TK on Toast

Video 2

2011-03-19T20:28:00.002-05:00

Reid's video.Type rest of the post here

Selection Video

2011-03-18T08:15:00.002-05:00

Here we go.Happy about our seed.

Favorite Sports Phrases: Baseball

2009-09-01T08:46:00.006-05:00

*This is the first in a four-part series detailing some of my favorite sayings in the sports world. Each entry will have the meaning behind it (for those who don’t know it) as well as a personal anecdote to go with it.

As I was watching the Twins game on TV this weekend (yes, I’m still watching and holding out hope), I noticed just how many slang terms and phrases are used to describe the actions and events taking place. It led me to try and come up with a list of my 10 favorite phrases in the game, so here they are, in no particular order:

“A Great Piece of Hitting”
This is a phrase that is used by the Twins broadcasting team ad nauseam (and the reason for this four-part series). Any time a player works a count, fights off some pitches, or hits the ball the other way, someone in the FSNorth broadcast booth will tell us that it was “a great piece of hitting”. Despite the overuse by those gentlemen, it’s still a great phrase. As a bonus, if you’re hanging out with peers who have a limited knowledge of baseball (not recommended), using this saying at the right time will make you sound more baseball savvy—even if you’re not.

“The Golden Sombrero”
The term given to a player who strikes out four times in one game. The background to this one is the best part about it in my mind. It starts with three strikeouts being referred to, ironically, as a “hat trick”, which was shortened to “the hat”. A sombrero is a giant hat—as is striking out four times. The golden part tells you just how special this accomplishment is. There’s nothing I like better than calling a friend and saying something like “Did you see A Rod got the Sombrero last night.” Classic.

Time for a new hat, Alex

“Pulled the String”
This is a term that describes a slow pitch known as a changeup. The imagery associated with this phrase is what led to it being included on the list. If you’ve ever seen a really good pitcher, who throws a hard fastball, confuse and embarrass a hitter by changing speeds by upwards of 20 mph, then you understand why this saying is so appropriate. There was no one better in recent history at “pulling the string” than Johan Santana. Man, that guy was fun to watch.

“Punch and Judy Hitter”
One of the many nicknames given to scrappy, light hitting players (usually middle infielders) whose only hits seem to be bloop hits and infield singles. Using this phrase to describe a hitter means you probably think very little of their ability at the dish. See: Punto, Nick.

This picture should be next to "Punch and Judy Hitter" in the dictionary

“Taking the Collar”
This refers to a player going hitless in a game. The background to this phrase comes from the belief that if you’re a professional baseball player you should be able to get a hit at least once each game and if you don’t, you choked. That’s where the “collar” comes from—it represents the tightening around the neck. Of course, even the best hitters in the game occasionally go 0-fer, but it’s still a fun saying. I love it when someone on Baseball Tonight tells me “Derek Jeter took the collar tonight”.

“Duck Fart”/“Dying Quail”/“Groundball with Eyes”
All of these phrases are used to describe a weak/lucky hit. The first two are in reference to a soft hit that lands just past the infield. If you can actually picture a quail flying through the air, dying, and then falling to the ground, you have an image of what one of these hits looks like. The third phrase describes a groundball that seems to know where it’s going and can avoid your glove. For me (copyright Randy Jackson), these phrases will forever be immortalized by Kevin “Crash Davis” Costner’s speech in Bull Durham.

He hit the bull...

“Human Rain Delay”
This describes a pitcher or batter that takes too much time in between pitches. Whether it’s the pitcher wandering around the mound after each pitch and taking his time once he’s actually on the mound or a batter who steps out after every pitch to readjust every part of his equipment (Nomar Garciaparra was the worst at this), this player causes the game to come to a standstill. It’s as if the game is in a rain delay and not being played at all—hence the phrase.

“Get Me Over”
This refers to a pitch that is meant to simply get over the plate for a strike so that the batter isn’t walked. Most pitchers throw “get me over” fastballs with runners on and a 3-0 count, though some will throw a “get me over” curveball as well. This has always been a favorite saying of mine for a couple reasons. One, it’s often a recipe for disaster: middle of the order hitters feast on “get me over” fastballs, and there’s nothing cooler than a long home run. Two, the phrase itself makes me smile. It kind of implies that the pitcher is talking to the ball and trying to will it over the plate (which might have actually been the case when Mark Fidrych was pitching).

"Bat Sh*t Crazy" personified

“Throwing Peas”
If a pitcher is “throwing peas”, his ball is moving so fast or cutting so hard that it makes the batter feel like he’s seeing/swinging at peas. This is another phrase that relies on visualization to really understand what is being said. One can imagine just how hard it would be to hit a pea thrown at 90+ mph. Plus, just saying this phrase makes me feel cool—“Man, Verlander was throwing peas last night.” Try it...told ya.

“Uncle Charlie”/“Deuce”/“Hammer”/“Hook”
All of these are nicknames for a curve ball. I just love the fact that one pitch can have so many different names (there are plenty more where this came from). This variety of terms allows you to be repetitive without sounding redundant:
“Zito’s got his hook working tonight.”
“Yeah, his deuce is nasty.”
“Did you see the hammer he threw Tulowitzki?”
“Yeah, that thing fell off the table.”

Well, that’s my list. I know there are a ton of other phrases out there, especially in baseball. Did I leave your favorite off the list? Then post it in the comments section. Coming later this week: basketball phrases.

Picture of the Week

2009-08-23T00:00:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I'm going to try a new thing here at TKOT. Every Sunday, I want to post a picture and corresponding commentary. It doesn't have to be from the biggest/most important story of the week--just something funny or interesting. As loyal readers, you can help me out with this task. If you find a picture that you deem worthy of Picture of the Week status, email it to me at tkontoast@gmail.com. Your contributions are greatly appreciated and you will be given credit if the picture is used.

Today's picture shows you exactly why women's sports will never gain the respect and adoration that men's sports do (and this coming from a guy who coaches girls basketball). The Solheim Cup is the women's version of the Ryder Cup: a US vs. The World golf competition. Don't worry, you probably haven't ever heard of it. The point of posing this picture (and this rant) is to show you why women's sports are rarely taken seriously. The members of our US team have their faces painted like they're a bunch of 5 year olds at the circus. Would any male in any professional competition ever do this? No, they wouldn't.

Great.

2009-08-20T11:01:00.005-05:00

By now you’ve all heard the news. You’re probably sick of the news. As KFAN’s Dan Cole brilliantly put it, “The Ego has landed.” It’s been a whirlwind couple of days with both local and national media fawning over the Vikings’ newest quarterback. The consensus opinion seems to be that a) this is the biggest signing in the history of the NFL, and b) the Vikings are now the favorites to win the Super Bowl.

The second statement is, of course, preposterous. The whole circus surrounding #4 is ridiculous in and of itself, but the hype Vikings fans have talked themselves into is insane. Everyone seems to believe that a 40 year old man who recently had his bicep detached and has a tear in his rotator cuff is going to be the savior of the franchise. That a guy who almost single-handedly played the Jets out of a playoff spot last year is going to send the Purple to Miami in February.

My favorite part of the argument for Captain Wrangler is that “he’s better than Sage or T Jack.” Well my little brother is a better quarterback than Tarvaris, so that argument holds no weight. The question I have: is The One That Shall Not Be Mentioned really better than Sage Rosenfels? Think about this seriously for a second. Forget about the name, the MVP’s, the Super Bowls, the records—everything from the past. Can the BrettBackers honestly say that the player #4 is right now is truly better than Sage? If you ask me, it’s pretty much a draw. Both guys will make the occasional amazing pass. Both guys will have the occasional brilliant game. Both guys are prone to forcing passes when they’re not there. Both guys are very apt at throwing interceptions, especially late in games.

Nice kick, dork

The Purple colored glasses that Vikes fans have put on since Tuesday morning is hindering their ability to rationalize and admit to themselves the truth: this Minnesota Vikings team, with Sage or #4, is likely to win the Central and has an outside chance to make a run in the playoffs. The crazy part to me is that most people understood these expectations up until two days ago. Now we add Brett from Mississippi and all of a sudden we go from a playoff team to a Super Bowl team. Why? Consider the following stats from Gray Beard in recent years:

--In 2001, he threw six interceptions (three for TDs) in a 45-17 playoff loss to the Rams.
--In 2002, his heavily favored Packers team lost to Mike Vick’s wild-card Falcons (Favre had three turnovers).
--In 2003, he basically gave a playoff game away to the Eagles with a classic Brett Favre here-you-go interception.
--In 2004, Favre threw four picks to the eight-win Vikings in a wild-card game loss.
--In 2005 he was the 31st-rated QB in the NFL and missed the playoffs.
--In 2006 he improved, to the 26th-rated QB in the league.
--In his 2007 “bounce-back” season (an anomaly compared to everything surrounding it) he ended the Packers season with an interception in OT against the Giants at home.
--In 2008, his Jets team went 1-4 in the final 5 games to miss the playoffs.

That, my friends, is an ugly playoff résumé from the previous eight seasons. Yet the rubes in this town think that this guy is going to be the final piece of the puzzle for playoff success in Minnesota? C’mon. In the past four seasons, Favre has thrown 88 TDs and 84 INTs. Take out his ‘07 “bounce-back” season and those numbers dwindle to 60 TDs and 69 interceptions. In fact, '07 is the only year in the past four where Favre threw more TDs than picks. He led the league in interceptions in ‘05 and ‘08, while being in the top 5 in ’04 and ’06.

Yeah, he's great in the clutch...

This is the guy that everyone rushed to Winter Park to see get out of a car and was followed by local news helicopters. Keep these stats in mind when YOUR new favorite quarterback fails to deliver once again and the Purple are at home wondering what happened.

*Special thanks to friend of TKOT Nate Baraga (and the website he used) for the statistics used in this article.*

All Metrodome Team: Visitors

2009-07-30T15:33:00.014-05:00

As odd as it seems, the Minnesota Twins have been spending all season trying to make its fan base nostalgic about the Metrodome—even though it’s a dump of a stadium with uncomfortable seats that don’t always face the action. They’ve done promotions, give aways, countdowns, etc. to try and convince everyone that we should feel sad about leaving the Big Inflatable Toilet, before they hype everyone up on Target Field. One of the ways they are doing this is by naming the All Metrodome Team. This team is supposedly comprised of the best (and most liked since it’s voted on by the fans) Twins players at each position from 1982, when the Dome opened, to 2009. Well, I believe that any make believe team needs to have a make believe opponent. So after the jump, I will unveil my All Metrodome Team…the visiting team, that is. This team is made up of players who have absolutely destroyed the Twins during the Metrodome era.

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t have official stats for any of these guys (I tried, believe me, but I’m not so great on the Internets). I’m basing my selections based solely on my knowledge and watching 150+ Twins games a year for the last 10-15 years. This should explain why everyone on this team played post-1990: I don’t have the memory or the stats to include anyone from the 80’s.

*UPDATE: Thanks to a loyal reader, I have now added some statistics to go with my selections. These are their career numbers against the Twins.

First Base: Jim Thome
185 G, .313 BA, .632 SLG, 57 HR, 142 RBI, 1.044 OPS, 202 H

Whether he was playing for the Indians or the White Sox, Thome has spent most of his career in the AL Central and has been punishing Twins pitching the entire time. With his patented aim the bat at you pose and giant uppercut swing, Jim is in the top 3 or 4 for homeruns hit against the Twins in team history. If it was a key situation where a homerun would tie or give the other team the lead, and Thome was up, you may as well have walked away from the TV so you didn’t have to see the inevitable.

Second Base: Ray Durham
105 G, .280 BA, 22 2B, 17 SB, 112 H

This was one of the easiest selections in my mind—and one of the most frustrating opponents during his time in the bigs. Durham was never an elite player. Sure, he made a couple of All-Star teams, but for the most part he was a stop gap: a player brought in for a year or two because a team thought they were going to make a run or had a younger player who wasn’t quite ready yet. However, I vividly remember Ray hitting double after double against Twins pitching, whether he was in an Oakland uniform, or playing for the hated White Sox. It always sucks when a glorified role player consistently destroys your favorite team.

