mickeymental

is it worth noting that wheeler got six outs before six runs scored?

fire molitor!

so don't fire monitor?

according to the espn box, the twins left 17 on base yesterday, one less than the rays.

stick a fork in mauer -- can't even hit a triple.

My ten years as a stringer – a freelance sportswriter for The Associated Press – spanned two distinct baseball eras. During the first, 1983-88, stringers dictated stories by telephone to the New York baseball desk and most of the players were somewhat ordinary in size and shape. I left Minnesota for five years and, when I returned in 1993 for a second tour of AP duty, it was all about laptop transmissions and ginormous players. Depending on assignment, the job entailed some combination of scorekeeping, hunting down postgame clubhouse quotes from players and managers, and writing three stories: a bare-bones gamer, an alternate account including quotes and, finally, a feature on a specific player. Not an easy or lucrative side job, but usually rewarding and often fun. When I began, cigar smoke frequently pervaded the press box, while Tony O regularly sat watching the game from the back of the room. And nobody I encountered in any sport was more approachable than Kirby Puckett. "What can I do for you today?" was his typically smiley greeting – win or lose and whether he was wearing a suit and tie or a towel. Plus, in the '80s, pregame dinners in the Twins dining room were free of charge and surprisingly good. Yesterday I coughed up three lowlights. Today I submit three peculiar scenarios from the roughly 100 Twins games I covered: 1) Once, on my way into the visitors’ locker room for postgame interviews, something unusual for a major-league clubhouse caught my eye: a briefcase. It was closed and sat on a chair next to a top-shelf player as he stood near his locker. I made my way around the room, collected enough quotes from that day's key players and headed back toward the door. The briefcase, now wide open, was filled with countless gold chains and necklaces. 2) The AP's assigned front-row seats in the Metrodome press box were adjacent to the Strib writers, who were reasonably cordial to someone like me – essentially a replacement's replacement. A few were downright friendly. And then there was Sid, who seemed totally self-assured and a bit standoffish (and, especially amazing in retrospect, appeared on the verge of retirement even way back then). Anyway, I sat next to Sid on several occasions and don't know if we ever exchanged more than a word or two. But one time as I sat watching the game, he came up behind me and provided a friendly shoulder rub for several seconds as he loudly (his only volume) made some sage pronouncement for all to hear. I remember cringing a bit and holding my breath for the duration – kinda like the G8 summit where Angela Merkel had a similar experience with George W. 3) Late in my "career" I was sitting next to Patrick Reusse, who was friendly in a terse and gruff sort of way (and I mostly minded my own business). The Metrodome's print-media press box, behind home plate, was at the back of the lower level and had a wide-open window running its entire length. A broad ledge served as desk space and a little lip rose several inches to the opening. Long before the first pitch, I noticed two early-arriving fans wearing ballcaps and clutching their beers at the bottom of the long concrete staircase that led to the ocean of blue seats. One of the fans pointed directly at us before they both beelined up the stairs – and were suddenly standing directly in front of us at the window. They wore the look of city mouse and country mouse, and I imagine city mouse was proudly showing country mouse what the big city was all about. With beer still in hand, he confidently introduced himself and his buddy to Reusse, who looked up from his computer just as city mouse set the plastic souvenir cup on the ledge. Then, as the guy reached through the window to shake Reusse's hand, his fingers clipped the cup and plowed the beer square into the storied sportswriter's lap. In a flash, both mice turned tail, zipped down the stairs and disappeared. Seconds later Reusse was on the phone. "Honey," he calmly said, "I'm gonna come home smelling like a brewery tonight, but I promise that I didn't fall off the wagon." -- Lineups: Rays 1. Corey Dickerson (L) DH 2. Kevin Kiermaier (L) CF 3. Evan Longoria ® 3B 4. Logan Morrison (L) 1B 5. Steven Souza Jr. ® RF 6. Colby Rasmus (L) LF 7. Tim Beckham ® SS 8. Michael Martinez (S) 2B 9. Jesus Sucre ® C Alex Cobb ® Twins 1. Brian Dozier ® 2B 2. Jorge Polanco (S) SS 3. Joe Mauer (L) 1B 4. Kennys Vargas (S) DH 5. Max Kepler (L) RF 6. Eduardo Escobar (S) 3B 7. Eddie Rosario (L) LF 8. Byron Buxton ® CF 9. Jason Castro (L) C Kyle Gibson ® Gametime Forecast: 68°F • Partly Cloudy

indians lost -- three-game lead for twins.

