame with deaf, one legged, and one armed players, players who had a double life as spies and players who lost prime years to the service and still put up great careers. So I thought I might put up some profiles of these personal favorites over the next couple of months starting with Peter Gray who was born in Pennsylvania in 1915, as Peter Wyshner, and lost his left arm at age six when he fell off a farmers wagon and got his arm caught in the spokes of one wheel. Still he continued to play his favorite game and play it well. He was known for his speed which certainly helped him, but speed alone does not make up for the loss of one arm. He played on local teams and even semi-pro teams like the Canadian-American League where, in 1942 he hit 382 in 42 games! This performance got him into the minor leagues which most of you know was much different in those days where we had so few major league teams. Many of the minor league teams were close to major league – check out Joe DiMaggio’s success and records with the Seals in the Pacific League. He almost did not want to go to the majors, but that is a different story. Gray caught on with the Memphis team in the Southern Association in 1943, played centerfield and hit 281! That got everyone’s attention and allowed him to continue at this high level where he hit 344 with 5 home runs and 68 stolen bases in 1944, giving him recognition as the minor league player of the year. Then in 1945, he made the majors as a St Louis Brown. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=graype01 Yes, this was the war years and they needed bodies to fill out the rosters. He might not have made it if not for WWII, but never-the-less he did make it. I wish I could say he blew everyone away with an amazing line of statistics, but he didn’t. He got in to 77 games and hit 218 with 13 RBIs and 5 stolen bases. He was done in by the breaking ball, with one arm he could not alter his swing as other batters could. His best hitting weapon was the bunt – he would tuck the end of the bat into his side and guide the bat with his hand. But of course he could not bunt every at bat and both infielders and outfielders played in to take away his speed and hits His fielding was still exceptional and his managers – Luke Sewell said, "He shows us something everyday. You really don't believe some of the things he does. Believe me, he can show plenty of two-handed outfielders plenty." The statistics do not back up this quote as he had 7 errors in 61 games. “As he played, Gray wore a glove without the padding. When the ball was hit to him, he made the catch with the glove directly in front of him -- normally about shoulder height. As the ball hit the glove, he would roll the glove and ball across his chest from left to right. Somehow, in this process, he learned to separate the ball from the glove. In the motion, this glove would come to rest under the stump of his right arm and the ball would end up in his left hand. In handling ground balls, he would let the ball bounce off his glove about knee height in front of him. He would flip off the glove and grab the ball while it was still in the air. Some said this process allowed Gray to field balls faster than other outfielders he was playing with who didn't face the same handicap. When he was backing up another outfielder, he would drop the glove and be ready to take the ball in his hand.” http://http://www.historicbaseball.com/players/g/gray_pete.html As I read this quote I thought about Jim Abbott, another player on my list who was a one armed pitcher with some real success in the majors, and how he handled his glove. That wartime effort was not appreciated by all the players – in fact many resented it and considered it a stunt to get bigger gates as his New York Times obituary stated, “''He didn't belong in the major leagues and he knew he was being exploited,'' his manager, Luke Sewell, recalled in ''Even the Browns'' by William B. Mead (Contemporary Books, 1978). ''Just a quiet fellow, and he had an inferiority complex. They were trying to get a gate attraction in St. Louis.'' He was evidently resented by some teammates: ''Some of the guys thought Pete was being used to draw fans late in the season when the club was still in the pennant race and he wasn't hitting well,'' Don Gutteridge, a Browns infielder, told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1994. ''But I certainly marveled at him. He could do things in the outfield that some of our other outfielders could not.'' He was sent down after that 1945 season with veterans returning from the military and he would not play major league ball again, however, he did not give up. He hit 290 Elmira in 1948 and played on barnstorming teams into the 1950s. His effort was an inspiration to many, but especially to injured service men who were returning to learn how to succeed in a peace time world. Gray visited many of them in their hospital wards. His numerous visits to Walter Reed hospital gave a lot of veterans hope. He lived out his live in Nanticoke where he suffered depression and alcoholism for years until he turned his life around with his biography and a television movie. He never married and died in 2002. This short film gives you a glimpse of Pete as a professional. If you want to know more about him try – the 1986 television-movie A Winner Never Quits, starring Keith Carradine and Mare Winningham; and Gray's biography, One-Armed Wonder: Pete Gray, Wartime Baseball, and the American Dream written by William C. Kashatus, published in 1995 by McFarland & Company. His glove is in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

The pitching prospects are looking good. Lets get the top arms to the bigs by 2019, starting with 1 or 2 this year. Much more exciting than the Darvish sweepstake for me.