Shortstop: Carlos Guillen
108 G, .305 BA, .843 OPS, 26 2B, 116 H

If there’s one thing Guillen is, it’s a professional hitter (and a below average fielder). Never was that quite so evident than when he would come up against Minnesota late in a close game. It was a virtual certainty that he would find a way to bleed a ball through the infield or rip a double down the line to give the Mariners/Tigers a lead, and likely a victory. A career .288 hitter, I’d bet he’s closer to .350 against the local 9.

Third Base: Casey Blake
97 G, .285 BA, .801 OPS, 23 2B, 110 H

Blake is a very important part of the visiting All-Metrodome Team because not only did he crush Twins fans souls, but he represents a very common theme: former players coming back to Minnesota and dominating. Even though he was an unimpressive minor leaguer before the Twins gave him a couple of shots at being an everyday player in the early 2000’s, Blake seems to have some sort of vendetta against the team. If someone told me that half of his career homeruns came against the Twins, I wouldn’t even bat an eye.

Outfield: Ken Griffey Jr.
137 G, .287 BA, .941 OPS, 42 HR, 116 RBI, 151 H

To be fair, Junior kills just about everybody. There’s a reason why he’s a lock to be a first ballot Hall of Famer and was every kid’s favorite player in the 90’s. But he didn’t have to prove it every time he played against Minnesota? You expect the best players in the league to play well against your team and come up with big hits: that why they’re the best. Still, there wasn’t one pitcher on the Twins staff who wasn’t guaranteed to give up a long ball to Griffey. And if it was a Radke-Griffey Jr. matchup? I don’t think Vegas would even put odds on an HR—it was going to happen. Even now, at the tail end of his career, Griff still destroys the Twins, as evidenced by his short stint with the White Sox last year, and his power resurgence during opening weekend this year.

Outfield: Tim Salmon
105 G, .272 BA, .915 OPS, 25 2B, 100 H

Salmon is the only position player on this list who has never played in the AL Central, which makes his inclusion on this team all the more impressive. From his Rookie of the Year campaign in ‘93 until his retirement in 2006, he consistently tore up Twins pitching whenever he got the chance (though he did conveniently stink up the joint in the 2002 ALCS). To be fair, I could include a number of Angels players from that era as well since they, along with the Yankees, were one of the teams the Twins could never beat. But Salmon nudged out Garrett Anderson to get the spot.

Outfield: Albert Belle
107 G, .315 BA, .994 OPS, 38 2B, 97 RBI

Speaking of teams that killed the Twins in the late 90’s, here’s the representative from the Cleveland Indians. With a lineup that also included Kenny Lofton, Carlos “One if by land, two if by sea, three if” Baerga, and Manny Ramirez, it was easy to see why they were the class of the American League at the end of the century. Though all of the players listed were studs, no one found the seats more often than Joey. With his big, hulking frame (likely enhanced by steroids) and huge, powerful swing (using a bat that was likely corked), Al spent a lot of time in the Dome lightly jogging around the base paths. And yes, I’m still bitter.

Designated Hitter: Frank Thomas
186 G, .290 BA, .969 OPS, 42 2B, 52 HR, 142 RBI, 194 H

If my memory serves me right, Thomas is in the top 3 for homeruns against the Twins. That alone gets him on this team. As a kid, he was the scariest, most intimidating player I ever saw. He was a 6’5”, 250+ lbs homerun hitting monster. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was scared of him—so were Twins pitchers who were more than happy to guide pitches over the middle of the plate just to appease him (or so it seemed). They were even kind enough to groove one for him to get his 500th career homer. Frank will likely go into the HOF at some point, but if he had played his whole career against the Twins he’d have 800+ HR’s and be considered the greatest player of all time.

Starting Pitcher: Mike Mussina
33 G, 22-6, 3.10 ERA, 7.3 K/9, 3.51 K/BB

His career record against the Twins was brought up every single time he pitched against us (thanks Dick and Bert), thus deflating any hope that I’d ever have that we had a chance to finally beat him. Like most of the players on this team, he did damage against the Twins with multiple organizations, but I remember him best when he was in Baltimore. I used to hate Moose as a little kid because I thought the way he dipped his shoulders to look at the runner on first was a balk every time (still do), yet it was never called. Then as a teenager/adult I hated him because seeing that knuckle-curve meant that there was no chance for my favorite team to win the game.

Starting Pitcher: Mark Buehrle
39 G, 23-15, 4.00 ERA, 5.7 K/9, 4 CG

Don’t let the last couple of starts against the Twins fool you: Buehrle has owned us ever since he came into the league in 2000. Even during that run of division titles earlier in this decade, we would always lose to the White Sox when he was pitching. Granted, any tall, imposing lefty usually killed the Twins, and maybe it’s because we faced him so often, but when I saw Buehrle’s name as that game’s starting pitcher, I started looking at the matchups for the next day to see if we would be able to get the game back that we were about to lose.

Closer: Mariano Rivera
34 GF, 26 SV, 1.20 ERA, 8.9 K/9, 5.36 K/BB, 0.850 WHIP

I know, I know: this one isn’t really fair. Mariano is arguably the best and most dominating closer of all time. But I don’t care. I’ve seen way too many Twins hitters freeze looking at that nasty cutter for strike three in the ninth inning to not include him on this team. The Twins have a well publicized awful record against the Yankees, and it’s not because we get blown out all of the time. Quite the contrary actually. We usually hang in against the Bronx bombers, only to have Rivera step on our throats at the end of the game every time.

Manager: Ron Gardenhire

Gardy beat out a very tough field to gain this honor. Guys like Mike Scioscia, Joe Torre, and Mike Hargrove were all considered, but none of them has done more to defeat the Twins than Ron has. His pitching selections, terrible use of the bullpen, unjustifiable lineups, insane pinch hitting choices (Luis Rodriguez anyone?), refusal to let lefties hit against lefties, playing AAA call-ups immediately, and so on make this a very simple choice when you really look at it.

Again, this is all based on my memory of watching games. I tried not to include players just because they achieved a milestone hit against the Twins, which happened often (see: Ripken Jr., Cal, Murray, Eddie, etc.). Did I miss someone? Do you disagree with a selection or five? Post it in the comments section…

A Man with a Plan

2009-07-28T20:00:00.008-05:00

Maybe I’m an optimist. Maybe years of watching The Ostrich have diluted my senses. Maybe I just like seeing the Timberwolves in the news all the time. Whatever the reason might be, I like the way David Kahn has taken control of this franchise and is beginning to mold it into his vision. Is it guaranteed to work? Of course not. But Kahn seems like a man with a plan and he is determined to carry it out. Compared to the way the Wolves (or any other Minnesota sports franchise) have gone about business in the past, this is a welcomed change—be it successful or not.

Great player; No clue how to run a team

This new approach all started with the decision not to bring back Kevin McHale as head coach (or any other front office position for that matter). McHale, who could easily be described as the most hated man in the history of Minnesota professional sports, had long been blamed by the fan base for the team’s failures. Much of this blame was deserved. McHale botched draft picks, gave out horrific contracts (some illegal), had no eye for talent, and was unable/unwilling to surround the franchise’s greatest player with even serviceable teammates. Though his time as VP of Basketball Operations had been over with since midseason, Kahn decided that the team needed to rid itself of his services entirely. I’d say this is a brilliant move: distance the team from its unsuccessful past while endearing yourself to the fan base by getting rid of their villain.

The start of a new beginning

The next step revolved around the draft. The Wolves entered the 2009 NBA Draft with four first-round picks: one from their 08-09 record, two from previous trades, and one from Kahn getting rid of core players Randy Foye and Mike Miller. If you’re starting a major rebuilding project, a gluttony of early draft picks is a great way to begin. On top of that, Kahn was getting rid of failed McHale-era players and basically starting from scratch. With their picks, the team selected the draft’s most marketable player (Rubio), a stud point guard (Flynn), another talented point guard (Lawson), and a deadly three-point shooter (Ellington). They then traded Lawson for an additional 2010 first-round pick (likely giving them three total in next year’s draft). While the results on the court are yet to be determined, you’d have to say that the draft was a success. The team got the new potential face of the franchise in Rubio, and a couple of young guns who will get plenty of playing time to prove their merit. They also rid themselves of anything linking the “new” Wolves with anything from their unsuccessful past. Additionally, they set themselves up to add a lot more young talent in next year’s draft.

A concern for all NBA teams

As a fan, I would have been very content if that was the end of our offseason movement. But Kahn’s plan was not over yet. Sure, he’d cleaned house and was starting anew with a very young team, but that’s only one side of running an NBA franchise. The other side deals with money. One problem that a ton of franchises have is that they’ve paid too much money for inferior players and are in risk of having to pay a luxury tax because of it. Kahn (wisely) decided that a team that struggles to get fans to come to games and sell season tickets probably shouldn’t be wasting its money on luxury taxes. So he dumped serviceable players such as Sebastian Telfair, Craig Smith, Mark Madsen, and Etan Thomas (acquired in the Foye/Miller trade) for Quentin Richardson, Damien Wilkins, and Chucky Atkins—all of whom have bad contracts that expire after the season and free up a lot of money for the team to sign free agents (be them their own or others). While these aren’t front page/SportsCenter type moves, they are intelligent and necessary for properly running a franchise (something McHale never quite figured out).

Crunch will lead us in the right direction

So are the Wolves done making moves? Is Kahn is eyeing a couple of free agents that he’s hoping to sign on the cheap (or use the mid-level exception on) or planning on bringing in some veteran presence to have off the bench and mentor the Timberpups? Are there more cap-friendly moves on the way? Will he be able to work out a deal and get Rubio to come and be the new face of the franchise? Most importantly, will any of this actually work? Only time will give us the answers to these questions. What we do know is that Hurricane Kahn has swept through a doormat of a franchise that was loaded with bad contracts and underachieving players and has left in its wake a young (albeit rebuilding) franchise that is monetarily sound and set to add more young talent in the future. And I, for one, am excited about the direction this franchise is moving.

That Time of Year

2009-07-20T15:55:00.006-05:00

The Major League Baseball trade deadline awaits less than two weeks from now. As in any sport, the deadline is a big deal on two fronts: one, which (if any) big name players will be moved? And two, what moves can “my” team make to elevate us into the playoffs? Maybe it’s because I’m such a homer when it comes to the Twins, but every year I feel like we are one move away from winning the division and/or having playoff success. Two years ago I was sure that we needed a powerful right-handed bat in the middle of our order to put us over the top, which is why I wrote about the virtues of Dimitri Young (a bit ridiculous in hindsight). Last year, I just knew that one more dominant arm in the bullpen would make all the difference in the world and get us into the postseason, which is why I opined about a trade for Brian Fuentes (given his stats this year, that one looks legit). Once again in 2009, I think one move could make the difference in the Twins winning the Central Division, and that move is to get a high average, quality defensive middle infielder. As it just so happens, one of those has been rumored to be on the block over the last couple weeks: Freddy Sanchez.

The yearly final piece of the puzzle

For those of you who don’t know, Sanchez is currently the second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates. As the 2006 NL batting champ, he brings a much needed presence to the Twins lineup. So far this year the Twins have trotted out Alexi Casilla, Nick Punto, and Matt Tolbert as their second baseman. Not one of those guys is hitting above .225 and they are all relatively average when it comes to defense (or completely overrated, as is the case with LNP). For the first time in years, the Twins lineup is legitimately dangerous—save for one spot basically. The team has Span, Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, and Cuddyer all hitting around or above .300. They have quality, albeit streaky, hitters at the bottom of the lineup (Harris, Crede, and Gomez—who’s been on a tear the last couple weeks). What’s missing is the bridge that connects our leadoff hitter (Span) from the big boys in the middle of the lineup. For some reason, Gardenhire insists on hitting guys like Casilla and Tolbert there, despite their awful batting average and on base percentage. Adding a hitter of Sanchez’s ability would give the Twins one of the most complete lineups in all of baseball.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2006 NL Batting Champion

As previously mentioned, Sanchez won the NL batting title two years ago, and is hitting .313 this year with an on-base percentage of .353 and he is slugging .471—not bad for a second baseman. Having his bat in the two hole would make a huge difference in our run scoring potential. Now, when Span gets on, you have a legitimate threat behind him. Or if he happens to get out, you have a guy who will find a way to be on base for Mauer and Morneau. To some, his presence might not seem like much, but when you’ve watched as many Twins games as I have, you realize the huge difference it would make.

