David HK

Oh, my gosh, that is a memory-jogger. Those Mauch years weren't always productive, but by golly, they were entertaining. And with that guy in the dugout, you kept watching because nearly every game was like a class in managing. Heh. I'd forgotten all about that incident, but remember it now in hindsight- Jeepers,that was scary, seeing that grown man Grich taking off after (heh- good description) fawn-like Rog Erickson. I didn't remember who that was (170-pound Rich Chiles!), until watching the video link, but I remember seeing that cross-body block he threw, and Rod teeing off on Grich when he was on the ground. That was a heck of a fight.

That's correct. But--- when even the most casual fan can see what a boneheaded move the Mgr or FO is making, there should be cause for concern, if not alarm. With the new FO, some of their moves have been sharp, but some just downright brain-cramped. But OK, willing to give them some room being the "new guys." With Molly, though, the same kind of ridiculous moves can cause even the uninitiated to scratch or smack their heads in wonderment or despair, and that kind of stuff has been going on since he took over. This most recent run of incredibly poor decisions has got me mooning around like a cracked-brained calf. Again.

Are you kiddin' me? Is it time for Ch-ch-ch-chicken?

Ok, our Kloser facing the dreaded 7-8-9... Just wish I could get that Barnum and Bailey theme song out of my mind. Edit time: that's right, Brandon. Start that .176 hitter out by not throwing any strikes.

Can't watch the game, so can't hear him, can't see him, but I'm just gonna agree!

Good as a hit. At least right there. Now, how about a grand salami?

OK, Joe. I wanna see that .747 OPS take off---

Zounds--- Castro picks himself up for that 3-0. And Rogers for that gopher ball. And maybe the whole bloody team.

Gee, went to warm up my lunch, and look what happens....

Gee, with the BP looking for one guy to step up, we surely have no shortage of guys who are willing to step down. Thanks, Taylor. The only bummer here is Alex Meyer is not in line for the win. EDIT-- plus, with that dinger in the 8th, it's like that stupid rally monkey "worked."

Welp...

....a-a-a-a-a-nd Castro gets the green light on 3-0.

Back in LA daze, I went to Angels games whenever the Twinks were in town, and various and sundry others, depending on the opponent. But my favorite was a Yankee game, on a beautiful SoCal afternoon, with a sellout crowd and a rowdy atmosphere- lotta NY fans, of course. One guy near my upper-deck section took it upon himself to taunt the Angels and their fans as much as possible, and was getting folks really riled up He finally went and purchased a rally monkey doll, and a load of licorice whips, which he fastened into a noose, and dangled the unfortunate primate from the front railing. I nearly wet myself laughing, but others took offense. Fisticuffs ensued, and I was seriously worried that somebody was going over that railing... My favorite part was when some guy yelled at him about his noose trick, "Hey, there are kids here, you son-of-a-*****!"

Whew! Exams today, so just catching up- Gee Wally, who knew Alex Meyer would look like a world-beater? When he was with us, a lotta people thought he was a creep or sum'pin.

Down the road, can you tell me one FA pitcher, especially BP arms, who would want to come here, given Molly's misuse of the current crop? If I had a mid-90's fastball, instead of the mid-60's one I possess, I would sure think twice about coming to Minny.

I would stop trying to pretend to contend this year, especially by relying on aging retreads the way we have. I see absolutely no downside to throwing in "green rookies with iffy scouting reports" to get their feet wet, and get some MLB experience. So they get lit up? Who, in the current BP hasn't? Let them get their baptism by fire, and get an idea of what they need to hone down in the A-levels. And who knows, maybe one or two of them catches on? 2017 is not the Twins year. And I will gladly eat a huge helping of crow if somehow it turns into meaningful September baseball. But I am thoroughly discouraged with the pedestrians the FO keeps running out there, and Molly's wholesale mismanagement of even the pieces he has. The point's been made umpteen times on these threads about why in the heck they're not calling up, or even boosting up the minor league chain, anyone who can remotely be considered a prospect for the future. Get on it, guys, 'cuz this ain't workin'.