It is easy to speculate and say sign him to 5 - 6 - 7 or whatever years, but what does Darvish want? Is it true he has his heart set o Los Angeles? It's not my money, but I sure can anticipate the Mauer like grumblings in years 4,5,6 and in fact, Mauer has not been a bad player, just not playing to his contract. Hard to keep reading these with enthusiasm. Maybe the worst part of this story is that we might sign Napoli.

I see him as a #6 or 7 rotation pitcher - just looking at how he does with good players (Somehow Correa is an exception) here is how the Astros batted against him - http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/batvspitch/_/id/29185/jaime-garcia I think a 1.41 Whip is disasterous - https://www.rotowire.com/baseball/pitchersplit.htm?id=9600 2015 was where he got a good reputation, but before and after his stats make him a poor pitcher - a poor choice to give up either a good contract or good propects - https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/garcija02.shtml Look at his RA9 numbers for every year but 2015 We have numerous pitchers on the list of Twin controlled players who can or should match his success, so why go outside for what we already have? http://www.hallofstats.com/player/garcija02 Look at his WAR - take out 2015 and he is not even a replacement pitcher. Or look at his comps - it is not a list of who's who = but rather a list of who is that. Don't mean to rant, but sometimes we try to hard to get someone from the outside to make us better, but if they do not have talent to change things we only set back those we already have.

I would use Granite before Gomez and I would give Vargas a real chance - I think we have mishandled him. Otherwise sign Martinez and do something really exciting.

I am still not ready for the panic move. I may be the only one looking at the bottom of the list - the rookies and saying - plug them in. It is really too bad to see Santana go down, but as soon as I saw Jaimie Garcia on one of the list I was ready to scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Lynn and Cobb, yes. But we do not need three. We brought in enough pitching coaches to fill a roster - put them to work. Throwing money at guys that have accumulated MLB innings is not the solution I like, but letting someone within grab an opportunity and do some - that excites me.

15. Mitch Garver, C - I really liked your explanation of his drop. You are right. By age 27 you should be in the bigs or you are on a path to be Crash Davis. I hope takes his opportunity and makes something of it. 14. LaMonte Wade, OF - As I read your description I kept thinking Grossman. Without the OPS there is nothing to recommend him, but then Grossman has made a career out of it. 13. Lewin Diaz, 1B - still lots of hype, but nothing to grab on to. Lets hope he finds a turning point this year. 12. Lewis Thorpe, LHP - he has been written about so much I keep thinking he is older than his actual age. I can only go with what all of you have written since I have not seen him throw and he has not shown us a really healthy stretch. 11. Zack Littell, RHP - This was a great pick up. As a Wins do Count guy, I am very impressed. You have to pitch long enough to qualify for a win and do well enough to leave with the lead. But his raw numbers do not say star in MLB. Good luck to Zack. I am so pleased, again, to have you break things down for the rest of us. This was fascinating and I look forward to your next list. The only question I have for these ten is this: ​How many of them are really expected to make the bigs and how many are supposed to do something good when they do?

I too am disappointed with Rortvedt's progress. It is nice to see that we got a good player from Atlanta's screw up. First I have really read about him so it will be good to follow. I really expected Jorge to be higher on the list and I hope Jay really steps forward now that he is healthy (I hope) and makes the moves that have been expected. For a team already built around youth, this is a good start for our prospects.