On top of his outstanding ability at the plate (definitely his biggest asset), Freddy, a 3 time all star by the way, is a top tier defensive player. He is part of a Pirate infield that has a combined for 100 double plays this year—second most in the majors this year. Pairing him up with Harris (or occasionally Punto) up the middle would shore up a relatively weak defensive infield. Don’t let Dick Bremer fool you; this team is not as sound defensively as Twins teams in recent years. All in all, Freddy Sanchez is the perfect player to add to the roster and make the Twins the favorites in the AL Central.

An outstanding double play combo

Of course, as with any trade scenario, it isn’t as easy as simply finding a player that would work well on your team and getting him. First, he has to be available. This seems increasingly more likely with each passing day. The Pirates have been clearing house for the better part of two seasons (see: Bay, Jason; Nady, Xavier; McClouth, Nate; Morgan, Nyjer). They had initially said that they would like to keep Sanchez and Wilson as the cornerstones of their franchise. However just the other day, both players rejected contract extension offers from Pittsburgh. If the team is afraid they are going to lose him to free agency and get nothing in return, they’ll be far more likely to deal him. The second obstacle is the assets you’ll have to give up to obtain such a high caliber player. Even though recent transactions make it seem like you don’t really have to give up much to get the top players from the Pirates organization, you do still have to give them something in return (the days of TR fleecing teams seems to be over). Unfortunately the Twins farm system is seriously lacking in talent these days. So what are the options? Well, if there’s one thing that the Twins have the other teams covet, it’s young starting pitching. All five of our starters are under the age of 28, and we have guys like Duensing, Mulvey, and Swarzak who could likely step in and fair pretty well in a starting role. So if you could build a package around a guy like Glen Perkins (a young, left-handed starter who seems likely to leave anyways) with a couple of prospects, you would seem to have the makings of a potential deal. Yet there is a third aspect to making this trade that needs to be considered as well—money. Sanchez is going to be a free agent in 2 years and will command a pretty decent amount of money considering his ability and the position he plays. The Twins have already committed a sizeable amount of money to keeping guys like Scott Baker, Joe Nathan, and Justin Morneau, not to mention the giant contract they’re going to have to give Joe Mauer soon. Can we really afford to pay Sanchez? If not, are we ok with getting rid of a 26 year old starting pitcher for 1 ½ seasons of Freddy? Those are the questions the organization must ask itself.

If he has to leave to get us an All Star 2B, so be it

Obviously as a fan, I’d say it’s worth it. Even if we don’t end up keeping Sanchez long term, he gives us the best chance to win in the next year or two. Plus, there’s always the chance that he’ll love playing here (players constantly rave about how much they love the clubhouse and atmosphere in Minnesota) and want to continue to do so. And if that happens, there’s the pipedream possibility that his current teammate, best buddy, and shortstop Jack Wilson will want to join him here too (they’ve both said they’d like to play together for their entire careers). Of course that’s way too optimistic of a viewpoint considering we are talking about a Minnesota sports team here. Realistically though, I’d still pull the trigger if possible. Make the team as competitive as possible for as long as you can, even if that’s only a couple of seasons. It only takes one magical run to bring a title to a town that hasn’t seen one in 18 years…

A Smorgasbord of Sports

2009-07-16T15:36:00.007-05:00

Ok, so there’s not much of an introduction needed. Yesterday (the 15th) was the worst day of the year for sports fans. It’s the only day of the year where there isn’t a major sporting event taking place. It’s a day that drives me into depression and drinking. Due to this lack of relevant sporting news, here are a few tidbits that will have to suffice as “news” until we get back into the swing of things this weekend. Be warned: this is the first ever post on TK that includes NASCAR and poker. Told you it was a slow week.

• According to ESPN.com’s Marc Stein (so take it with a grain of salt), the Wolves have narrowed their coaching search to three candidates: ESPN NBA analyst Mark Jackson, Lakers assistant Kurt Rambis, and Rockets assistant Elston Turner (though there are rumors that Dallas assistant Terry Stotts is still in the mix). If this is true, and that’s a big if, I would prefer Rambis. He’s a big name, he’s been a head coach (albeit briefly), and he is/was being considered for the Lakers head gig. That should be enough right there. I guess as long as it isn’t Jackson, I’ll be fine with the choice. Because if Mark Jackson can get an NBA head coaching job, then so can I. Hey, I used to play in high school. I watch NBA games and analyze them (in my head) all the time. Those are basically the qualifications he has and I’ve actually coached basketball for the last 10 years, so I’d say I have a leg up on him. Maybe I’ll send my resume over to Target Center tomorrow…

• One story that has received a ton of national media attention is the contract that the Kansas City Chiefs gave to their newly acquired quarterback, Matt Cassel. After trading for him from New England prior to this spring’s draft, the team now has signed him to a 6 year, $63 million deal, with $28 million guaranteed. For some reason, this has sent many experts and analysts into a tizzy. Sure, it’s roughly the same amount that the Ravens just gave Terrell Suggs, a 6-time Pro Bowl linebacker. But everyone knows that QB’s get paid more than any other position in the league. And I know that he’s only done it one year, with a very good team, blah blah blah. The fact is that he has actually performed well in the NFL—unlike, say, Matt Stafford, who got a 6 year, $78 million ($41.7 million guaranteed) deal and he hasn’t even taken one snap yet. Look, the point is that all sports contracts are ridiculous and it’s high time that we stopped talking about them, because that’s never going to change.

• Yesterday the Twins made a roster move to add a 12th pitcher for their upcoming 10 game road trip to start off the second half of the year. I like the idea of the move a lot. With the overload our bullpen has already endured, and is likely to be burdened with during this stretch, having another arm available is the smart thing to do. As usual, though, the execution of the move is something I disagree with. The team called up Kevin Mulvey (one of the spare parts we got in the Johan deal) who, despite his 3-6 record, is having a decent season and has an ERA under 4. The problem I have is that we sent down Jose Morales…again. What does this kid have to do to stay up with the big club? In his multiple call-ups this year, Morales is hitting .343 with adequate defense behind the plate. Apparently this is not as good as Mike Redmond’s .236 average and inability to throw out even the slowest of runners. It’s widely known that Gardy plays favorites (just one of my many issues with him)—see Punto, Nick and Cuddyer, Mike—and Red Dog is one of them. The fact is that he’s no longer a capable backup and the team needs to move on and keep Morales up. Who knows, if he keeps hitting well, they could possibly deal him and get something valuable in return.

• I saw a note in the paper yesterday that Antoine Walker is wanted in Vegas for over $800,000 in gambling debts. It was over $1 million, but he has paid off roughly $200,000 of it. The debt comes from a series of bad checks that Walker apparently wrote to Caesar's Palace, Planet Hollywood (they still exist?), and the Red Rock Resort. First of all, this is a guy who in his NBA career earned roughly $110 million. Now he's having trouble writing checks that won't bounce? Second, who still writes checks? Hasn't Employee #8 learned from Randy Moss that rich people don't write checks? Get with the times.

• If there’s one thing that the local media is good at, it’s taking small, relatively useless notes and turning them into big stories. Call it the Favre Method of writing. This has been on display for quite some time now with the possibility of seeing #4 in purple, and now it’s permeated itself into the Timberwolves. It seems that any minor bit of news or quote about Ricky Rubio is suddenly front page news over the last few weeks. All it does is lead to confusion. Take yesterday, when it was “reported” that Rubio apparently isn’t opposed to coming to Minnesota and that the only thing keeping him from being here already is his buyout in Spain. This, of course, is not news, because everyone has known this was going to be a major hurdle since well before the draft. Basically, you should treat the Rubio situation the same way as the Favre situation: until something definitively happens one way or another, it’s best to just ignore everything else.

• There is a disturbing trend popping up in sports over the last few weeks: athlete/woman relationship issues. While this is by no means a new phenomenon, it seems to have increased in volume recently. It started with Steve McNair, who was shot and killed by his 20 year old mistress. While it is an incredibly sad story, it does show the dangers that can befall athletes who partake in extra marital affairs. Then, a couple weeks later, came the story of the boxer Arturo Gatti, who was stabbed and strangled to death by his wife. On a bit lighter side, NBA star Richard Jefferson abruptly canceled his $2 million wedding just days before it was to take place—only he forgot to tell most of the guests about his decision. Now today, there’s a note in the paper that former Viking Hassan Jones was arrested on domestic assault charges. To quote Vince Lombardi, “What the hell is going on out there?!”

• I don’t play, follow, or especially like the game (not sport) of poker. That said, there’s a lot of buzz being generated by the fact that Phil Ivey, arguably the best player in the world, has made it to the Final 9 of the World Series of Poker. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t get too fired up over this. It says a lot about your “sport” when the best player actually makes it to the final of your biggest event and everyone goes nuts. Shouldn’t he be doing this all the time? Can you imagine if everyone told you that Tiger Woods was the best golfer in the world, but he only got into the final group of the Master’s once in his career? Ridiculous. Besides, the final table doesn’t start until November, so there’s absolutely no reason to care right now.

• In case you care, the All-Star Game on Tuesday was predictably boring. The AL won 4-3. Some guys pitched for one inning, some guys hit once, and some guys didn’t play. It was enthralling.

• Let’s get one thing straight—I hate NASCAR. I know that there’s skill required and that I could never do what they do, but it’s not a sport and it’s one of the most boring events on the planet. Despite all of that, I can’t help but to be fascinated by the Jeremy Mayfield story. The guy was suspended from racing for testing positive for methamphetamines, had the decision reversed by a judge, only test positive once again this week. What an idiot. Not only is he jeopardizing his life by being a meth head that drives a car 200 mph, but he’s endangering the lives of every other racer as well. He claims that NASCAR’s testing policy is terrible, but he doesn’t give details as to why. Then his step mother comes out and says that she’s seen him doing meth over 30 times in the past 10 years (and didn’t think it was a good idea to stop him). Mayfield fires back by saying that she killed his father in 2007 (which has already been ruled a suicide). Highly entertaining.

• Just when it seemed like Kevin and Pat Williams were going to get off the hook for testing positive for a banned substance and not be suspended by the NFL, there was a new and intriguing twist to the story this week. The other three major sports leagues (NBA, MLB, NHL) have come to the NFL’s defense and tried to help them win their case, presumably because they don’t want this to set a precedent that will be followed in all leagues and hurt their drug testing policies. Personally, I’m with Shawn Bradley Guy of Deep Thoughts on MN Sports (deepthoughtsonmnsports.blogspot.com): these guys just need to take their punishment at the beginning of the season and get it over with. We can win at least three of those first four games without them. If they end up getting suspended during a more crucial stretch of the season or the post season, the reaction locally will not be good.

• The Philadelphia Phillies signed Pedro Martinez to a one year deal yesterday. The baseball world is acting like this is some sort of huge, pennant race altering move. I politely disagree. We’re talking about a guy who hasn’t had an ERA under 4.5 in three years, hasn’t pitched in a meaningful game other than the WBC all season, and was immediately placed on the 15 day DL upon his signing. Just because he used to be good doesn’t mean that this is an important signing (do you understand Vikings fans?).

• The British Open teed off this morning, and the early leaders include Miguel Angel Jiminez and Tom Watson, with guys such as Tom Lehman and John Daly just a few shots back. You gotta love this tournament; it's so completely wide open that I'm pretty sure I'd at least have an outside chance at making the cut (ok...maybe not me, but some friends of mine...naw, but you can imagine what it'd be like).

• Lastly, the Minnesota Wild released their 09-10 schedule and there are two important dates that immediately jump out. The first is October 30th, when Marian Gaborik returns to Minnesota. Though he’ll likely be on the DL, I hope he can at least make an appearance at the X for all of those fans he allegedly cares about. The second big game is January 2nd, when former Wild/current Devils coach Jacque Lemaire returns. I’m sure all of the puck heads who read this site are glad to know this information.

