Dave The Dastardly

Better yet, during the game.

Thanks for answering my question and pulling that info together. But now I wish I'd never asked. Good thing I use an electric razor.

So far in this thread I've seen last year's Twins infield described as "brutal" and "very poor". Does anybody have any stats that ranks all teams infields? Just curious.

Ahh, Grasshopper! Would a wise man have a small pebble in his hand and lots of money in his back pocket, or a large rock in his hand and no money in his back pocket? But Master, why would a wise man carry a pebble or a rock around in his hand? Why not put the stone in his other back pocket and leave both hands free? There you go again, kid. Always taking the middle road. No way you're ever going to walk on rice paper.

What if one of the players trips over first base and falls down and requires help getting up? Aren't they afraid of pulling a mussel? Sorry. Can't help it. I think their PR guy is gonna be hamstrung.

You're not supposed to eat mussels from April to September. Isn't that baseball season? These guys are gonna get shelled.

Sounds like they're coming out of their shell.

I'LL GIVE YOU ONE HARMON KILLEBREW FOR... All this potential trade talk that seems to haunt TD this time of year takes me back to a time when kids walked around with a rubber-band wrapped stack of baseball cards in their front shirt pockets in the hopes of “one-upping” one of their chums in a one-sided swap… should the occasion arise. Of course nobody carried their best cards around with them, those were tucked away in an old shoe box stored in their mothers’ attics, safe for all eternities, unless brought out for a hot game of dice baseball with a crosstown rival. The shiftier kids would often place a medium-value card face up on their “trade” stack with all their dubs, trips and quads of lesser value cards beneath it in the hopes of making a sight-unseen stack-for-stack trade. All so the unwary trader could be bamboozled into thinking he was getting a stack of quality cards because Rocky Colavito was shown on top only to discover after the swap that he’d just acquired four cards of some flash-in-the-pan already sent down back to the minors, three of some other unknown player and an assortment of other ne’er-do-wells in exchange for his Nellie Fox/Luis Aparicio tandem and Mickey Mantle’s rookie card. Reputations were made, and sullied, by such trades. Some kids traded cards just to be trading cards with no thought of how their trades were going to affect their team’s line-up come dice-baseball season and others wouldn’t consummate a trade until analyzing and comparing the lifetime stats listed on the back of the cards involved. No way were you going to swap an outfielder with a lifetime .303 batting average for some dufus hitting a measly .279. On the other hand there was always the chance the .279 guy just might have a breakout year… especially if his card wasn’t bent, folded, stapled or mutilated and still carried the intoxicating odor of bubble gum. Of course that was all before free agency, analytics and video games. Back when kids always rode around town with a baseball glove impaled on their bike’s handlebars, their favorite baseball bat stuck in the saddle baskets over the rear wheel and maybe their 16th duplicate card of Whitey Ford clothes-pinned to the bike frame so the wheel spokes would snap the edge as you tore down the street, the constant flapping noise announcing to all other kids within earshot that you were available for a pick-up game of street ball, work-up, five-hundred… or if nothing else, just making a trade. I wonder how many of those card-carrying kids became front office guys for a professional baseball team and if they’re still toting around potential trades in their front shirt pocket… on their smart phone... a bubble gum scent sprayer in hand...

Wait... What? I was loading my .22 while watching a squirrel sneak up on my wife's bird feeder and didn't quite follow what you were saying...

A glance into my old bowling ball (middle-class substitute for a crystal ball) says the Twins package Rosario and Sano in a trade for a topline pitcher, Rooker and Raley (the R&R boys?) come up to the Bigs and platoon at 1st, odd man filling in at the out(field). The Twins take the division, sweep the hated Yankees in three and go on to win the World Series. Oh, and I win the lottery.

This explains the fresh dog poop in my driveway every morning... my neighbor is a White Sox fan. At least I think it's dog poop...

Setting aside any perceived personal affronts, an interesting discussion. From my own demented viewpoint, if we're discussing Twins trade bait for a No 1 or 2 pitcher, I don't think Eddie is going to cut it. I say dangle Sano out there, higher WAR, and more replaceable given the current Twins roster. Keep Eddie.

I heard a rumor that the robot behind the plate will be armed with a taser gun and as soon as a manager steps out of the dugout to contest a call he'll get zapped. I think it will be kind of funny watching Gardy flop around on the ground, his tongue hanging out while making odd gurgling sounds. I might even pony up for MLB-TV to see that. However given Americans love of schadenfreude I think the fans will be begging the managers to challenge the robot, just like race car fans want to see high-speed crashes, instead of cheering on the players. Maybe the robot can be programmed to randomly zap the occasional infielder just for the hell of it... or maybe just after they go into a shift.

