formerly33

Who do you think you are, casting judgement from Canadia.

Would you blame me if I shot Donald Trump?

Geez, I'd just put one of the Spinettes to work if I were you. Though ... maybe you're feeling like going over the lawn again to get Gibson off your mind.

I thought he was saying he understood why a young, dumb person would fall for that temptation. I didn't notice so much as a hint that it was okay. Steroids are banned to protect the players who use them as much as protect the players who don't use them.

The short story: Luke Westphal is a 26-yr-old southpaw who was signed by the Minnesota Twins as an undrafted free agent on January 31, 2015, and had a quietly successful year in Cedar Rapids and Fort Myers with a 2.74 ERA and 81 strikeouts in 95.1 innings. The long story, however, is so much more interesting. Westphal was born and raised in Clintonville, WI, a small town located 45 miles north of Oshkosh in northeast Wisconsin, where he grew up a Brewers fan and cultivated his pitching mechanics by modeling himself after his favorite athlete, Cliff Lee. After graduating from high school, Westphal went on to pitch for the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he dominated the game, making 29 starts in 40 appearances and posting a 17-10 record with a 3.08 ERA and 197 strikeouts over 207.2 innings pitched. In his junior year at Division III, Westphal earned NCAA Division III All-American honors (second team) and was voted the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Association pitcher of the year after hurling 60.1 innings and striking out 64 while holding opponents to a .184 average, ending the season with a 1.34 ERA and 7-0 record. Still undrafted following his senior year at college, Westphal began his professional career with the Gateway Grizzlies of the independent Frontier League in 2013. Though he had been a starter for the UW-Oshkosh Titans, the Grizzlies switched him to the bullpen, where he produced a 1.59 ERA with 21 strikeouts in 17 innings before having his season cut short due to an injury. The following year he returned for the full season, going 3-5 with a 2.91 ERA and 69 strikeouts in just 52.2 innings over 35 games. The idea of playing baseball in Australia was introduced to Luke by an Australian teammate on Gateway. Intrigued, Westphal approached him and asked if there would be any interest in him playing down under, and a few phone calls ensued followed by an email within a few days asking Luke if he’d like to come down and play ball that winter. Back in starting position in Doncaster (Victoria Summer League), he started 14 games, slowly building his pitch count each game as he eased back into starting position, compiling 141 strikeouts with an 0.49 ERA over 80 innings. Read that over again: 141 k’s in 80 innings, or 15.9 strikeouts per nine! Of course, it wasn’t the Australian Baseball League, so the competition wasn’t as high, but Westphal’s performance was enough to catch renowned Twins scout Howie Norsetter’s eye. That winter, Westphal received the phone call every young ballplayer dreams of getting, and although the Grizzlies had already traded him to the Joliet Slammers of the Frontier League, the Twins bought his contract before he made an appearance for Joliet. Luke Westphal started his Minor League career in Fort Myers where he struggled a bit as a starter but slowly improved, focusing on control and lowering his walk numbers before being demoted to the Kernels to open up a spot for Tyler Jay in High A. He was finally able to find his groove as a starter in Low A, tossing 30 innings and holding opponents to a .198 average, striking out 28, and walking only 9 with a WHIP of 0.97. On August 3 he was reassigned to Fort Myers and finished strongly, hurling 32.1 innings in 6 more starts, striking out 29 while walking 8, and allowing only 8 runs to lower his ERA from 3.82 to 2.76. Westphal, who was just one of four Miracle pitchers with sub-3.00 ERA’s in 2015, wasn’t necessarily the first name to come to mind when thinking about pitching prospects, but he was inarguably in good company, and his ERA ranked second only to Stephen Gonsalves in Fort Myers. His stats on the year were a 6-8 record with 17 starts in 29 games, 2.74 ERA, 81 SO, and 1.322 WHIP in 95.1 IP. This year he has made 5 bullpen appearances in Fort Myers, pitching 6.1 innings and striking out 8 with a WHIP of 0.789. It has been a pleasure to follow Luke Westphal from his beginnings in the organization, and I’m looking forward to following the rest of his baseball career, wherever that takes him. He has a fascinating story, and you can’t help but root for the guy from Wisconsin who had to travel all the way to the other side of the globe after four years playing at the NCAA Division III level followed by two years in an Independent League in order to be signed by the Minnesota Twins. The odds haven’t always been in his favor, but he continues to beat them. To paraphrase that clichéd Hunger Games rally cry, may the odds henceforward be forever in his favor. http://www.captivephotons.com/Events/Miracle/Players/Luke-Westphal/i-6XdCTrv/2/X3/Miracle%20v%20Palm%20Beach%2004-27-2015%20-%20DSC_1111_56592-X3.jpg Image courtesy of captivephotons.com