The Great Cuedini

2009-07-12T22:55:00.013-05:00

Despite what you might have gathered from my last post, I am actually quite a fan of all-star games and the festivities that surround them (which is why I was passionate enough to complain about it). This applies to every sport other than football because, well, the Pro Bowl sucks. Anyways, I thought I’d try my hand at this predicting thing that all of the analysts on TV seem to be so fond of. So without any further ado, I present to you predictions for Monday’s Home Run Derby and Tuesday’s All-Star Game, courtesy of The Great Cuedini (wow that’s a lame made up name).

Home Run Derby

First of all, let me make the easiest prediction of all time: the National League will absolutely destroy the American League as far as total home runs go. A player by player breakdown:

Brandon Inge (DET): Great ball player, can play just about any position in the field 1-9, having an absolutely stellar first half, received the most votes ever for an American League player in the Final Vote. There, now that’s out of the way. Every year there’s one guy who just can find his swing and/or handle the pressure. This year, that guy is Inge. Predicted finish: 8th (0 HR’s).

Adrian Gonzalez (SD): Despite the oversaturation of stories about Adrian (he had features written about him in SI and ESPN the Magazine, along with being profiled on SportsCenter/Baseball Tonight in the last couple weeks), I really like him as a baseball player. That said, he will not perform well in this contest. Much like a local catcher, most of his power comes from driving the ball to the opposite field—not the best strategy for a home run hitting contest. Predicted finish: 7th (2 HR’s).

Prince Fielder (MIL): Without fail, there always seems to be one slugger whom everyone thinks is going to perform well in this contest and then falls flat on their face. That leads to the awkward conversation with Stuart Scott on the field where the guy claims to just be happy to be allowed to participate (which is BS). That guy will be Fielder on Monday. Predicted finish: T5th (3 HR’s).

Joe Mauer (MIN): I’m sorry, but there’s no way I can predict that Mauer, with his career high 15 HR’s at the break, will do well in this competition, no matter what his teammates try to tell us. He just doesn’t have a home run swing and the dimensions in St. Louis (375’ to left and right, 400’ to center) do not help him at all. Mark my words, in about 2 weeks you’ll be reading an article in the Star Tribune about how the Derby messed up Baby Jesus’ swing when his average drops 15 points. Predicted finish: T5th (3 HR’s).

Carlos Pena (TB): I was very glad to see that Pena was named as Dustin Pedroia’s replacement for the All-Star Game. For one, I think he was more deserving than Inge for that final spot anyways, and two, it gave the AL an actual home run hitter in the competition. He will rake in the first round, but run out of steam in the second. Predicted finish: 4th (7 HR’s in the first round, 1 in the second).

Albert Pujols (STL): Ah yes, the hometown hero. Al has two major advantages over the rest of the field: he’s hitting in his home ballpark, and he’s the best power hitter in the game. Those two facts will lead him to an impressive first round, followed by an unspectacular and disappointing second round. Predicted finish: 3rd (15 HR’s in the first round, 3 in the second).

Nelson Cruz (TEX): Whoooooo? All I know about this guy is that he has 20 HR’s at the break and plays for Texas—a very hitter friendly park. Since everyone and their mother is predicting Pujols to win this thing, I feel like I need to go out on a limb and either boast my ass off on Tuesday or live with the shame of a terrible call. So here’s my bold prediction: he’ll surprise people by making it to the finals. There won’t be a spectacular round that everyone will remember, but he’ll be consistent enough to fall just short in the final round. Predicted finish: 2nd (9 HR’s in the first round, 6 in the second, 4 in the third).

Ryan Howard (PHI): This is by no means a bold prediction. But Howard has experience and, more importantly, past success in this contest. Plus, lefties always seem to fair better in the Derby than righties. I just get this feeling that he’s going to put on a show from round one through the finals. Predicted finish: 1st (12 HR’s in the first round, 10 in the second, 7 in the third).

All-Star Game

Who effing cares? This “game” is worthless and usually boring. But make sure you stay glued to your TV so that you can see (enter home team representative here) get a chance to show he belongs with the best of the best in baseball (which he doesn’t). Hooray. Final score: 7-4 National League.

All-Star Issues

2009-07-08T22:52:00.005-05:00

On Sunday afternoon the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star rosters were released, which brings up the yearly exercise of complaining about guys who made the roster but shouldn’t have, guys who didn’t make the roster but should have, one team having too many players, etc. It gave me an opportunity to bemoan the fact that pitching wins are incredibly useless, but still used as a barometer for success and play way too big of a factor in determining things like All-Star roster spots (which would explain why Nick Blackburn wasn’t even considered for the team). However, today I’m going with a different approach. I have a couple of issues with the MLB All-Star game format and festivities that I want to get off my chest.

ISSUE #1
I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to have a problem with the Mid-Summer Classic, but the problems need to be voiced as often as possible until they get it figured out at least a little bit. The main issue I have is that Major League Baseball is the only professional sports league that doesn’t view its all-star game as an exhibition. Every other league uses this game as a way to showcase their best players (or 5th best players in the NFL’s Pro Bowl) in an entertaining, fan-friendly format. Not baseball.

First, let’s start with the fact that the rosters aren’t even made up of the best players from each league. Oh sure, they want you to believe that they are, but that’s definitely not the case thanks to the rule that every team has to be represented. Why? If your team is so bad that not one player is deserving of a spot on a 30 man roster of the best players from your league, then so be it Maybe this will cause more outrage among fans to pressure their owner to spend more money or for MLB to impose a much needed salary cap. Sure, this could lead to a team of 15 Yankees and 15 Red Sox, (again, a salary cap issue) but if those are the best players in the league, then they should be the ones playing in the game.

The “every team gets a guy” rule is like the “every player has to play 3 innings” rule in Little League, only the latter one makes sense because you’re talking about small children, not (supposedly) the best players on the planet. This rule is why you can start a sentence “Former All-Star Ron Coomer…” and have it be factual, rather than sarcastic like it should be.

That's MR. Former All-Star to you, buddy

Is Major League Baseball really that naïve as to think that fans in Atlanta are only watching the All-Star Game because they’ll get a chance to see Brian McCaan get one at bat in the 6th inning, only to be replaced by a pinch runner? C’mon.

As I said before, this exhibition is, by definition, supposed to be an entertaining showcase of the best of the best from your sport. It should look more like the NHL and NBA all-star games, which usually feature tons of highlight reel plays and little or no defense. This game should always finish with a score like 17-14, not 3-2. Of course that kind of thing would never happen because Bud Selig’s brain trust decided that it would be a great idea to make the game “count” and give the winner home field advantage in the World Series. Yes, how your league fairs in this game could determine whether or not you win the ultimate title in the sport. Brilliant.

As it stands now, you hurt the game with this rule on so many levels. First, you’re giving fans the opportunity to alter the final outcome of your sport: if they vote in terrible players, that league loses home field, which is HUGE in baseball. Second, you make being the All-Star Game manager the least enviable position, when it should be considered an honor. With so much on the line, those guys are under a ton of scrutiny. Did they overuse some team’s star pitcher? Did they play someone out of position and cause an injury or shake their confidence? Manager of an all-star game should be an honorary title, and not an actual job.

Not it to be the AL All-Star Manager

So how do we fix all of this? Pretty easily, actually. First, get rid of the rule that every team needs to be represented. You can still have fan voting determine the starters, though. They may not get it right all of the time, but this game is supposed to be for them, so let them watch who they want. Then you still have the managers and players decide who should fill in the rest of the roster spots. The second thing you do is have home field advantage in the World Series go to the team with the best overall record at the end of the year. I know this may sound shocking, but it’s actually a good idea to reward a team for being the best over a 162 game season. Those two very simple changes would make the game twice as good instantly.

ISSUE #2
Ok, so admittedly this isn’t as big of a deal as the problems with the actual game, but why isn’t there some sort of skills competition during the all-star break? I know, I know: there’s the Home Run Derby, possibly the most hyped skill competition this side of the Slam Dunk Contest. But should there be more? Aren’t you trying to showcase all of the talented players in your sport? What about the guys who don’t hit for a ton of power (or those who don’t hit at all)? Where is their chance to show off?

It doesn't look like much, but at least he gets a chance to show off his skills

In the NHL and NBA, they have a day where all different types of players have a chance to show the world what they do best. Hockey has events like fastest skater, hardest slapshot, shoot accuracy, and so on. The NBA has contests for point guards skills, three-point shooting, and the aforementioned dunking ability. Why not have a skills competition on the Monday of the All-Star Break (yes, MLB, you can even televise it and make money)? You could have competitions for speed (fastest around the bases), pitching accuracy, outfield throwing accuracy, etc. and still cap it all of with the HR Derby. You can even make it open to all players, not just All-Stars. That way when Pittsburgh doesn’t get a player in the actual game, the organization can still take solace in the fact that Andrew McCutchen wins the title of fastest player in the league.

This all seems so simple to me. Can someone explain why any of these things are even issues still? Am I just that much more intelligent than the people running Major League Baseball? Figure it out.

Don't Let the Doorknob Hit You...

2009-07-05T11:08:00.006-05:00

Wednesday was the first day of free agency for both the NBA and NHL and—if you’re a regular reader of TK, you’ll be surprised where this is going—it was a very big day…for the Wild. Yes, even with my limited knowledge (and interest for that matter) of hockey I realized that Wednesday was a symbolic day in the transformation of the Team of 18,000.

For the first time in the franchise’s short history, there will be a new general manager and coach for the Minnesota Wild. Add to that a new owner who has only owned the team for just over a year, and you have a complete regime change over at the Xcel Energy Center. However, the overhaul wasn’t fully complete until Wednesday. That’s when Marion Gaborik, the team’s last original member and the only superstar in franchise history, bolted to New York with a 5 year, $37.5 million deal.

There is a 90% chance that Gabby injured his groin on this play

At first I was a bit perturbed about the signing (not being a true fan, I couldn’t actually be angry or even mildly upset about it). I naively thought that we actually had a decent chance of retaining him. All of the reports I had read said that he had a problem with the way management had treated him, especially during his most recent injury. Well, with everyone who was once in power gone, I thought we could convince him to stay with the team that drafted him and buy into the new high octane offense that new GM Chuck Fletcher and Coach Todd Richards have promised.

But that was not to be. As soon as it was legally possibly, Gabby got on his horse and got the eff out of dodge. The hastiness with which he signed, along with the price rubbed me the wrong way. Here was the franchise leader in just about every offensive category bolting town for $7.5 million per, when less than a year ago he turned down the Wild’s offer of 10 years, $78.5 million (that’s $7.85 million per for the math majors out there).

Well you know what? We don’t need ya.

No rebuilding project is complete without completely gutting everything and everyone (just ask the Wolves). That includes oft-injured (he played in only 207 games in his Wild career, while missing 121), overrated (frustration), whiny ass wingers. It’s time for a change and we don’t need that kind of attitude on our squad or in our clubhouse. Besides, we’ve got Pierre Marc-Bouchard, Mikko Koivu (and likely his brother Saku soon), Josh Harding, and newly signed Martin Havlat to lead the charge into the new era of Wild hockey.

It's the dawn of a new era in the State of Hockey

So, as the old saying goes, don’t let the doorknob hit you on the ass on your way out, Marian (isn’t that a girl’s name anyways?).

What Now?

2009-07-01T21:06:00.006-05:00

It’s been almost a week since the NBA draft. In that time, I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around everything that went down and, to be honest, I (like many others) am still thoroughly confused with the Timberwolves picks. Coming into the night, I was extremely optimistic and downright giddy. We had rid ourselves of the perceived cancer and draft destroyer, Kevin McHale. We had six picks to infuse talent into a completely overhauled roster and take a giant step in the makeover that new VP of Basketball Operations David Kahn had promised. Then, in the course of about two hours, I went from optimistic to…well, I don’t know what I feel. Some combination of shocked, confused, disappointed, and angry.

The biggest reason for optimism started at the top of the draft. The Wolves held two of the top six picks in the draft. Depending on how picks 2-4 played out (with Griffin the obvious #1), we were going to have a lot of options to possibly rebuild our now nonexistent backcourt. I know everyone was saying that this was one of the weaker draft classes in recent history, but you have to like your team’s odds when they have picks five and 6—unless your team is the Minnesota Timberwolves.