Do the Twins currently have another almost-ready third baseman in their minor league system? My bet is Sano goes to first and Lewis goes to third. He's got the quickness, the arm and the bat to hold down the hot corner.

To be honest, she'd sent me to retrieve a couple lunch tokens from her center desk drawer. But they weren't there, so I naturally checked out her drawers... let me rephrase that, I decided to search the other desk drawers. That's when she "caught" me. So her silver lining, the opportunity to force some devious punishment on me for my godless ways, evaporated into the heavens when she couldn't find the tokens either. Jim Z got caught with the purloined lunch tokens later that same day. He may still be roasting in Hell for all I know. Me, I got the Twins for punishment.

The UnGame Thread Gloom, Despair, Agony on Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkzE23pyME4 So the Twins stunk up the joint… make that two joints. At least they didn’t do it on national TV. Mostly because MLB doesn’t do national TV anymore. In this case maybe MLB did us a favor. Anyway, I was supposed to do the Game Thread intro for Game 4, the Game whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned. So I was all primed to do a rousing, fire-up-the-fans intro, but, like the Twins, that’s not going anywhere. So instead of being fired up, Twins fans are lined up at West Virginia pharmacies (they hand out drugs like candy on Halloween) looking for anti-depressants. But is our glass half full, or half empty? The Twins were competitive all season long. Even won the division. When’s the last time that happened? When JC was still a corporal? So we’re starting over, but at least we’re not starting from scratch. We’ve got ourselves a couple of pitchers (Odorizzi and Berrios are a pair of 2’s), a halfways decent outfield (if we can find a suit of armor for Buxton), the makings of a decent infield (with maybe one hole) and the best catching duo in the major leagues. The bullpen… well, maybe needs a little more thinning but certainly has a couple of mostly-reliable arms. All we need to not stink up next year’s play-offs (Play-offs? You’re talking about Play-offs?) is a true, play-off pressure-proof starter that can take the mound for two games in a 5-game series and dominate, assuming the manager doesn’t pull him in the 5th inning. So all the Front Office has to do is find The Guy, get the Pohlads to cough up the really big bucks and convince The Guy, and maybe his current contract-holder, to come to Minnesota. Just don’t let him drink the water… you know, the Minnesota water that makes all our professional sports teams choke. Buy him Irish whiskey instead. But order a couple cases right now because The Donald is about to slap a tariff on it. Trade wars are easy to win. Uh huh. So are play-off games. And if we don't get that Play-off Pitcher this off-season, we can drink the Irish whiskey ourselves during next year's play-offs. Like Sister Goretti told me when she caught me red-handed rifling through her desk, "There's a silver lining in every cloud."

"I'm in Dallas, Texas for a few days and had to watch the game in a bar last night. There were a few Yankee fans around but most of the people in the bar were cheering for the Twins. I'd say there was more interest in the Twins/Yankees game than in the Astros game...A lot of people are cheering for the Twins!" I'm thinking those Texans were more likely cheering "against" the Yankees more so than cheering "for" the Twins. But that's okay. I do the same whether the Yankees are playing the Twins or any other baseball team.

I got a pair of well-worn beer goggles I can loan out. Lenses are a little foggy, but that's the beauty of 'em!

Shaggy?

You recognized Nurse Three Fingers? We must attend the same proctology clinic!

