I was little worried about the reaction that the world might see to the singing of "Oh, Canada" before the start of the Twins -- Blue Jays game last night, but I was wrong. With all the patriotic symbolism, and the first pitch from Kuwait City and the cross-border political tension I thought there was the possibility of a nationalistic tinged scene. There were only a few boos from the cheap seats in left-center.
Most everyone settled down and stood respectively during both national anthems.
I should have known. Twins fans are a pretty polite group for the most part. You don't hear the language that you hear at a lot of ballparks.
The team had a big week, though I think they're getting overshadowed by all this hockey. Good for the Wild, but in May, the last thing I want to think about is winter sports.
I guess it's because I never learned how to play hockey, though I like to skate.
I wonder if they heckled Pedro Martinez at the Dome last night. The game was on the radio, so I couldn't catch all the crowd noise. But last year, I was at a Twins - Red Sox game which I think ended in the same score as last night, 5-0. Long about the sixth inning the fans started chanting: Pedroooo, Pedrooo, Pedrooo.
I knew Twins baseball had turned a corner when the fans had enough guts to heckle Pedro Martinez.
I met some acquaintances from Kansas City a couple weeks ago in Montreal and said to them "the Royals are out of it by Memorial Day."
Now that they've dropped from first place, I feel bad. I still think they can stay in the race, and I hope they do. It was fun to watch them. I'd love to see a Royals-Twins race for the division.
The more small-market teams that shake up the baseball world, the better.
I fear often that baseball fans are starting to act too much like football fans.
Yesterday in Oakland from the MLB website/
Interception from The Black Hole: The first out of the bottom of the ninth came without a play when a fan reached out of the stands to catch a Mark Ellis foul ball in right field as Minnesota's Dustan Mohr charged toward the wall. Umpire Mike Winters called fan interference on the play and Ellis was out.
"The fan's an idiot, and (Mohr) wasn't going to catch that ball," Ellis said. "That's a judgment call by the umpire. I give him credit for running out there real hard, but in my judgment, I don't think he's going to make the catch."
"He was walking out of the stadium cheering," Ellis said of the fan, who was ejected after the play. "If I was the judge I'd throw him in jail. He might have taken a hit away from me."
Added Ellis: "That's the worst way to make an out. Nobody even catches the ball and you're out."
Phantom players are awesome as long as they're on the other team. How does an moron like that get a front row seat anyway? Good call Ump. Whether he could of caught it or not, it sends the message not to 'F' with a ball in play. He's probably doing the morning TV shows out there labeled as 'Local Idiot'
They checked 76 or so of his bats and none were corked. They checked the 5 bats of his at the hall of fame, and none were corked. I just have to believe its an mistake in judgment. Interesting how people can't seem to agree on the benefits of corking a bat. Some say it improves distance, but only marginally. Others say it doesn't, just helps you make better contact. Maybe its all just psychological.
... uses the corked bat to hit homers for the fans ...
that one really got me. like a back-handed compliment, sammy's effectively blaming the fansfor having a corked bat! whaaaaaaat?!?
so should moss use stickum gloves later on in his career to meet fans' expectations? should tiger use an illegal driver when he's on the seniors tour? should dale earnhardt ... opps, never mind.
... and not one has been corked, until now.
yeah, because he was able to get on top of the ball quicker when he was younger and all juiced-up. they should've put urine samples from mcgwire and sosa in '98, not baseballs. i bet those cups would've looked like house paint.
They checked 76 or so of his bats and none were corked. They checked the 5 bats of his at the hall of fame, and none were corked.
they also x-rayed his head and found ... nothing.
so if it's all about the fans, i'm pretty damn curious about the bat he was using for the all-star HR derby here in milwaukee. those were some absolutely massive blasts; nobody else was even close to sosa's distance or height.
one of the most prolific HR hitters of the modern-era certainly shouldn't need a gimmick bat. the only benefit of the doubt that i'll give him is that it wasn't at wrigley. if he was using a corked bat in that bandbox, they should've doubled his suspension.