In true Minnesota fashion, the draft could not have unfolded worse prior to our picks. In my personal best case scenario, the Wolves would have been able to select Tyreke Evans and their choice of point guard from Jonny Flynn, Ty Lawson, Jrue Holiday, etc. I figured that even in the worst case scenario we’d be able to take one of those guards with James Harden and at least fill a need. But then, in the bat of an eye, Thabeet, Harden, and Evans were all gone and the Wolves were left standing with a horde of point guards available—and not much else. The best available player was Ricky Rubio. Despite my personal concerns about the hype surrounding him, the pick made sense (although I had no idea just how much he didn’t want to play here).

Minnesota's first superstar since KG or yet another draft blunder?

Sitting on the clock at 6, I had to assume we were in multiple trade talks. Whether it was to trade Rubio, whom many teams coveted, and take a different point guard, or to trade the 6 pick, I assumed we were making a deal. I was wrong. The Wolves went with Jonny Flynn, the point guard out of Syracuse. We had just taken two point guards with top 6 picks. Everyone in the house, on the radio, on ESPN, hell, just everyone was confused. Surely a trade was coming now.

Then Mr. Kahn got on the radio and told all of the Timberwolves faithful (both of them) that we were in fact keeping both players. He saw Flynn as more of a scoring guard with Rubio being the orchestra conductor and believed they would fit in and play together nicely. All of that is well and good except for the fact that our new “scoring” guard is 5’11”. I thought this had to all be smoke while he worked out a deal. You know, not giving away anything while the details were still being worked out. Yet here we are a week later and nothing has happened.

Great pick, but is he a "scoring" guard?

Well, I shouldn’t say nothing has happened. We have learned that young Mr. Rubio wants absolutely nothing to do with this state or this franchise. Awesome. The first correct, promising, talented draft pick we’ve had since Kevin Garnett thinks it’s too cold in Minnesota (someone’s been talking to Stephon Marbury apparently). Now the rumors are flying around: he’s going to stay in Spain for at least 1-2 more years, he’s going to sign with a team in Turkey, he’s going to get traded, and so on. Well, this sucks. I mean, if we have to trade him, then so be it; just as long as we get equal value for him. That doesn’t seem likely to happen as the only team rumored to be talking to the Wolves are the New York Knicks. The deal I hear most often has David Lee and Nate Robinson coming here (possibly with a pick) for Ricky. Um, no thanks. We already have a 5’11” shooting guard, we don’t need a 5’7” point guard (Robinson). I, like most Minnesota fans, assume that this is going to end badly.

Let’s not focus on the negative anymore. There was some good that came from the 2009 Draft. With the 18th overall pick, the Wolves selected Ty Lawson from North Carolina. And before everyone could get too worried about us drafting a third point guard, we quickly traded him to Denver for a first round draft pick in 2010 (originally belonging to Charlotte). This really didn’t strike me as a great move until I read Kahn’s open letter to the fans in the next day’s paper. In his page long rant, he explained that the team didn’t really see anyone they liked at that spot, especially not anyone they wanted to give guaranteed money to, so they shopped and eventually traded the pick to continue to stock up for the future. I loved the honesty in that statement, and it restored a little bit of hope in me that Kahn might actually have a small clue what he is doing.

Ellington couldn't have fallen into a better situation

With our fourth and final pick in the first round, the Wolves selected Wayne Ellington, also of North Carolina fame. I like this pick. He has a very good chance to be a solid NBA player—most likely a role player (shooter), but a good player nonetheless—even if I am wary of UNC players after the Rashad McCants Experiment. The second round went off in fairly uneventful fashion. We selected Nick Calathes out of Florida (a player I really like), and then promptly traded him to Dallas. Then we took one of Rubio’s teammates from Spain (a guy named Henk), who will probably never see a minute of NBA action.

So where do we go from here? Unfortunately, that question will go unanswered for some time. Until the Rubio situation gets settled, it’s tough to grade out the Wolves draft. We did get two solid players (Flynn and Ellington), as well as a 2010 first round pick, along with saving some money. I know people don’t want to hear this now, but stockpiling for next year’s draft isn’t the worst idea. As of right now, we are very likely to have three first round picks once again, with two second rounders again. Now I can’t promise we’ll do anything good with those picks, but many NBA experts are predicting that the ’10 draft class will be one of the better ones of late (depending on underclassmen that come out, obviously). When you’re a team in major rebuilding mode like the Timberwolves, potentially stocking up on young talent is the best way to try and contend once again.

As far as Rubio goes, I’m going to stay optimistic. If you’ll recall, two years ago Yi Jianlian from China did not want to play for Milwaukee. Then the two sides sat down, talked it out rationally, and negotiated a deal (Sure, he was traded a year later, but that's beside the point). I’m not sold on the two point guard system, but I’ll take our chances and hope that at least one of them turns out to be a legit pro. That said, this story is definitely “To Be Continued…”

6-18-28-45-47

2009-06-23T15:32:00.010-05:00

If you are familiar with the television show Lost, you know that there is a series of numbers (4-8-15-16-23-42) that continually show up in various situations that seem to hold the key to all of the craziness that happens on and around that island. Similarly, there are a series of numbers that hold the key to the future of the Minnesota Timberwolves: 6-18-28-45-47. These are the five draft picks that the Wolves currently hold for Thursday’s NBA Draft.

5 picks in this year's draft could be the beginning of a new regime

As a team that has missed the playoffs for four consecutive years (a streak likely to continue for at least one more season), has only 2 consistent assets (Love and Jefferson), and has been quickly losing its fan base, the 2009 draft is easily the most important draft in the history of the franchise thus far. Five picks in one draft can bring in a wealth of talent to a ballclub, especially when three of those are first rounders. What follows is a breakdown of potential picks at each of the five positions we currently hold. Obviously this is extremely subject to change, as it seems incredibly unlikely that the Wolves will hold on to all five.

The Wolves first selection is the 6th overall pick in the draft. Obviously this is the most important one, as it is likely to involve the most talented, NBA-ready player of the five picks. There has been much discussion lately about whether the team will try to move up in the draft, or sit tight at 6. Rumors surrounding this pick have been rampant: Al Jeff and the 6 for Amare Stoudemire (terrible idea), Kevin Love and the 6 for the 2 pick (awful), and so on. Rather than try to guess what kind of wheeling and dealing new VP David Kahn will do, let’s break down some of the players who might be available.

Not only the Best Available, but possibly just The Best

In a perfect world, UCONN’s Hasheem Thabeet would fall into the Wolves’ lap at 6. He is the perfect shot-blocking, defensive-minded compliment to Jefferson. Plus, there is a wealth of guards available in this draft, and the Wolves could theoretically use their next two picks on guards to compliment Corey Brewer, Randy Foye, and company. Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world, so barring a trade, this will never happen. If I had my choice of guys who are likely to be available at 6, I’d take Tyreke Evans out of Memphis. A 6-5 shooting guard who can absolutely fill it up is exactly the kind of player the Wolves need (and have never had). Unfortunately, his stock seems to be rising quickly, and it is likely that he’ll be gone by the time we pick (or worse, we’ll pass over him for someone else).

The 6th pick in the draft, or will he be gone?

There are three players who have been slotted to the Wolves in various mock drafts more than any others leading up to Thursday night: James Harden (Arizona State), Demar DeRozen (USC), and Stephen Curry (Davidson). Personally, I want nothing to do with any of them. Harden was a streaky player (at best) at ASU and a lack of work ethic is something that follows you to any level you play at, and won’t cut it in the League. DeRozen is a poor man’s OJ Mayo who, after being the consensus #1 high school player in the country, showed very little of that brilliance as a freshman for the Trojans. USC is notorious for developing shoot-first, stat-driven guards (Mayo, Harold Miner, etc.) who do very little to improve NBA teams. Everyone sucks Curry’s Popsicle because of all the hype he and ESPN created. Yes, he had a great tournament two years ago. Yes, he’s a fantastic college shooter. However, can he handle the rock in the League? Can he create his own shot? Can he play a lick of defense? I don’t have an answer for those very important questions, which is why I’m very wary of him and would not be ecstatic if the Wolves took him at 6. Two other names to look for in this spot: Ty Lawson (UNC)—a poor man’s Ray Felton, who would be a ridiculous reach here, and Jonny Flynn (Syracuse)—in my opinion, a tough PG with a lot of potential; risk-reward type pick.

The 18 pick is far more subjective and far less easy to project. Whereas with the 6 pick, you know that you’ll be getting one of the top ten prospects, 18 is much more difficult to predict. As you start to move through the middle of the draft, there are many surprises that shake everything up. A team might really covet a player and draft him 5 or 6 spots earlier than he was projected, thus changing the way the following teams will pick. There are many more trades in this area of the draft as well. All of this leads to quite a bit of uncertainty about the Wolves second first-round pick.

A sight hopefully coming to Target Center soon

The other contributing factor is the 6 pick. The guy drafted there will greatly affect who gets taken at 18 (and for the rest of the picks as well). For instance, if the Wolves move up and grab a guy like Thabeet, then 18 HAS to be a guard, preferably of the point variety. If they take Evans at 6, then 18 is a bit of a crap shoot. You could still go after a talented point guard if one that you like falls to you. You could also go after a hybrid 3 guard such as Austin Daye (Gonzaga), Earl Clark (Louisville), or Sam Young (Pittsburgh). It would also make sense to look at any potential centers in this situation as well. Of course if we take BJ Mullens (Ohio St.) here, a McHale-like move, I will set my hair on fire. Then again, if you take a point with the 6, then 18 should be a big man, unless you like one of the aforementioned swing guards.

Personally, I’d like to see us take Evans at 6, and then go after a guy like Young at 18. I feel like there will be some quality point guards available at the end of the first round (more on that in a second), and you have your scorer, plus a project, risk-reward type talent at the 3, just in case Brewer turns out to be a bust (likely). Sure, that means that you don’t get the big man that you covet/need, but you can always look at free agency or a trade (such at the rumored Mike Miller for Chris Kaman or Marcus Camby deal).

Much like the 18 pick, 28 also depends a lot on what moves other teams make, who falls to you, and what positions/players you have already drafted. There can be gems found in the latter part of the first round if you scout well enough, especially overseas. Though it’s highly unlikely that the Wolves hold on to both 18 and 28, we’ll look at some possibilities with this pick, just for argument’s sake.

NBL--Natural Born Leader

It is my belief that the Timberwolves should wait until the end of the first round (this pick) to go after a point guard. I know that guys like Lawson and Flynn are projected to go much higher, but I think there is talent available in this position, and there isn’t that much of a drop off in talent from those higher picks. The two guys I especially like that are projected to be available at 28 are Darren Collison (UCLA) and Patty Mills (St. Mary’s). Collison has been a leader and distributor on the last few UCLA teams, which have had a great deal of success. He has always seemed to understand exactly what the role of a point guard is—distribute the ball to your teammates in spaces where they can create/score, and occasionally keep the defense honest by taking it to the tin or hitting an open jump shot. He just strikes me as a natural leader who would fit perfectly with the other pieces of the puzzle we are trying to put together.

Mills, on the other hand, is a bit of an unknown commodity. First of all, he played at a school that does not get a lot of national media hype. Second, he injured his wrist and missed a large portion of the season last year. Nevertheless, from the times I have seen him, he looks like a natural scorer with an incredible touch from the outside. To me, he is a better, less heralded version of Steph Curry (who got more love than he deserved based on his dad and one tournament run). I’m not completely sold on his ability to run a team (which is why I like Collison better), but he’d be a great value pick at 28.

There is one other scenario for many teams picking at the end of the first round/beginning of the second: drafting a player from overseas and “stashing” him away for a couple years. There are some incredibly talented players over in Europe that could come in and contribute on an NBA team right away. Unfortunately, many of them are locked into unbreakable contracts for the next few years. They can, however, be drafted and have a team own their rights once they are able to sign. Many teams, especially those with cap problems, love this idea. They get a prospect that probably is just as likely to pan out as any college kid they could take, but they don’t have to pay any money until a couple years later. Under the McHale regime, this would be an absolute certainty to happen with the 28th pick this year. Now that most of the Country Club is gone, though, no one can be sure what will happen.