Aye. Jeepers, this is what I just don't get-- yeh, we've had REALLY bad luck with the injuries to Burdi, et. al., but we still have a few live ones down on the farm that could be considered prospects, rather than suspects. How about we get one or two of them up here, in turn, and at least let 'em lose their fawn spots? I don't care if those guys get shelled, it'll give 'em a taste of what to expect and an idea of what they need to work on. What's the FO worried about? Hurt feelings? Criminy, I've taken a step up in sports or other stuff before I was really ready- took a lickin', and learned-- and burned to get back up and do it again. Come on, Falvine, at least give your dwindling fan base some reason to watch games, and hope.

That's if he doesn't drill the 1st 9 guys, just for the hell of it.

Why 2K? I was surprised when I noticed how that tally had grown. Didn’t even realize that something of a milestone was approaching. So I’ve held off posting for a couple of days to compose these thoughts. (And believe me, at my age, composing my thoughts is a near-Herculean effort). I’m so far from home, from the barren plains of ND. From the crackling, in-and-out radio under my covers, when the closest radio station carrying games was Jamestown, 100 miles off, with spring wheat and cattle prices quoted between innings. Falling asleep to night games on the coast against the Angels, when the CCO feed would sometimes come fading in, and you could actually listen to the pregame show, which wasn’t on the local broadcast. Remembering each and every trip to the Promised Land-- Met Stadium—where the sun just shown more brightly on those acres of green grass, and Carew and Killer and Tony O would be live and in the flesh. For a time, I lived in DC, pre-Nats, so had to make the trek to Memorial Stadium for the O’s, which was actually kind of a treat. One night, a few of us ND boys, working on Congressional staffs, went to Yanks game, and pretended to be obnoxious jagoffs from the Bronx. A few years in the Cities themselves, including ’87, where I went to 20-some games, and was lucky enough to see them lose only a couple of times! Just picked the right ones, I guess. Then on to Chicago, a 5-minute walk from Wrigley for many years. I could hear Harry singing from my back porch, for better or worse. I like to think it was better… Catching the Twinkies every time they played on the South Side, in that brand-spanking-new, ugly-as-hell stadium, which faced AWAY from the beautiful Chicago skyline. And sitting right behind the dugout most late innings, since the Sox fans didn’t care to come in any numbers. One night, watched LaTroy stand up and give it to a Sox fan who was ragging on the rookie outfielder who spelled his name with two ii’s. Then on to LA, where I could ride my cycle about 10 minutes, park in a little neighborhood, and scamper up the hillside on a secret path, to avoid the hellscape parking lot of Dodger stadium, and of course, go down to the OC, and see the Twinkies whack the Angels around- except in the one series where it really counted… Now, I’m farther away than ever before. It’s a long and twisted tale how I got to Hong Kong, of all places. Suffice it to say, I’m in my own sort of Foreign Legion. There is some baseball here, but it’s played in secret. There used to be one batting cage in town, but it closed down. Kept playing in a fantasy league with my old mates from teaching school in LA for a few years, to keep in touch with it all. Keeping up with the home team, I stumbled across TwinkieTown first, and was overjoyed for the outlet to converse about all things Twins. Followed some link one time, and then… then… I found this place. It’s been a tumbleweed existence these past several years. Rootless, rounded by the winds and hard contact with the ground. The first couple of years in mainland China, getting stark reminders of how Big Brother got his foot on every neck—another tale for another time. Even so, what a treat it was to share the English office at my first school sandwiched between a cricket-loving Aussie, and a pair of Oxford boys- 1 from the UK one, the other from the Mississippi one- It was a non-stop Monty Python sketch on any given day. After segueing to Hong Kong, and re-igniting my rugby career (an monumentally bad idea physically, but highly recommended socially), and picking up with a gang of Kiwis, Welshmen, Scots, Froggies, yeh, some English, and a passel of local lads, the Language of the Queen I never heard mangled in so many ways before, nor