Interesting how people can't seem to agree on the benefits of corking a bat.
the physics both for and against it are sound: F=ma.
the ball can only be carried farther by an increase in force, and force can only be increased by mass and/or acceleration. most of the "experts" (as in my former engineering profs) are rightfully citing the decrease in mass as a reason why corking is crap. most people would rather be hit by a fly going 300 mph than by a diesel locomotive going 3 mph, right?
what they fail to account for is the increase in performance of aluminum bats over wood. if the density of the material is all that matters, then why not steel bats? how about gold? because you couldn't get them around in time!
so it's all just stamp collecting unless you can get the bat around quick enough to contact the ball. it's acceleration and not mass that matters most, and that's especially true for an aging sosa.
from a brown university bioengineering study on bat performance:
fastest bat = 93.3 mph (aluminum)
slowest bat = 86.1 mph (wooden)
hits exceeding 100 mph
2% made with wooden bats
37% made with aluminum bats
"I don't care what Oxford University or Cambridge or Harvard or Yale or MIT or any of these other [expletive] professors say, it makes a difference," Grace said. "Believe me, they wouldn't have been doing it all of these hundreds of years if it didn't make a difference. It's just like scuffed balls or spitballs. It makes a difference."
note to mark grace: baseball is only 160+ years old.
another note to mark grace: 160+ is not "hundreds of years".
the physics both for and against it are sound: F=ma.
it actually has more to do with the momentum imparted to the ball by the bat than anything. and if you have a lighter bat, you can swing it faster, thereby imparting more momentum onto the ball, which is probably an order of magnitude less massive than the bat is.
It does come back to the fans in some way. This preoccupation with home runs is tiresome to me. It's for people with short attention spans. It's not even creative.
Tight pitching, good fielding, base stealing. I love 1 - 0 games. Seems to me, the Twins are fun to watch when they're slap hitting, and getting the runner in scoring position and manufacturing runs. A Cleveland sportswriter of the old school, once said of the Twins a couple years ago: "They scoff at the home run."
Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude among the fans is more like the Nike commercial with Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux where they train to be power hitters: "Chicks dig the long ball."
This preoccupation with home runs is tiresome to me. I love 1 - 0 games.
you're preaching to the choir, brother. i was elated when the brewers went to the NL and that style of old school ball.
there really isn't anything more amazing than a 1-0 game, especially when the starting pitchers carry that game thru 7 or 8.
and i agree on HRs ... yes, a towering go-ahead blast is great, but i love watching a bloop single, stealing second, then a rip up the line and into the corner for an RBI. throw in a well executed bunt to advance a runner and a big fat closer to slam the door in the 9th, and i'm standing & clapping.
"....baseball should require a little bit of thinking on the part of the spectators. This does not play well with kids who have been conditioned merely to react to some sort of rapid, visual stimulus.
They have become far too twitchy for baseball."
...And it's not just kids, either. I've sat by many-a-Viking fan who has, for one reason or another dragged himself or herself to a baseball game, and just can't stand it. One guy, after going out for a cigarette, came in and said to his buddy..."anybody scored a touchdown, yet."
Those obscene looking hot dogs, the size of a human forearm, have to go, too.
tom powers bangs his domefield hypocrite drum. good to see the bud one airship's still flying high in the cities!
you still have to love george carlin's suggestions for making sports more interesting:
"In Football I would let all 45 guys play at the same time And never mind lining up, just grab the ball and run like a mother phocer. Another thing I would do in football, I would leave the injured on the field."
"Here's how I'd change basketball. ... you have a 2 second shot clock, and I would allow 25 points for any ball that goes in the basket off another guy's head. You'd see some good fights during those close games I'll tell you, and you'd increase the chance of serious injuries."
"You know how you speed up baseball? Everyone gets one swing. That's it, one swing. 'Phoc you, you're out! Sit down! Come on, let's go!' If the pitcher hits the batter with the ball, batter's out! You hit 27 guys, you got yourself a perfect game my friend. You get two really good accurate pitchers out there and you could be out of that ballpark in 15 minutes. You could be home watching football on TV, and see some serious God damn injuries."