The second round of the NBA draft is a complete crapshoot. Not only to players taken in the second round rarely make a significant impact on teams, most of them won’t even make it out of training camp. The more intelligent and successful franchises use these picks to take a chance on an established college player who has already proven himself at that level. Teams like the Wolves usually use these picks to continue to take chances on “project” guys that have a very low probability of working out.

A guy that does this to Duke can play for the Wolves any day

If we still have picks 45 and 47 late Thursday night, I’d like to see us go after a couple of guys with established college careers. Preferably, it would be one post and one guard. Here are some guys that I like that are projected to be available at this point in the draft:
Danny Green—6’6” SF (North Carolina)
Dante Cunningham—6’8” SF (Villanova)
Jeff Adrien—6’7” PF (UCONN)
Curtis Jerrells—6’1” PG (Baylor)
Nick Calethes—6’5” G (Florida)

As I patiently wait for Thursday night (even I, a hardcore baseball fan, crave some variety in my sports watching during this time of year), I will constantly be listening to KFAN and reading all of the various sports, and especially basketball-heavy, websites to see if the Wolves have brokered some kind of deal to move up early in the draft, package pick together to move up in the middle of the draft, or made some other sort of deal with members of the current team: there’s nothing sports fans like more than speculation and rumors.

I’ll leave you with my Best Case draft list and my Worst Case draft list (assuming we keep and use all five picks):

Best Case Scenario: 6—Tyreke Evans, 18—Sam Young, 28—Darren Collison, 45—Curtis Jerrells, 47—Danny Green

Worst Case Scenario: 6—James Harden, 18—BJ Mullens, 28—European, 45—Jerel McNeal, 47—Wesley Matthews

***UPDATE: The Wolves have reportedly traded Randy Foye and Mike Miller to Washington for the 5th pick, Etan Thomas, Darius Songaila, and Oleksiy Pecherov (who?). My guess? We'll trade either the 5 or 6 pick, packaged with the 18 pick, to move up to #2 and grab Thabeet. Oh, and at least two, if not all three, of the throw in players will be cut. Regardless, this definitely solidifies my belief that this draft will make or break our franchise for the next 10 years.

Things Ron Gardenhire and I Don't Agree On

2009-06-16T12:40:00.017-05:00

For a very long time my baseball philosophy has clashed drastically with that of Twins manager Ron Gardenhire. His idea of how to use the players on my favorite team is very different than my idea (which matters a lot seeing as he’s the one with the job and I’m the one blogging about it). Some of these things have been mentioned on this site before, but I wanted to get everything into one list to finally air all of my grievances about the way the Twins are managed on a day to day basis.

1. Gardenhire’s love affair with Nick Punto.

Someone's getting a BIG hug in the dugout...

My dislike for Punto is well documented, so I won’t go into too much detail here. I just don’t understand how you can consistently put a player on the field that hits .200 and is average defensively night in and night out. It’s gotten to the point where I get physically angry when I see the man now.

2. The Lefty vs. Lefty thing.

Guaranteed this was off of a righty

Hey, I get it. Hitters fair much better when they face a pitcher of the opposite hand. But when you constantly alter your lineup when facing a left-handed pitcher, you do three things to hurt the team. One, you take some of your better hitters out of the game. Two, you hurt the confidence of the younger players. Three, you stunt the growth/maturation of your hitters. How is a left-handed hitter supposed to get any better against left-handed pitching when he’s never allowed to face it? Do you ever wonder why it has taken so long for Kubel to finally start to live up to the hype he got in the minors (other than the obvious knee injuries)? Or why our record against lefty pitchers is so terrible? Or why opposing teams can completely shut us down late in ballgames? It all comes back to the fear of allowing our left-handed hitters to consistently get at-bats against their southpaw brethren.

3. His late inning use of starting pitchers.

It's ok Bake--I would have taken you out sooner

I firmly believe there is no manager in the league who is worse at deciding when to pull his starting pitcher than Ron Gardenhire. Did you know (sponsored by Sports Center circa 2007) that the Twins have the 3rd longest active streak without a complete game from their starter? It’s almost as if Gardy has absolutely no feel for how well/poorly a guy is pitching. The only time he’ll let someone try to finish a game is when they have a shutout going. Blackburn could have given up 2 first inning runs and been lights out the rest of the game, but he’s coming out in the 8th (if not sooner) to give way to our vaunted bullpen. Conversely, Baker could be laboring through 8 innings, but if he hasn’t given up a run, Gardy will send him out there to get shelled in the 9th. For a guy who’s been in and around baseball as much as Ron has, you’d think at some point he’d develop a sense for how his starter is throwing that isn’t based on pitch count or runs given up.

4. His apparent ignorance of fielding statistics.

You gotta keep a glove like this in the lineup

Nick Punto’s fielding percentage this year is .971—good for 15th among American League shortstops who’ve played at least 15 games at the position. His Range Factor (putouts + assists/innings) is 4.39—that would be 13th among AL shortstops with at least 15 games. His Zone Rating (number of plays made/number of balls hit into his zone—compared to the average among all players for a plus/minus number) was 5.629—that puts him at 16th among all AL SS’s with at least 15 games played. Keep in mind that there are 14 teams in the American League…

5. The use/overuse of our bullpen.

The MOST common sight at Twins games for the last 3 years

Pat Neshek was really good—until he pitched every other day, blew his arm out, and has been out for two years. Matt Guerrier pitched in 149 games over the last two seasons and is currently the league leader in appearances for 2009. Jesse Crain, despite having an 8.51 ERA and allowing 11.2 hits per 9 innings, has appeared in 23 games this year. Luis Ayala has a 1.432 WHIP and a 10.7 H/9, yet he’s been in 26 games this year. The latter three guys are all in the top 20 for appearances this year (as is Joe Nathan).

6. His consistency (or lack thereof) of playing younger guys.

I don't care how far that ball goes, you're not playing tomorrow

Typical Gardy formula: call up a guy from the minors (usually a utility infielder), start him on his first day with the team, bat him second, bench him for the next week (other than pinch hitting or running) regardless of his performance, and send him back down. And people wonder why our prospects haven’t been panning out for the last number of years.

7. He finds Nick Punto attractive.

This is actually framed and hanging in Gardy's office

I mean, that’s the only way to explain his playing time, right?

8. His batting orders.

This is a far more common sight when he's hitting second in the order

For the last few years, Gardy has insisted on batting one of our 6 utility infielders in the 2 hole. He has decided that placing a .240 hitter in the middle of the few guys who actually hit well consistently is a great idea. I know this may come as a shock, but it has not worked. I realize that we have a number of light-hitting (to put it nicely) players most days, but I’d rather have them all get out in a row than have one of them kill any kind of rally that our best hitters could generate. Never has this been more obvious than this year. For a bulk of the year, Span, Mauer, Morneau, and Kubel have been hitting at least .300 (with Cuddyer close behind). And guess when we were hitting our best and having our most success of this young season? When they batted in that exact order. When it was happening, I was both amazed and confused. Could it be that Gardy had finally figured it out? Of course not. He reverted back to his old ways just a couple of weeks later and now, surprise, we’re struggling to hit consistently again.

9. His love of utility infielders.

There's nothing better than a light hitting infielder

The following is the list of infielders who have played for the Minnesota Twins since 2007 (2 + years) not named Justin Morneau: Alexi Casilla, Nick Punto, Brendan Harris, Joe Crede, Matt Tolbert, Brian Buscher, Mike Lamb, Adam Everett, Michael Cuddyer, Randy Ruiz, Matt Macri, Howie Clark, Luis Castillo, Jason Bartlett, Jason Tyner, Luis Rodriguez, Garrett Jones, Tommy Watkins, Josh Rabe, and Matt LeCroy. That’s 21 guys for four positions in a little over 2 years. Cool.

10. He thinks Nick Punto is good at baseball.

I am so tired of seeing this...

NBA Notes

2009-06-07T18:30:00.011-05:00

Ok, so with TK 2.0 starting up at the very end of the NBA season, there isn’t a whole ton of topics to cover that aren’t already covered by more mainstream media outlets. However, as I sit here watching Game 2 of the NBA Finals, I realized that I do have a few takes on some smaller League-related topics. So I give to you “Random Thoughts About Basketball—Mostly From The National Basketball Association Finals Playoffs Series, But Also Including Other Players Who Have Already Been Eliminated From Contention” (which is way too long, hence the shortened title above).

*Game 2 of the Finals is two days after Game 1, which is completely and utterly ridiculous. Everyone knows that the NBA Playoffs drag on and on, but the one smart thing they’ve done in recent years is to team ESPN and TNT together to bring us at least one game every single night from the beginning of the first round through the end of the Conference Finals. Then the Finals come around and we have two full days in between games when the teams aren’t traveling? Do they really think this is a good idea? I know that the company line will be that they want the highest level of basketball being played on its most important stage, so they want everyone rested and in peak physical condition for each game. But that line of thinking is extremely flawed for two very important reasons: first, your league is based on fans and television ratings. After giving the people “40 Games in 40 Nights” leading up to the Finals, you give them “(Maximum) 7 Games in 40 Nights” for what is supposed to be the most important part of your year.

That’s a great way to lose viewers in a hurry if I’ve ever seen one. A perfect example of this came earlier today. I was talking to Fuzz about Lakers-Magic and he wanted to know who won the night before. I explained that they were playing tonight (Sunday), not yesterday (Saturday). His immediate response was, “Oh, Game 3 is tonight?” This from a guy who is a very dialed in and informed sports fan. He, like most others I assume, was floored at the idea that two days of rest were needed between games with no travel involved.
The second reason why this makes no sense is because you have conditioned the players throughout the playoffs that the only days off they get is on a travel day (singular) and in between series.

Now for the crown jewel of your sport, the schedule changes completely and you expect them to benefit from this? Athletes thrive on things like rhythm and adrenaline. How are you supposed to get into any kind of rhythm or build any momentum when no one can even remember what happened in the previous game because it took place so long ago? The NBA needs to stop believing that they have to show games in prime time on Sunday (which could still have easily happened had they played Game 2 on Friday and then Game 3 on Sunday—you know, like the playoff schedule has been until now). It’s things like this that are causing the League to become less and less popular.

*One of the most talked about subplots (which tend to get focused on more than the actual games at this point in the year) is how this year’s Finals will define Kobe Bryant’s legacy. It is said that he needs to win a ring without Shaq in order to vault him into elite company as far as NBA history goes. This seems completely irrational to me. Just because he’s not playing with a Hall of Fame counterpart shouldn’t affect his perceived legacy one way or another. If anything, this current Lakers team might be more balanced because they aren’t so reliant on two guys to do absolutely everything. Not to mention that no teams with the Finals with one amazing player and virtually nothing else: Jordan had Pippen, Duncan had Robinson and later Parker/Ginobili, Magic had Kareem/Worthy etc., Bird had Parrish/McHale, LeBron has…well I guess that kind of proves the point. Would a title bolster Kobe’s resume? Of course it would. But would not winning one without Shaq tarnish his legacy? Definitely not. At the very least, Kobe will have 3 rings and 6 Finals appearances at the age of 30. That in itself should define how great of a player he is, not who has or has not won with.

*On a quick and semi-related note, has there ever been a more overrated player than Dwight Howard? I get it, he’s funny, likeable, and looks like a cartoon character with his massive arms and tiny head. But the guy can basically do two things—block shots and dunk. Please don’t try to sell me on the fact that he’s one of the top superstars in the League.

*On the other hand, everyone knows that LeBron James is possibly the most uniquely gifted basketball player of all time. He has the fame and scrutiny that naturally goes along with it as well. But could his whole “storming” off the court at the end of the Eastern Conference Finals been more overblown? I read articles stating that he forever tarnished his reputation and set a poor example for sportsmanship for children all over the country. Since when did pretending to be happy about losing get confused with sportsmanship? Kevin Garnett used the F word 789 times on live television during the Bulls-Celtics series (in which he did not play) and no one said a word about him ruining his reputation or setting a bad example. If you ask me, that’s much worse than what LeBron did (especially the times he would yell at guys like Ben Gordon as the game was going down—as illustrated below).

Look, I’m not saying that what James did was right, but it’s also not the end of the world that the sports media would have you believe. The kid (he is only 24 years old after all) made a mistake—by all accounts the first one he’s made in his career. People need to quit making news on unimportant issues.