Loved Halsey, but I did not understand at the time what this Gin drinking, cigar smoking guy meant as a true icon of Minnesota sports. I can still hear his laugh. https://vimeo.com/113401282

In the fifties and sixties I would watch Yogi Berra come in to town with the Yankees. He was always described as a bad ball hitter, but he was also described as MVP and HOF. He was my favorite Yankee. Now we have elected Vlad Guerrero and we have another bad ball HOF. In this article - https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/leaderboarding-these-were-the-best-bad-ball-hitters-in-baseball-in-2017/ - our own Brian Dozier is among the bad ball leaders. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=yosted01 What I want to know is what happens when a player swings - Grossman needs to walk to have value. He was a poor version of Eddie Yost who used foul balls and a good eye to make a very good career -

I love this list. I was at the Morris Puckett games, in fact all the home games in 1991. Obviously they do not give points for wrestling moves or Hrbek would be high on the list. I was watching this game in a bar in Arizona with all Cardinal fans and I had such a laugh - extra points from me. I am surprised that the Grand Slam did not make the list. What is really fun is to see the Jim Kaat and Mudcat Grant games. Wow were they fun. In those days the World Series was during the day and as a college student trying to earn money for my tuition I was working at Dayton's - downtown, of course. On either fifth or seventh, they had a room with a single television on a stand and folding chairs. We, employees, would come in and catch what we could. ​Imagine Sandy Koufax, who really beat us in the end, going against Kaat (why doesn't he get any HOF love?). Kaat was magnificent. Tall, lean, and poised. He just controlled things. In contrast my favorite series player - Mudcat Grant - was ebullient and gave us all a feeling we could actually win this series and we almost did. Those games were more dramatic than they are portrayed today. In fact, I seldom see the series referred to at all. Imagine is Pascual were not injured!. Allison's catch, these magnificent pitchers. Thanks for the reminder. That sterile room in Dayton's was still a magnificent stadium for all of us.

I sure do. We had some big crowds and those ramps were almost disasters. At an angle that really moved people around - a fall and there was a pile up. But the thing that stood out to me was how the big erector set vibrated when the crowd started to stamp their feet in unison. I was nervous working third deck as a usher.

As well loved as Harmon became, it is amazing how people dumped on him. Today if Sano had his K rate we would think he had great plate discipline. But just like people getting on Mauer for DPs, they did not like the DPs that Killebrew had. Yet no one ever got more ovations or louder ovations that Killebrew did. He was Minnesota Nice - here is a good article that catches his personality. https://pressprosmagazine.com/a-personal-story-about-harmon-killebrew/

I was born in WI, given the Packers as a birthright, loved them - we were starting and they were the best. I rooted for the Vikings and drove my dad nuts, but even today, I am still a Vikings/Packer fan. Of course I started as a Braves fan, but never got caught up with the Brewers. When Atlanta stole the Braves the Twins became my only team and when they beat the Atlanta Braves in 1991 I was ecstatic. I have never had a happier walk than I did leaving the Humphrey!

I really enjoy these notes and stories.

It means that he should not stand in the way of our prospects. I want our two young starters to get a good opportunity. Santana, Berrios, Gibson should be as good as the 1987 Viola, Blyleven, Straker combination. If we can pull up the last two with our young arms and Berrios continues to improve we should match 1991 Morris, Tapani, Erickson, Anderson, West. With the bullpen support I think we are in better shape that has been projected.