What really insults my wife is that "baseball clinic" that's put on "for the ladies" by Christopher and Banks. If you don't know, they're the clothing store that specializes outfits that have cartoon animals that are commonly worn by middle-aged women. Not exacly cutting edge style.
My wife says if you grow up in the U.S. outside of a cave, you generally learn baseball by osmosis.
The biggest day of betting in Minnesota horseracing history took place on Saturday. The handle at Canterbury Park was $3.2 million and I was there to see it.
One of the best jokeys in the country, Julie Krone rode two horses -- Image and Daunting -- to victory. A gorgeous day and some great races.
Things are looking pretty good for the Twins with their victory today. Radke finally pitched like he should. Now that they are tied with the Sox, the schedule seems to favor the Twins the rest of the way.
The White Sox have all their remaining teams against .500 teams or better, as of today. The Sox have 3 against Boston in Boston, 3 against the Twins at the Dome, 3 against the Yankees and 3 at home against KC and 4 at KC. And the Sox have done very poorly on the road!!!!
The Twins on the other hand have 4 at Cleveland, then 3 against the Sox, 3 against Detroit 2 more against Cleveland all at home and then 4 against the hapless Tigers in Detroit. The Twins could win the division after all!!
As for KC things are not looking good. They are 3 back and they are losing today last I checked. KC does get toplay Detroit 4 there and 3 at home but they have to play the Sox 7 times. If the Sox and KC split those games the Twins have got to win it. KC also has to play 3 at Cleveland and if necessary they will have to play Anaheim in a makeup game.
DOnt count Cleveland and D-town out though, ninja.... thats when they come back and bite ya in the ass, is when you start thinking you've already got it done.
Pohlad would have to really likeKenny Rogers' music if he was willing to pay what he's going pay Kenny Rogers, the pitcher.
But stranger things have happened. Howard Hughes spent a fortune on banana nut ice cream. And he was obsessed with the movie "Ice Station Zebra."
The Rich aren't like the rest of us.
This isn't necessarily a marquee name. But I think it is a good signing. Probably the best pitcher available. I hope it pays off for us.
When was the last time the Twins signed a marquee player?
Kenny Rogers a marquee player? Do you believe that?
"This isn't necessarily a marquee name."
I guess not necessarily. But for the Twins, signing anyone with a recogizable name could almost qualify as marquee.
I probably got carried away in all the excitement yesterday.
The New York Times sports section visited the Twins this Sunday. Did a nice piece on them.
George Will once said there's two seasons in America: Baseball and The Void.
Starting to see the light in the distance. Sure bad to start it with a war hanging over us, but the first pitch should lift some spirits a little.
Twins 3 Tigers 1
Kicked the Tigers in a little over two hours.
Is that a great start or what.
Congrats, Rick
Sounds like you enjoyed yourself.
Going to the home opener tonight.
Thank Heaven for indoor baseball, or else we'd have to dress like Packer fans.
I know the dome is a crappy place for baseball but you said it rick. Without it, Yuck!
http://msn.espn.go.com/mlb/question/dh.html
I gotta say that was a nice home opening pitch this year. Kinda touching. Game could of been better tho.
I was at the opener.
I was little worried about the reaction that the world might see to the singing of "Oh, Canada" before the start of the Twins -- Blue Jays game last night, but I was wrong. With all the patriotic symbolism, and the first pitch from Kuwait City and the cross-border political tension I thought there was the possibility of a nationalistic tinged scene. There were only a few boos from the cheap seats in left-center.
Most everyone settled down and stood respectively during both national anthems.
I should have known. Twins fans are a pretty polite group for the most part. You don't hear the language that you hear at a lot of ballparks.
The team had a big week, though I think they're getting overshadowed by all this hockey. Good for the Wild, but in May, the last thing I want to think about is winter sports.
I guess it's because I never learned how to play hockey, though I like to skate.