*Speaking of the media hype machine, much was made earlier this week about the possible return of Jameer Nelson to the Orlando Magic after being hurt for most of the second half of the season. I get that this is a big story given that they were pretty big underdogs and getting back your All-Star point guard could help in winning a title. The problem I have is that I never saw an article anywhere about how this could be a very bad idea. I mean, even a network like ESPN, which thrives on contrasting viewpoints (see: Around the Horn, PTI, First Take, Cold Pizza (is that even on the air still?), and any NBA/MLB/NHL/NFL/NASCAR/Golf/Soccer segment on Sports Center) never went with the “Jameer Nelson will mess up the momentum that Orlando has gained throughout this playoff run” angle? Very disappointing.

*There will be an NBA Draft article coming in the next couple weeks. It will be mostly focused on the Wolves, but will include a Mock Draft—just in case you cared.

Twins Roundtable

2009-05-22T22:38:00.009-05:00

If there’s one thing that will forever be true about the founding members of TK on Toast, it’s that we love to talk/argue about the Twins. The Hometown 9 causes more excitement and frustration simultaneously than any of the other local franchises. This has never been more evident than with the 2009 version of Gardy’s boys. So I figured there was no better way to start TK 2.0 than with an old school Twins roundtable. You know the drill: the members of this exclusive club all took this fabulous Friday off to meet at an undisclosed location where whiskey, Budweiser, and Grizzly flowed freely throughout the smoked filled room. What follows is the transcript of the conversation.

Fuzz: The Twins had 20 hits yesterday and Punto was 0-5. Wow, I can't defend him anymore. He couldn’t get a hit in a slow pitch softball game right now. By the way, how bad is that Bartlett/Garza for Delmon Young trade? Holy shit that is bad right now. Bartlett is third in the whole damn league in average right now at .379 and Garza has a 3.4 ERA with four wins. I know Delmon has been gone on personal leave but he has a total of two extra base hits, and having another arm like Garza would be really nice about now.

A sickening sight for the Twins faithful

Dogg: We got Harris as well in that trade, and he will be our every day SS soon if Gardy pulls his head out and will hit .280+--just as good as Bartlett will end up.

Nic: Look, Garza needed a fresh start, but why the hell we included Bartlett and Garza in the deal instead of insisting on Blackburn or Perkins is beyond me.

Dogg: True, we haven't had a good SS here forever and he had played well enough to not trade him.

Fuzz: Bartlett is still a better fielder and hitter than Harris. Bartlett will come down from the .379 but he's still better. He also has more range. At the time, I wasn't that pissed but I'm also not a GM or a talent evaluator and Billy Boy Smith deserves to get ripped for this trade. It has turned out awful for us. The Santana trade is different in the sense that only a few teams could sign him with his salary and they were semi forced, but it's still a god awful trade. That youngen pitcher better be the f-ing deal or we just traded one of the best left handed pitchers in the last 30 years for a "poo-poo platter," copyright Bill Simmons. So far, Billy Boy is 0-2 on the trade shit. Besides Crede he hasn't brought in anyone worth dick either. Needless to say, I'm not too happy with the Bill Smith era right now.

Dogg: Blame Gardy for not knowing exactly what we have in Harris….

Should this man be the starting SS?

Fuzz: Fine, I blame Gardy. I blame them all! I'm so fucking pissed off at our organization right now, I can't stand it. We're so bleeping cheap all the god damn time.

How does a Span, Hunter, and Cuddyer outfield sound with a Crede, Bartlett, Casilla/Punto, Morneau and Mauer infield? I'll throw in Kubes for our DH for shits & giggles. Want to get a hit on us? How about a Santana, Garza, Baker, Liriano and pick from one: Slowey, Blackburn and Perkins rotation? Throw the two odd men out in the pen with Nathan and copyright Nate Williams....let's fucking roll!!!!!!Fuck us!

Dogg: Wow, I’ve never looked at it like that but your team listed there is unreal….F our organization is right!!!

Nic: First, if we would have just kept Johan Santana last year we would have made the playoffs. He still would have walked last winter, but we would be receiving 2 first round draft picks for him. Obviously, it’s easy to see it now but that scenario would have been better.Second, what fantasy land is Fuzz living in where we could have the team he threw out there. If we would have kept Hunter and Santana, there's 0 chance we sign Crede. Because those two players would have eaten up 30% of the payroll, we would have had a hard time extending Mauer and Morneau the first time and we definitely could not afford to keep them after their current deals are up.

Also, Span was a bust until something clicked last year. I'm not advocating that Bill Smith is doing even an average job; I'm just saying we made the right call on Hunter and Santana would have been tough to keep.

Finally, every small market team could play that game. What if the Royals were able to keep Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye, and Johnny Damon? They would be the team to beat in the central. What if the A's could have afforded to keep Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, Mark Mulder, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, and Eric Chavez? They would have been the team to beat for several seasons earlier this decade. This could go on and on with more teams.

Imagine the possibilities...

Fuzz: I guess I'm in "fantasy land." If your case is that we couldn't sign Crede if we had Hunter and Santana....big f*cking deal! Yes, he has 6 bombs but he's only batting .220. I could live with TKOT's boy Buscher there. I could live with that.

In Carl Pohlad's history, you're right, that team could never happen. But, if he would have looked at Ziggy Wilf and how he spends money like a drunken Irishman, we could have had that team. He never once went above & beyond with his own money. He always stayed right around where they needed to be to break even. He wanted to contract our asses! If he would have took a risk before he passed away (RIP), and said, "Screw it, lock up Hunter, Santana, Mauer & Morneau" and we didn't do that Young trade, that's the team we would have had. Yes, that's a fantasy land thought, and would have never happened but he had all the money in the world to do SOMETHING like that one time in his tenure as the Twins owner. And, he never did!!!!!!!!!! One roll of the dice like that and we would have been the favorite right now to win the Series. Our scouts/talent evaluators/Terry Ryan found the talent we needed to win a world series. We didn't have a lack of talent. It was up to Pohlad to keep that talent and make a run. He never did it that cheap bastard!

Q: Ok, so I've been quiet long enough--a few points:

1) Punto sucks. I've been saying it for years. His crow-hopping, looping throws from short make me want to vomit and he's once again hitting below the Punto Line this year.

2) Mauer hits a Granny and 2 doubles with 6 RBI yesterday. Guess where he was hitting in the lineup? That's right--2 hole. Amazing. What are the odds that he's still at that spot tonight? Effin Gardy.

3) Fuzz, I know you're an angry man these days (see Wolves, Timber and Twins, Minnesota), but your rants are extremely off base right now. Hunter had no desire to stay here--he even said so in the media. Santana was quieter in the media, but his agent made it very clear that he had little desire to be here as well. And if you think Garza wasn't leaving the second he became a free agent, you're kidding yourself.

Bartlett's range is very average, though it is much better than Punto/Harris/Tolbert. Also, everyone always complained that we never make a trade or that we have too much pitching and should trade for some hitting (specifically right-handed power). Well that's exactly what we did. Delmon was coming off of a rookie year where he hit .300 with 20 bombs at the age of 21. Was it a roll of the dice? Absolutely. Did it work out for us? Not at all. I think we became too accustomed to TR ripping everyone off for years and so we have one bad trade and everyone bitches about it.

Lastly, when you're an owner of a professional sports team, you have to treat it like a business, even if the fans don't like it. Otherwise you end up in a major hole where you have to do something like sell the team and risk them being moved. With the lack of money the Twins have coming in (no private network like the big market teams have, low merchandise sales, horrible stadium, etc.), there's no way you can even offer Hunter 20 mil a year and Santana 30 mil a year--you would absolutely hemorrhage money. I too bitch about this way too often myself, but when you step back and look at it, I think we've done a pretty good job of staying competitive, especially recently, when many, many other teams in similar situations (Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, etc.) have not.

Dogg: I think our point was that if our owner would’ve spent any amount of money what so ever we actually would have a shot at winning a title. Realistically, those playoff teams we had had about a 1% chance of winning the WS and that’s just because it’s baseball.

Fuzz: All fair points. Hunter would have stayed here if the money was right. Garza would have too, money talks. Santana seemed like he wanted to leave but you never know, I guess. Delmon hit .288 with 13 bombs his rookie year. You were close but that is still a little bit of a difference off of the .300/20 HR's and to give up Garza & Bartlett for that was a HUGE risk. And, we're getting burned by it now. All fair/legit points though.

However...

Your last comment that we've stayed competitive regardless of our small market status is true, but in my mind, unless you take some risks financially with higher paid players, we'll be stuck where we are for a long time. Christ, we have been stuck for a long time! We'll be competitive, maybe win a division title like we have and then get bounced in the playoffs. We had one year since '91 that we advanced beyond round one. And, we got handled by a better Angels team in five games. And, you win with dominant pitching and overpaying guys like Santana and keeping Garza would have given us a much better chance than our current team. We don't have a true #1 right now. So yes, we're competitive and we hang in there year to year, but we'll need to get extremely lucky to advance to the Series with this current philosophy.

Dogg: We hang in there because our division is terrible…If Peavy signed with Chicago, we could’ve kissed this season goodbye.

Nic: If you are going to argue anybody, please make it someone else other than Torii Hunter. While he is a fine player, we could already see his abilities start to slip and he was never a middle of the order bat. There's no way we would want to be nor could we afford paying him $15 million a season the last 3 years of his current contract when he will probably be even less of a hitter and have to be moved to a corner outfield position.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

Fuzz: That's fair, I could live without him. Santana is such a stud that we should have been throwing whatever we had at him. Maybe he wouldn't have taken it, but he is the deal.

Q: Great points on Hunter, Nic.
I'm pretty sure the Twins "threw everything we had" at Santana. We offered him a $100 million deal that he and his agent quickly rejected. I seriously doubt this franchise could offer anything more, which kind of sucks, but it’s the reality we live in.

A New Day is Coming...

2009-02-28T10:19:00.002-06:00

Dear TK on Toast readers,

Many of you have expressed your displeasure in the disappearance of this website. Fear not Toastians (as I've heard you all call yourselves), for TK 2.0 is coming this spring. Beginning in May of 2009, this site will be back up and running with 2-3 new posts each week. Seeing as I'll be doing most of the writing myself, you may notice a slight change in the format of how this wealth of sports knowledge is presented: posts may be a bit shorter than they used to be, there will be fewer round table discussions, etc. Not to worry though. I have a vast knowledge of sports and enough opinions to fill a blog (convenient, I know). Plus, I'm working on contracts with some of your favorite bloggers from TK's original run (Fuzz, Nic, etc.) to come in and do some guest spots.

I know the anticipation is going to kill you, but 2.0 will be here sooner than you think. Until that time, feel free to get your sports fix from any of the various websites and blogs that exist on the internets--I hear there are quite a few these days. Then when this spring/summer rolls around, come on back to the only sports blog that ever mattered--TK on Toast. See ya soon.

Love,

Q

Breaking News...

2008-08-04T16:31:00.004-05:00

There is some major news in the world of TK...

Sources close to the University of St. Thomas have confirmed that TK has been relieved of his position at The Grill. Terms of his release have not been disclosed. As a cultural icon in the student population as well as the creator of the greatest sandwich of all time (pictured above), it is safe to say that his presence will be missed. For those that don't know him, Tony was UST's version of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi. He's a hilarious guy and a fantastic short order cook who was not afraid to yell at you and embarrass you at the drop of a hat. The Grill won't be the same place without him.

Tony, thank you for the food, the laughs, and the namesake of this site.

Confessions of a Sports Snob

2008-07-31T11:56:00.013-05:00

You see them in every type of social setting: That Guy. The one who thinks they know more or are better than you and let’s you know it—either directly or indirectly. It could be the wine aficionado snidely smiling at your Franzia box purchase at the liquor store. It might be the car guy who openly mocks your “cute little foreign car”, or the fashion expert who can’t believe that you’re wearing a t-shirt and jeans again. It could be the guy at the gym who shakes his head as you attempt to curl 20 lbs. It might be the hair stylist telling you that you have a “neat” haircut, or the teacher who believes that their style is the only acceptable way to educate kids (sorry, personal pet peeve). No matter where you are, people like this are always around. I’ve always hated these people. Then I realized that I was one of them…

When it comes to sports, I’m That Guy. I’m not the super competitive-D League-slow-pitch-softball Guy, but rather the I-can’t-be-bothered-with-this-conversation-because-I-know-so-much-more-than-you Guy.