In 1961, Minnesota joined the ranks of Major League Baseball and the National Football League. It might be hard to believe today, but before that there were no Twins and Vikings in the state history, unless you buy the story of the Rune Stone in Alexandria and those Vikings might have tossed rocks, but not footballs. There has never been another year like this in Minnesota sports history and happily I can say I was there – both as a high school sophomore at Central High School in Minneapolis and as an usher in Met Stadium.I loved the Met, the big erector set in the distant community of Bloomington. This was the big leagues for both football and baseball (shortly after we added the soccer team – the Kicks) and it was in this rural suburb that we planted the seeds for this part of our community lore. Of course, they were not called the Bloomington Twins or the Bloomington Vikings. It might have been appropriate, but then Wold Chamberlain – our massive international airport (just joking) was also located nearby and no one thought to call it the Bloomington airport. Of course, we had a sports history before this. In 1960, the Minnesota Gophers were named the No. 1 college football team in the country – yup, Alabama did not get that one. Playing under Murray Warmath with players like Sandy Stevens at QB (he then played in Canadian Football League), we were at the top of big time college football. Then we went to the big game – the Rose Bowl, where we set the precedent for the soon to arrive Minnesota Vikings – but lost the biggest game of the year to Washington 17-7. In the year of the Vikings and Twins, the Gophers ranked sixth in the nation and corrected their previous loss by winning the Rose Bowl against UCLA 21-3. There was no NHL team in the cities (that still amazes me), but that did not mean that there were no sports memories to be had. When I asked a friend, John Helland, who retired from working at the state capitol about his impressions of that time he wrote: “Hey, Mike, here's what I remember: Gopher baseball was great, winning the NCAA championship in 1960 over Southern Cal. Jim Rantz, longtime Twin's farm club director, and Tom Moe, also a good football player and much later Athletic Director, were on that team. They also won four years later. Some Gopher hockey players, including Herb Brooks, almost made the U.S. hockey team (he was the last player cut). The Saints vs. Millers was a great rivalry then, but don't remember names of good players. Jim Beattie was starting his pro boxing career as an up and coming heavyweight. This is going back almost 60 years now, so just a kid. The 1960 U.S. Olympic team featured Minnesotan’s John Mayasich, Jack McCarten, the goalie, and Warroad's Christian brothers who later developed iconic hockey sticks.” We were excited about our sports legacy and we still had a professional team, the Minneapolis Lakers, in 1960. But Mikan retired – he was so good they changed the court, enlarging the lane so that he would not get every rebound. And we were champions – five times in six years with a roster of NBA Hall of Famers. In the 1958/59 season we drafted Elgin Baylor and the future looked bright. Sitting in the Minneapolis Armory where many games were played, there were no bad seats. Unlike the Timberwolves stadium where you need binoculars in the upper deck to watch seven-foot players, at the Armory the players towered over us and it was almost like being on the court. It was great, but attendance was not – how many can you get in the Armory? So in 1960, just as we were getting excited about our new teams, the Lakers were moved – to the West Coast, to Los Angeles, to a city that does not even know what a lake is! We would have been depressed, but the Twins were coming. There were minor league teams still playing – the Minneapolis Millers were in Nicollet Stadium, just six blocks from where I lived, until 1956 when they moved to Metropolitan Stadium (who came up with that name for a stadium in the middle of a field in Bloomington?) where they played until 1960. In St Paul, the Saints were the farm team of the Dodgers, who were about to move to the West Coast. Who knew then that the Giants would be enticed to move with them? But 1960 would be the last year of this franchise until Mike Veeck and others created the new Saints in independent ball who would play at the same stadium – Midway – that the original Saints used in their final season. In 1958, future Twins manager Gene Mauch was the skipper of the Millers – now a farm team for the Red Sox, having been associated with the Giants for years. Mauch led us to the championship and then we lost the Minor League World Series. We knew that major league baseball was coming, and Horace Stoneham of the Giants played us for country bumpkins, promising to move here and using the leverage to get to San Francisco. Our final year was pretty glorious – Carl Yastrzemski was here, as was future Twin Al Worthington. This left an opening for a team which we had no association with – the Washington Senators, and their owner/GM – Calvin Griffith. But who cared? This team, so famous for the saying: "Washington DC, first in war, first in peace, last in the American League," was coming. Time to learn who they were. From Senators to Twins – what a transition. Some bonus player named Harmon Killebrew showed up and so did some Latin players like Camilo Pascual and Pedro Ramos. The Pirates were the reigning champions – they were FAMILY – we were in baseball heaven. In the meantime, something