epithets uttered more colorfully. But still, homesickness and dark clouds set in. Close to good friends, but farther and farther from home. Enter the magical world of T-Daily. At once, the banter, the snark, the esoteric discussion of The Lord’s Game washed over me like a warm ocean wave- I had a connection home. A return to those times of night games on the coast, with folks who understood what it meant to be bleary-eyed at school the next day. Sneaking that ear bud to the transistor radio in your school desk- like the teacher never knew…. A collection of folks from all walks and stages of life, crusty old vets, and even crustier millenials, doctors, lawyers, chiefs, and such. Sharp wit and milk-out-nose-inducing gifs, the pathos of bitter losses shared, and the chicken dinners that always just taste better in a family kind of setting. And all there, to bring me back home— But it’s been so much more than that, especially lately. If I offend some sensibilities out there, so be it- but the runup to this past year, the divisiveness and mean-spirited nature of so much of the present discourse has cast such a pall in my world. As a Yank offshore, I’ve got the outside perspective on goings-on at home, and have endured unending queries of whether our whole nation is just out of our collective minds right now. The sheer sadness it’s engendered in my very soul has made for a lot of dark days. Couple that with the mind-boggling sociopathy of young men who, on a regular basis, feel it necessary to kill masses of innocents to get their twisted version of the world across, and make themselves feel like they belong to something larger. It’s tough some days not to wallow in despair. I used to devour several newspapers nearly every day, go to sleep with the BBC on at night, but not anymore. Most days I just hide from it. And here, then, is my refuge. Sometimes it’s here that I get out of the shell and the darkness, and realize there are folks who keep a fire going on the hearth. It’s almost a lifeline sometimes. Kevin Costner’s Ness character in The Untouchables has a moment where he gets a note from his wife on the eve of a dangerous bust, and remarks, “In some part of the world, someone still cares what color the kitchen is.” And that’s what brings me back from the doldrums, sometimes. That somewhere in the world, somebody cares about how that breaking ball is biting, or how mucked up the lineup is that day. And I can lose myself, and regenerate, and take positive energy even from days like unbelievable BP meltdowns. So, here’s to Why 2K. And here’s to those who grace these pages in cyberland, who may not know what it might mean to some random Joe far away, who can blow a snot bubble at a comment, and carry a good feeling that day. So, thanks, y’all. Looking forward to a few K more. (And for the BP, a few more K’s). I’ll close with some words from Whitman, that seem to mean a lot these days: http://www.bartleby.com/142/27.html

This right here. This. My gosh, if we're going to get our brains beat in, let's do it with guys who may be part of a future contending side. Instead, we get these retreads over and over again. I must be an old codger now, to keep bringing it up, but I didn't care about losing those early 80's games the way we did, because we were giving quality prospects quality MLB development. And we got 2 WS rings out of those guys. But, sheesh, the pedestrians we keep calling up and running out there, and carrying on the roster is just such a colossal waste of time and talent. Get Busenitz here, he's hot right now. Get Melo up here, and see what he can do, he's not getting any younger!! We are so snakebit by the injury bug that's claimed all those power arms we should have already been counting on this year. But at least get some young guys up here to take their medicine and learn, instead of these overly-seasoned, fork-tender 'vets'. I think I can see what they did with the unfortunate Mr. Wheeler- gave him a shot, and cut bait. Now, if they're going to repeat that process with some other suspects rather than prospects, OK, let's get that out of the way. But at the same time, I have to echo the previous poster- why not call up at least one guy who seems like a prospect?

Heh... I got another 7 hours of school left today, and I already took care of that! *hic*

Although I remember a gal I went to school with back in the day, whose family burdened her with the monkier Anita [family site].

That is such a tough lineup over there. Gotta give Erv more than just one.