I wonder if they heckled Pedro Martinez at the Dome last night. The game was on the radio, so I couldn't catch all the crowd noise. But last year, I was at a Twins - Red Sox game which I think ended in the same score as last night, 5-0. Long about the sixth inning the fans started chanting: Pedroooo, Pedrooo, Pedrooo.
I knew Twins baseball had turned a corner when the fans had enough guts to heckle Pedro Martinez.
I met some acquaintances from Kansas City a couple weeks ago in Montreal and said to them "the Royals are out of it by Memorial Day."
Now that they've dropped from first place, I feel bad. I still think they can stay in the race, and I hope they do. It was fun to watch them. I'd love to see a Royals-Twins race for the division.
The more small-market teams that shake up the baseball world, the better.
Agreed :)
Nice to see us SWEEP the foul mouthed Sox :)
On the Fan Watch:
I fear often that baseball fans are starting to act too much like football fans.
Yesterday in Oakland from the MLB website/
Interception from The Black Hole: The first out of the bottom of the ninth came without a play when a fan reached out of the stands to catch a Mark Ellis foul ball in right field as Minnesota's Dustan Mohr charged toward the wall. Umpire Mike Winters called fan interference on the play and Ellis was out.
"The fan's an idiot, and (Mohr) wasn't going to catch that ball," Ellis said. "That's a judgment call by the umpire. I give him credit for running out there real hard, but in my judgment, I don't think he's going to make the catch."
"He was walking out of the stadium cheering," Ellis said of the fan, who was ejected after the play. "If I was the judge I'd throw him in jail. He might have taken a hit away from me."
Added Ellis: "That's the worst way to make an out. Nobody even catches the ball and you're out."
Phantom players are awesome as long as they're on the other team. How does an moron like that get a front row seat anyway? Good call Ump. Whether he could of caught it or not, it sends the message not to 'F' with a ball in play. He's probably doing the morning TV shows out there labeled as 'Local Idiot'
And loving every minute of it.
sammy sosa bulletin board material!
bulletin board
, get it?!?
LMAO!!!
corky sosa, tool of the year in MLB. wudda jag.
please, discuss amongst yourselves.
i'm all verschmutz't. de brewers are geschweeping a dopelt header.
He said he uses the corked bat to hit homers for the fans during batting practice.
I also read that he's broken dozens of bats through his career and not one has been corked, until now.
I don't know what to think.
They checked 76 or so of his bats and none were corked. They checked the 5 bats of his at the hall of fame, and none were corked. I just have to believe its an mistake in judgment. Interesting how people can't seem to agree on the benefits of corking a bat. Some say it improves distance, but only marginally. Others say it doesn't, just helps you make better contact. Maybe its all just psychological.
Maybe this is soon over
Sosa gets 8 days. He's appealing, maybe to keep him in the lineup against the Yankees.
They coulda done more, but that's about right.
... uses the corked bat to hit homers for the fans ...
... and not one has been corked, until now.
They checked 76 or so of his bats and none were corked. They checked the 5 bats of his at the hall of fame, and none were corked.
Interesting how people can't seem to agree on the benefits of corking a bat.
"I don't care what Oxford University or Cambridge or Harvard or Yale or MIT or any of these other [expletive] professors say, it makes a difference," Grace said. "Believe me, they wouldn't have been doing it all of these hundreds of years if it didn't make a difference. It's just like scuffed balls or spitballs. It makes a difference."
the physics both for and against it are sound: F=ma.
it actually has more to do with the momentum imparted to the ball by the bat than anything. and if you have a lighter bat, you can swing it faster, thereby imparting more momentum onto the ball, which is probably an order of magnitude less massive than the bat is.
It does come back to the fans in some way. This preoccupation with home runs is tiresome to me. It's for people with short attention spans. It's not even creative.
Tight pitching, good fielding, base stealing. I love 1 - 0 games. Seems to me, the Twins are fun to watch when they're slap hitting, and getting the runner in scoring position and manufacturing runs. A Cleveland sportswriter of the old school, once said of the Twins a couple years ago: "They scoff at the home run."
Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude among the fans is more like the Nike commercial with Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux where they train to be power hitters: "Chicks dig the long ball."
baseball is only 160+ years old.
Actually, baseball can be traced back to a Russian ball game that is hundreds of years old.
Basketball is the only truly "American" sport.
Actually,basketball has some British origins, too I think.
You got a ball, you got a goal or a stick to hit it with.
There's not much new under the sun.
rick,
This preoccupation with home runs is tiresome to me. I love 1 - 0 games.
ares 6/6/03 10:10pmGeek Alert!
i bet those cups would've looked like house paint
LOL!
If you've been to a game lately, you know what Tom Powers is talking about
"....baseball should require a little bit of thinking on the part of the spectators. This does not play well with kids who have been conditioned merely to react to some sort of rapid, visual stimulus.
They have become far too twitchy for baseball."
...And it's not just kids, either. I've sat by many-a-Viking fan who has, for one reason or another dragged himself or herself to a baseball game, and just can't stand it. One guy, after going out for a cigarette, came in and said to his buddy..."anybody scored a touchdown, yet."
Those obscene looking hot dogs, the size of a human forearm, have to go, too.
I'm not a big sports fan, but that was a great article.
the size of a human forearm
"gimme 2 andro dogs, extra steroids. hold the cork"
Much like the commissioner himself is an albatross. Selig ... gave us interleague play.
Watching the Twins play in National League parks last week, it was striking how much better the game flows without a designated hitter.
What really insults my wife is that "baseball clinic" that's put on "for the ladies" by Christopher and Banks. If you don't know, they're the clothing store that specializes outfits that have cartoon animals that are commonly worn by middle-aged women. Not exacly cutting edge style.
My wife says if you grow up in the U.S. outside of a cave, you generally learn baseball by osmosis.
How about those Yanks? They sure yanked it tonight. ;-)
Houston ups NY
The Yankees kick ass! They put the Twins to shame!
Compelling point....
Got that right, Rick! Put on your pinstripes and get out to the Bronx! ; )
I have nothing against the Yankees.
But I'm a Twins fan.
Since we don't have a sight for it:
The biggest day of betting in Minnesota horseracing history took place on Saturday. The handle at Canterbury Park was $3.2 million and I was there to see it.
One of the best jokeys in the country, Julie Krone rode two horses -- Image and Daunting -- to victory. A gorgeous day and some great races.
Damn, Rick, I had about 18 things going on that day, and couldn't make. I love Canterbury, although the place was not nice to me this year.
How 'bout those Twins?
Things are looking pretty good for the Twins with their victory today. Radke finally pitched like he should. Now that they are tied with the Sox, the schedule seems to favor the Twins the rest of the way.
The White Sox have all their remaining teams against .500 teams or better, as of today. The Sox have 3 against Boston in Boston, 3 against the Twins at the Dome, 3 against the Yankees and 3 at home against KC and 4 at KC. And the Sox have done very poorly on the road!!!!
The Twins on the other hand have 4 at Cleveland, then 3 against the Sox, 3 against Detroit 2 more against Cleveland all at home and then 4 against the hapless Tigers in Detroit. The Twins could win the division after all!!
As for KC things are not looking good. They are 3 back and they are losing today last I checked. KC does get toplay Detroit 4 there and 3 at home but they have to play the Sox 7 times. If the Sox and KC split those games the Twins have got to win it. KC also has to play 3 at Cleveland and if necessary they will have to play Anaheim in a makeup game.
GO TWINS!!!!!
Magic Number: 17
DOnt count Cleveland and D-town out though, ninja.... thats when they come back and bite ya in the ass, is when you start thinking you've already got it done.
Magic Number: 15
Joe Twins! Lets do it tonight guys!!!
botom of the eighth Twins up 5 to 1
GO TWINS!!!!
Magic Number: 11
seven more gams with the Tigers and the Twins are 11-1 agaisnt them already this year. Things are looking real good.