Back in the early 1980s, one of my college roommates became an All-American goalie the year after I’d graduated with a journalism degree. We each had a big problem: He was Division II with no real path to the pros and I was jobless. So I wrote a feature about his plight and walked it, unsolicited, through the front door at the Strib. They declined – but sent me across the street to The Associated Press. As luck would have it, the Minneapolis AP sports department was a one-man show. He bought the story and, not long after, called to ask if I'd be interested in working some Twins games. Thus began a 10-year stint as a stringer – a freelance sportswriter – covering everything from prep state tourneys to Gophers football and basketball to Twins, Vikings, North Stars and Wolves with a few pro golf, tennis and other random events thrown in. It was not, not, not a glamour job. It was a (very) low-paying, time-consuming, often nerve-wracking and pressure-filled side gig that revealed itself, for a variety of reasons, as not my preferred career path. But there was a fair amount of satisfaction, fun, excitement, free hot dogs and the occasional byline. The baseball gig comprised two jobs – one as "quote boy" and another as the writer with a quote boy of one’s own. The writer (often the boss) went into the winner's postgame clubhouse, while the quote boy was vanquished to the inner sanctum of the losers – all in pursuit of the almighty quotable quotes to be woven into the second and third versions of the game stories that the job required. (The first version, filed upon completion of the seventh inning as though the game was over, got updated, play by play, on the phone with the New York baseball desk in case things changed before the final out.) Three lowlights out of roughly 100 Twins games: 1) My major-league debut. Early in the 1983 season, the Twins beat the Brewers by way of an ugly Metrodome bounce. My maiden stop as quote boy was the office of manager Harvey Kuenn, whose Brew Crew had lost the previous season's World Series in seven games. Harvey, wearing long johns and a tee, was leaned way back in a chair with his legs, including prosthesis, hoisted atop the desk. I was by far the youngest among at least a half-dozen scribes in the tiny room and, for what seemed like several minutes, no one uttered a word. Until I did. "So," I heard myself say, "do you just chalk up a loss like this to Metrodome quirks?" Harvey looked me up and down. He probably sipped his beer. Then he pulled both legs onto the floor, leaned forward and let the f-bombs fly: "I'm so ****ing sick and tired of hearing about this ****ing dome and its ****ing quirks. It's a terrible ****ing Little League ballpark and I don't wanna ever be ****ing asked about it again." Somewhat shell shocked following his diatribe, I headed into clubhouse, sidled up to several scrums of players talking to reporters and managed to scribble down a few decent quotes before heading upstairs to the press box. My boss, back from the Twins clubhouse and working on his alternate stories, greeted me with a huge grin. "You're already famous," he said. "Everybody's buzzing about your, um, conversation with Harvey!" A few weeks later I ran into a baseball-loving buddy, we started talking Twins and I told him my story. "Hey," he said, "I just read about that in Sports Illustrated!" So I hunted down a copy of the magazine and, sure enough, some reporter had written up the expletive-laced encounter as a sidebar. Not long after, I told the story to a softball teammate – and he'd seen a version in The Sporting News. Welcome to the big leagues. 2) Following a Twins loss, I found myself one on one in the office of Tom Kelly. He, too, looked me up and down before snarkily asking: "So who are you, the replacement's replacement?" (He was, of course, essentially correct.) 3) Once, in a clubhouse full of Texas Rangers, I'd collected all the well-formed postgame clichés I needed – only to hear Will Clark give a nearby writer an unusually lively quote. I stood several feet away and quickly scribbled into my notebook. Suddenly, as I looked up, there was Will the Thrill hovering over me. He actually poked his finger into my chest several times and said, "If you wanna quote me, you ask me your own questions." (He was, of course, essentially correct.) -- Lineups: Rays 1. Tim Beckham ® SS 2. Daniel Robertson ® 2B 3. Evan Longoria ® 3B 4. Logan Morrison (L) 1B 5. Steven Souza Jr. ® RF 6. Kevin Kiermaier (L) CF 7. Rickie Weeks Jr. ® DH 8. Derek Norris ® C 9. Peter Bourjos ® LF Jake Odorizzi ® Twins 1. Brian Dozier ® 2B 2. Joe Mauer (L) 1B 3. Robbie Grossman (S) RF 4. Max Kepler (L) CF 5. Kennys Vargas (S) DH 6. Eduardo Escobar (S) 3B 7. Chris Gimenez ® C 8. Eddie Rosario (L) LF 9. Ehire Adrianza (S) SS Adalberto Mejia (L) Gametime Forecast: 70°F • Overcast • 0% PoP

tightrope time. edit: for the great wallenda.

who ARE these guys?

whichever one doesn't include war.

i used to decry the ridiculous salaries for sports stars. then, many years ago, a friend changed my perspective. "the money is there," he said. "the alternative is ownership getting it all."

first place at roughly the 1/4 mark. whoda thunk?

yikes. tommy milone just coughed up five runs before getting an out. angels 5, mets 0.

and the sun sets on another day in first place ...

well, they sure can hit in colorado (home ops .810; away ops .671).

do the twins have a magic number yet?

the calls from around the league are getting louder: break up the twins!

yes, mrs. hicks, everyone is aware that your son is finally off to a good start.

cold comfort.

kinda like 1987? edit: oops -- this was in response to: They were not going to win the World Series. ****does anyone else have a problem responding via "quote" on ipad?****

mister may.

all the posts above, including the original, make solid points. joe's story is a baseball tragedy and loving a certain team is like living in garrisonkeillorville where we want all our players above average. but hey, joe's off to a good start for the month of may -- maybe this'll be the time he catches fire ...

the problem is obvious from the photo: he needs to keep his index finger OUTSIDE of the glove.

how's about upchuck?