I honestly have mixed feelings about this. I think it's the way to go as few were adopted last year and even less were updated, but at the same time, I think there will be a little less order. I remember last year when everyone headed over to Tyler Jay's page to argue about whether he was a bust or not, I was annoyed because nothing was preventing them from posting in one of the several other threads going about him. But as long as it's constructive discussion and mostly centered on updates about the players' progress, I think this will be a good thing.

I'm assuming we don't just post them in Adopt a Prospect 2015 ...

Reminiscing about the good ol' days already, eh Van? Poetry is probably the area of literature I am most lacking in - and that's terrible since I hardly read as it is. My favorite poet is Maya Angelou, but I'd be hard pressed to pick any one of her poems I like the best, so I'll go with this poem I heard Garrison Keillor read on The Writer's Almanac while I was convalescing from an eye injury I sustained during an assault by an impertinent rubber band. Applesauce by Ted Kooser I liked how the starry blue lid of that saucepan lifted and puffed, then settled back on a thin hotpad of steam, and the way her kitchen filled with the warm, wet breath of apples, as if all the apples were talking at once, as if they'd come cold and sour from chores in the orchard, and were trying to shoulder in close to the fire. She was too busy to put in her two cents' worth talking to apples. Squeezing her dentures with wrinkly lips, she had to jingle and stack the bright brass coins of the lids and thoughtfully count out the red rubber rings, then hold each jar, to see if it was clean, to a window that looked out through her back yard into Iowa. And with every third or fourth jar she wiped steam from her glasses, using the hem of her apron, printed with tiny red sailboats that dipped along with leaf-green banners snapping, under puffs of pale applesauce clouds scented with cinnamon and cloves, the only boats under sail for at least two thousand miles.

http://kittentoob.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2013/07/Waving_Cat_1.jpg

Intentionally walk Arcia to face Escobar?

Or perhaps you should just put on some tight baseball pants ... ?

What, you think all the girls on Twins Daily joined because they thought it was a dating website for twins?

Nah-uh. However, 4-4 after an Arcia homer followed by an Escobar pop out followed by a Rosario hommer. CBU

It's because you were in public, right?

That's not math. Ask ChiTown.

Oh I think I get the pizza joint joke now. How come there's only 9 in a 1 mile radius if there are 4 in a 1/2 miles radius then?

If there are 4 pizza joints within a 1/2 mile radius of you with a 5th on the way and only 4-5 more within a 1 mile radius, you must be smack in the heart of Pizza Chicago.

Since Snepp had to be replaced with 2 mods, ChiTown would have to be replaced with 5 ... and there'd be a very messy stage in between. And, once those 5 moderators replaced her, that'd just be that many more people to hand out warning points.

I have to use the process of elimination in order to answer this. Cereal - NO. Convenience mart - No. GrubHub - No. (Btw, I was going to say that before you took away the Yes option)

jokesforchief.com knows about the existence of Riverbrian?

Let's just assume the entire population of Minnesota knows better than to choose either Trump or Walker as their governor.

Nah, don't listen to him. I don't hear any announcements that anyone's moving to Wisconsin when Donald Drumpf becomes president.

I could never figure out who I looked like until I saw this picture of a baby aye-aye a year or so ago. http://images.mudfooted.com/aye_aye-aye-aye.jpg Prying fingers, alert ears, smudgy eyeliner, and all. ^ that actually does a pretty good job of summing me up, in general.

I'm in. / don't let my mom see that

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