PDX Twin

Pitching third day in a row?

Wow, you mean the Twins are not a terrible team??

It seems like it could, since it means the same thing. If you're winning to admit sentences without verbs, you could probably reduce that to "I." As in "Who's rooting for the Twins tonight?" "I!"

As in Jorge German Polanco?

In Slovak, "left" is "vlavo" and "right" is "vpravo." It must be difficult to get oral directions when driving...

As I said, an errin' Bummer!

Aaron Bummer! Ha! What a name for a pitcher. Seems like the kind of guy who would fit in the Twins' bullpen. Better if it were Errin' Bummer.

Unless the weather is wretched, how can a day at the ballpark not be better than a day not at the ballpark?

I spent 15 years as a soccer referee and was subject to frequent assessment. I never reached these higher levels, but I was told by multiple sources that there is a referee assessor at every college/professional game whose specific job it is to grade the performance of the referee and assistant referees and to offer constructive criticism where due. Referee assessments focus less on specific calls and more on positioning and situational management, which are more important in soccer than in baseball, but it's hard for me to imagine that umpires are not graded in some way ... unless the union has somehow managed to prohibit that in contract negotiations. Does anyone know the details of the umpires' contract and whether assessment is built in or proscribed?

This is great stuff! I love your contributions!

I'm late to this thread, but want to echo the comments of many others. I was a huge football/Vikings fan for as long as I can remember. My family went to our lake cottage in order to get some snowy reception for the 1958 championship game between the Colts and the Giants because we could get that network in town. Great game! I was hooked! There was no particular event that caused me to lose interest in American football. Rather a series of things that got more and more distasteful to me over time. The biggest one is the enormous amount of "downtime" in the game. Every five seconds of action are followed by a 30-second meeting, if not two minutes of commercials. (Someone characterized it as the quintessential American sport: extreme violence and endless meetings.) In comparison, the (some call it boring) steady pace of 45 uninterrupted minutes in *real* football (the kind played with the feet) is both riveting and relaxing at the same time. And I can step out (or fast forward) for halftime and not have to watch a single commercial! Also, the incessant, individual-motivated hot-dogging has always bugged me in any sport. In American football (and basketball, which I also avoid) there seems to be much more "look what I did" celebration than "Wow, we won the game" celebration. I'm totally cool with the latter, but disgusted by the former, even in baseball (e.g., when a hitter celebrates after a homerun in a 10-2 game. There's a lot of celebration in European football, of course, but in such a low-scoring game nearly every goal is a potential game-changer. The concussions and off-field behavior also play a part for me. But there are people behaving badly in every sport (our own Kirby, for example) and, of course, Twins fans are only too aware that concussions occur on the diamond as well. All told, it just made sense a few years back to simply stop watching. I fill my fall with live college soccer and "the beautiful game" from Europe on cable. Haven't missed "pointy ball" at all!

Or, after that horrendous inning today, bad eyesight!

And yesterday was an improbable loss. I guess they balance out. You have to wonder how a team can win with 3 passed balls, a wild pitch, and a hit batter in the same inning...

I think when the Twins checked out of the hotel they checked out mentally as well.

It's the opaque glasses...

I can't "like" this, but I don't disagree...

Torii just called Rosario "Rosie." That seems on the mark right now, but there have been times when "Sorry" would be more appropriate.

Just warming up for the World Series when they put the red-white-and-blue bunting out on the fences!

Pitching around our slugging catcher even with first base occupied!

That was a nice play by Castellanos, but if Sano had made it we'd be nominating him for a Gold Glove. It's all about expectations...

1-to-nil!

Pretty quiet on here today. I guess I killed everyone off with my jinxed game thread yesterday! Actually, I left for a soccer game in the middle of the 8th with a good lead. It looked like it was in the bag. Oops.

Everyone in the lineup except Polanco has two hits, but no one has more than two.

Me, too.

Twins are bringing some Dee to Deetroit!