else was brewing – the NFL was going to put a team in the state the same year and the same stadium. It was Viking time. And we would be playing outside like real Vikings. Norm Van Brocklin would be our coach, we would have a rookie QB named Frank Tarkington and no one expected him to do anything. As an expansion team, we were expected to be the tackling dummies for the rest of the league. The champions were from Philadelphia – a team called the Eagles, but we knew we would get even with them someday (we hope). April 11, 1961 the Twins played the very first major league game in Minnesota. There were 39,615 fans, a sellout, and I was an usher. We were so new to this that we still did not know who those players were, but they were ours, so we cheered. Metropolitan stadium with its three decks had never felt the feet of so many people and when they got their coordination together, they would stomp their feet and rock, or should I say – sway, the stadium. Unaccustomed to the rules of the major leagues I remember being booed by thousands of people when I would go to make sure someone was not hurt by a foul ball. They were sure I was there to take the ball back! We loved the fresh air, the breeze coming in from right field, the uniforms and excitement of the game, even if we had no idea who manager Cookie Lavagetto was. We had Billy Martin, a future manager at 2B, Harmon Killebrew, a future HOF player, at 1B, Zoilo Versalles at SS and Bob Allison in the OF. With Pascual and Ramos were Jack Kralick and Jim Kaat in the rotation. This was so heady we hardly noticed that one of our own – Roger Maris – was hitting the baseball out of the park more than anyone in history. Actually, we knew but it was not as important as the fact that we won 61 games! Of course, we also lost 100, but who cared? This was the majors and our guy Harmon hit 46 home runs. When the season was over, the Twins had drawn 1,256,723 fans, the third highest total in MLB and we were in seventh place, not last (10th). Now it was Viking time! The Senators were an established team that moved, but the Vikings were an expansion team and they were not supposed to win. After opening with an exhibition in Sioux Falls, SD the team came home to a rousing welcome. Like good Minnesotans, the fans were all on time, the parking lot was full and the ushers helped people find their seats quickly. It was an excited crowd, but everyone knew we would lose, that is, everyone but Fran Tarkington who had not read that script. He came off the bench to replace the wily old vet, George Shaw, and beat the mighty bears 37-13 on opening day! For a week we had a perfect record in the NFL. True, we had the Minneapolis Marines and Duluth had the Eskimos, but that ancient history hardly makes a dent in our professional football story. Even if the Eskimos had Ernie Nevers, the first superstar. We got a franchise in the American Football League, but never played a game. The fact that we got awarded this new team meant the NFL (which was not merged with the upstarts) decided to put a team in Minnesota if we gave up that first AFL franchise, which subsequently became the Oakland Raiders. The new owners included Ole Haugsrud, who had given up the original Duluth team to the league with a provision that he would be allowed ownership in any future NFL team. It took forty years. Playing outside, the Viking fans became the new version of the Packers – standing in the cold, breath frozen in the air, a unique sound of clapping gloves and a rabid excitement that would continue right up today’s softer indoor fans. The opening win shocked everyone, and the roar was similar to the playoff games of the future, but the shock wore off with seven straight losses and a final 3-11 record. Being in the stadium at the end of the season, no one minded that we were packed in tightly. It just made us warmer. Thermos’ went from coffee to slightly stronger beverages and the sounds of the stadium faithful echoed across the frozen prairies of Bloomington. An average of 34,586 people attended the games, many of them lopsided contests. Norm Van Brocklin, the ex-quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, was the grumpy head coach because the quiet man of the north – Bud Grant – would not cancel his contract with the Blue Bombers in the Canadian Football League. Eventually we would get him. I only ushered for one year, but that was enough to create a love for sports that continues today. Only baseball remains with as much passion, but that dates back to my childhood when the only vacation my parents would take was a trip to County Stadium in Milwaukee to watch the Milwaukee Braves in their championship seasons. My career would take me in many directions, including one-year writing for the short-lived Midwest Spectator, a Twin Cities sports publication, and finally into my career in the Outdoor/Environmental Education. Like many people, I was moved by the events that I witnessed when I was young. Even though I attended all the 1991 World Series games at home, nothing will be as lasting as that first night when the sun was setting, and the stadium lights came on, when the green of the stadium grass seemed to turn luminescent and the players uniforms sparkled in the light. There was the smell of the concessions, the sound of the bat and the collective anticipation that something good was going to happen – something good that would continue for the next 57 years and who knows how long into the future. Click here to view the article