The Cleveland Falcon I was holding down a barstool in a cheap dive just down the street from what used to be Jacobs Stadium, trying to nurse three fingers of the worst tasting whiskey I’d ever had the misfortune to order when she walked in. She had legs halfway up to her neck, auburn hair pulled back in one of those French braids that made her look… French and a figure you won’t find in any accountant’s office. “What’s a dame like you doing in a gin joint like this?” I asked her in my best Bogie impression. She coolly looked me over before claiming a seat three stools away. “I’m looking for a Tom Collins,” she replied, distantly. “Haven’t seen him,” I informed her. “I’m looking for “a” Tom Collins,” she corrected me. “Not “thee” Tom Collins. This is a gin joint, right?” I gestured at the bartender. “Fix the lady up,” I told him, pulling a double sawbuck out of my billfold and laying it on the bar. The three of us waited until the newly released moths flew away. She said her name was Adventure… Miss Adventure. “So what brings you here?” she asked me while the bartender went to work. “I’m looking for a dingus,” I told her. She batted her eyelashes like a slot machine and gave me a hard… stare, with eyes the color of smoked salmon. “Is this a gay bar?” she fished. “Not that kind of dingus,” I corrected her. “A World Series dingus. The Twins haven’t gotten their hands on one since ’91.” “Twins? You mean like a threesome?” she asked in a shocked whisper. I shook my head and took a snort of the redeye. “The Twins are a baseball team…” “I thought you needed nine guys for a baseball team,” she interrupted. I took another snort, a longer one, and grimaced, wondering if she was really a natural blonde underneath that French-braided auburn hair. “The Minnesota Twins. That’s the name of the team. Only one of them is a twin, actually,” I added hastily, cutting her next dumb question off at the pass. “But his twin brother plays for a different team.” “Oh. That’s odd. So whose dingus are you, uh, trying to get your hands on?” she wanted to know. “Yours will do just fine for a starter.” “Mine? Well, let me assure you, buster,” she claimed indignantly. “I don’t have a dingus.” “Not you personally, sweetheart. The last couple of division titles went to the Cleveland Indians. We need to take the division dingus before we can grab the World Series dingus.” “There’s Indians in Cleveland?” she asked worriedly. “Bartender, what water do they use for distilling this whiskey, Lake Erie?” I yelled. It was going to be a long afternoon and the rot gut he’d been serving me wasn’t going to cut it. “Could be,” he grunted. “But if you want something better it’ll cost ya.” “You mean this sewer water was supposed to be free?” “Is Jameson good enough for you?” he snarled. “Hit me!” Okay, you know what happens next; the bartender decks me, I tumble into the pseudo-blonde’s lap, she falls for me (Fats Domino Theory), I take her to the Twins game, kiss her on the strikes and she kisses me on the… sorry, Halsey… the Twins beat Cleveland, win the Division Dingus, go on to the World Series, sweep it in four and bring the Big Dingus back to Minnesota to rest alongside our other two World Series Dingi. Oh, and me and Miss Adventure get married, have triplets and three sets of twins, all blondes, start our own baseball franchise and have our lawyers at Hookim, Crookem and Snookem sue the Twins for false advertising in an attempt to wrest the “Twins” team name away from the Pohlads. And then I wake up. Let’s hope there’s a lot of that going around in the Twins’ dugout. The waking up part… because we're playing a double-header today and if we don’t wake up and start playing ball we won't be getting our hands on anybody’s dingus. We need a twin (yeah, that's a small "t" on purpose) win! On The Hump Game One For the Non-Identical Twins: The notorious TBD (Truculent But Diaphanous) For the Indians: Mike Clevinger 11-2 ERA 2.72 Ks 139 Game Two Two Unknowns Never have so many fans owed so much to so few. (Sorry Winston)

My beer mug is 1/3 full.

I have a coffee table with a force field around it. Anytime I try and set anything on it the object gets thrust back into my hands. And sometimes I hear this angry voice... Weird.

I had a motorcycle once. 450 Honda. Wasn't a love affair. I put it in the ditch once. Came to sitting at a farmer's kitchen table, wiping blood off my face, the farmer and his wife staring at me like I was an alien. "How did I get here?" I asked. They said I pushed my disabled Honda up their driveway and knocked on the door asking for assistance. Said their dog, a black lab, was missing. Otherwise he would've barked and let them know I was coming. My helmet was split right down the middle. Three days in the hospital with a concussion and a badly bruised hip where the handlebar tried to impale me. Laid in my hospital bed and watched the Twins lose three straight. Got the bike fixed, let my brother take it for a spin, went straight down my driveway, across the road into the ditch and got tangled in a barbed wire fence. The thing hated me. Sold the bike. Kept the brother. Oh, the missing dog never returned. Farmer figured I must have hit the dog and the mutt crawled off and died in the woods somewhere. His name was Lucky. I've been affected by it ever since... the concussion, not the dog. The three Twins losses... not so much.

1. Femme Fatale of black and white movie era: Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck? 2. Comedic actress of the black and white era: Irene Dunn or Gracie Allen? 3. Best noir detective: Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum? 4. Best suspense director: Alfred Hitchcock or George Cukor? Indisputable Answers 1. Barbara Stanwyck because she had a Big Valley. No, wait a minute. Bouncing Bette because she couldn't spell "Betty"? 2. Is Irene Dunn? I think so. Say goodnight Gracie. 3. Bogie, because he had Bacall. 4. Hitch your wagon to a... Gotta go with Alfred because he had New Ulm, Minnesota native Tippie Hedren, in "The Birds", thus touching off the tradition of bird flipping. Just look out your Rear Window and see Grace Kelly to know I'm right.