I may be That Guy, but I'm definitely not This Guy

I’ve been That Guy for a long time now, and I didn’t realize it until just recently. If I’m involved in any kind of sports conversation, I constantly find myself silently judging and usually mocking the others involved. “Oh you watched the Twins game last night? How cute. Do you know the batting averages and ERA’s of every player on the team within a hundredth of a point? Can you not only name, but speak intelligently about all the guys on the opposing team? Do you know the rosters of all of our minor league teams by heart? No? Then don’t try to talk to me about last night’s game." I can’t seem to hold a polite conversation with these people. I can’t even stand there nodding and smiling. I have to leave; I have to get away so I can get on my high horse. It’s incredibly rude and smug, even if these comments are only occurring in my mind. Yet some version of that goes through my head any time someone I deem “unworthy” makes any sort of sports-related comment. Hell, I often silently mock people if they’re simply wearing a Twins or Vikings t-shirt.

There's no way I'm the only one judging/mocking this guy.

Those who know me are probably not surprised by this revelation. I might have a bit of a reputation for openly and outwardly mocking people on a whim. But this self-realization about the level of my sports snobbery is a big step. I feel like I should start going to meetings:
Q: “Hello, my name is Adam and I’m a sports snob.”
Group: “Hi, Adam.”
Q: “Ah, I guess I’ve always had this problem, but I didn’t realize it until just recently.”
Facilitator: “That’s very common, Adam. The important thing is that you recognize it now and you’re getting help.”
Q: “Shut up. You’re probably the guy who loves Joe Mauer simply because he’s from St. Paul and has those stupid sideburns.”
Facilitator: “Now see, this is what we need to work on…”

You like sideburns? Me too! I wonder if there's a club we could join?

Before this article gets too self-deprecating, allow me to validate myself. I got this way through a lot of hard work. I can sense your skepticism, but hear me out. For as long as I can remember, sports have been my only hobby. Virtually every minute of free time I have is spent looking at or doing something sports-related. When people ask me “What’d you do this weekend?” or “What’ve you been up to lately?” my answer is almost always “Nothing much.” I say that because I’m embarrassed to admit that last night I spent two hours on the internet looking up statistics and batting trends of the New Britain Rock Cats (the Twins AA team) or analyzing the remaining schedules of every team in the AL Central. I don’t want to tell them that over the last two weeks I’ve been researching and reading books about the history of the Duke-North Carolina basketball rivalry. But that’s what I do and it’s hard, intense “work”.

This is research. I'm kind of like a scientist...

Yet I hesitate to take pride in my “work”. I do so because sports are viewed as recreation and thus not worthy of this extreme amount of time consumption. If someone told you that they spent their Saturday weeding their garden, most people would not view this as a waste of time. They might even praise them for being outside.

Really, this is acceptable?

However, those same people would likely look down on the fact that I spent my Saturday looking at the contract status’ of potential NBA free agents in 2010. Well gardening is as much of a recreational type of hobby (if not more so) as sports, yet time spent on this activity is not viewed as wasteful.

Maybe that’s why I’ve developed such an elitist attitude when it comes to sports. If everyone is going to degrade my passion, then I’m going to gravitate towards it even more. That’s gotta be it. That’s why the first hour and a half I’m home from work every day is spent on Deadspin.com, TheBigLead.com, etc. while ESPN blares in the background. That’s why I have the Twins game on the TV while my computer has multiple windows open tracking the Angels-Red Sox, Cubs-Brewers, and Rays-Blue Jays games.

I'd call it multi-tasking

It’s not my fault; it’s everyone else’s. It all makes sense now.

My name is Adam, and I know more about sports than you do.

The Randomness

2008-07-28T18:36:00.009-05:00

Ok, so due to a lack of any real sporting news (I REFUSE to write about the d-bag with the 5 o’clock shadow over in Cheeseland), I decided just to throw out some thoughts on a bunch of random little things that are bothering me or that I’ve noticed. If you have any thought comments, or disagreements with what follows, please put it on the comment board and we can get some nice arguments going.

--The Yankees absolutely stole Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte from the Pirates. A .330/15/60 guy and a powerful righty out of the pen for basically one decent prospect? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve heard that a bunch of MLB GM’s are upset about this trade, and rightfully so. At what point is the league going to stop letting the big market teams bully everyone around and do whatever they want? This is starting to get really embarrassing for Major League Baseball.

--Maybe the St. Louis Cardinals should have made a move. They just got swept, at home, by the Brewers over the weekend and are now 4 games back in the NL Central with two teams in front of them. Plus, both Chicago (Zambrano and Harden) and Milwaukee (Sheets and Sabathia) have two dominant starters that won’t allow them to go on any prolonged losing streaks. Not good times in Saint Louey.

--Let me get this straight, Devin Hester is getting $15 million guaranteed to return kicks? Seriously? I know the Bears say he’s going to get some time at wide receiver as well, but let’s get serious here: he’s nothing more than a return guy. Granted he’s the best around, maybe ever, but so was Dante Hall a few years ago. Remember that guy? The Human Joystick? He was absolutely dominant and now he’s not even an afterthought anymore. Hester has only been going for 2 years and now he’s holding out and getting a ton of guaranteed money? Sounds like a terrible idea to me.

--Blah, blah, blah. Something about Brett Favre. Blah, blah, blah.

--When we look back on it, there’s a pretty good chance that Josh Childress and Brandon Jennings are going to be pioneers of the new NBA. Europe is going to play a huge role in the future of the League, especially for economically challenged high school seniors and lower tier pros (end of the bench guys). If Childress and Jennings have any sort of success, or especially if they parlay their European vacations into lucrative NBA contracts, this kind of thing will become a trend, not an anomaly.

--The AL Central is going to be a tight, three way dance for the last two months. And the Twins have a very favorable in-division schedule the rest of the way out too. I’m just saying…

--Marcus Camby going to the Clippers will prove to be the most underrated move of the NBA offseason. With a core of Kaman-Camby-Thorton-Davis, LA will make the playoffs next year.

--As great of a story as they have been, the Rays remind me a lot of the 2001 Twins: a team that was the surprise, feel-good story of the first part of the season, only to fade down the stretch in August and September. That AL East division is just too tough for an upstart team like Tampa to win, especially when Boston and New York can go out and get any player they want via trade or free agency.

--Has one man caused more stress, unhappiness, unrest, etc. than Drew Rosehaus? Every NFL client he gets immediately hates his contract and thus causes major headache’s for their current team. If ever there was a reason for collusion, it’s this guy.

--The Twins continue to shop for a 3 bagger despite Brian Buscher’s .333 average and 26 RBI in 30 games. I wonder what he did to get in Gardenhire’s dog house? How is he still losing playing time to Brendan Harris and Hey-Didn’t-You-Use-To-Be-Mike-Lamb?

--Before you complain too much about the Vikings’ QB “situation”, keep in mind that the Bears had a coin flip to determine whether Rex “Sex Cannon” Grossman or Kyle “Neck Beard” Orton would take the snaps with the first team offense during training camp. Think about how ridiculous that is…

--Michael Redd and Tayshun Prince will be the keys to Team USA winning gold in Beijing. If they can shoot and play tough perimeter D, this should be a cakewalk for the Americans.

--I like golf; I play golf; I watch golf; I even play fantasy golf. That said, without Tiger Woods, the PGA Tour sucks. No athlete in the history of sports has ever been or will ever be this important to their sport. It’s really incredible to think about the effect he has.

The Trade Deadline Approaches...

2008-07-21T18:30:00.009-05:00

As the Twins returned from the All Star break, they continued their brilliant play of late by taking 2 of 3 from the Rangers (and in the process shutting down one of the best offenses in baseball—Texas’ 4 All Star hitters combined to go 5-40 in the series). Besides the great baseball that the team has been playing, there have been two major subplots revolving around our club: the Francisco Liriano situation (that post will be coming later this week) and the trade deadline.

Major League Baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline comes on July 31st. Some teams in the hunt for the postseason have already made moves to try and better position themselves for a playoff run. This is especially true in the National League, where the Cubs (Rich Harden), Brewers (CC Sabathia and Twins-killer Ray Durham), and Phillies (Joe Blanton) have all made huge splashes by acquired some of the top pitchers in the market. It seems like only a matter of time before some of the big guns in the American League (Yankees, Red Sox, White Sox, and Twins) do the same thing to better their teams for the stretch run. So what are the Minnesota Twins going to do?

The big rumor over the last couple weeks has been that we should be/are going after Adrian Beltre, the third baseman from the Seattle Mariners. I dislike this idea for a number of reasons. First, this rumor is based on the assumption that we have a pressing need at third base. I’d say that we have a solid three bag prospect in Brian Buscher (5 hits in the Rangers series including a homerun, by the way), but for some reason Ron refuses to play him on a regular basis. Gardy somehow thinks that playing Brendan Harris, whose batting average is hovering in the .250’s, at third is a great idea because he’s a little bit better than Buscher (hitting in the .330’s) defensively—despite the fact that Buscher has looked solid at the hot corner most of the time. Oh, and Brian is left handed. This is a considerable handicap in Ron Gardenhire’s world. Unless your name is Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau, there’s no possible way that a left handed hitter can have success against a lefty pitcher. It’s simply not possible (this is a direct result of him coming from the Tom Kelly School of Coaching).

The second reason I don’t like this trade is because of what we might potentially have to give up. I’ve read recently that it might take one of our young starters (Baker, Blackburn, Slowey, or Perkins) to make this deal work. Are you kidding me? We’re going to trade away a starting pitcher in his 20’s who is just starting to come into his own for Adrian Freaking Beltre? If Bill Smith is half the man I think he is, then he’ll realize that this is a terrible idea. *Side contradictory note: if we trade the guy we perceive to be the weakest of the four, Slowey in my opinion, then that would open up a rotation spot for the Franchise and thus diffuse that situation altogether.

Finally, we’re talking about Adrian Beltre here. This guy parlayed one completely out of character, possibly steroid influenced, 48 homerun season (he hasn’t hit as many as 30 in a year since) into a monster, unwarranted contract. He’s the same guy who has hit over .300 only once in his career (guess what year that was?). He has been widely unproductive in Seattle; consistently hitting in the .260’s with 150 more strikeouts than RBI during his time in the Great Northwest. Plus, he signed with the Dodgers at a very young age, which history and Miguel Tejada has shown us could mean that he’s 29 years old, as his “birth date” would suggest. Or he could be 35—who knows? Oh and there is that tiny little fact that they seem quite willing to get rid of him…

If you believe that the Twins need to make a move to help their playoff chances, and I do, then the move to make is to acquire some bullpen help. Without the services of Pat Neshek, there has been a big hole in the pen in terms of getting the ball to Joe Nathan. Guys like Brian Bass and Boof Bonser have been incredibly terrible, while guys like Matt Guerrier and Jesse Crain are good only on occasion. Having a dominant, shut down bullpen has been a signature of all good Twins teams over the past 6-8 years. It would be even more crucial to this year’s team because of the inexperience in the starting staff. Much to my surprise, my arch nemesis Ron Gardenhire actually agrees with me. In the Pioneer Press today, Gardy says, “If they could get somebody that can really help us at the end of the game, to set up, to take the place of Neshek, that would be really great.” For the first time in a long time, I think Ron and I are on the same page. /Shudders/

In one of the first ever posts on this site last summer, I lobbied hard for the Twins to acquire a bat to spark some life into their beleaguered offense—namely, Dimitri Young. I still think that was the right move. Can you imagine how dominant our lineup would be this year if Young was in the DH spot instead of the Kubel/Monroe platoon? Plus, Morneau might actually be able to get a day off every once in a while. But I digress. This year, I am once again campaigning for a new addition to the Twins: Brian Fuentes of the Colorado Rockies.

The guy has been a very good closer for Colorado (though he did briefly lose his job last year) and I think he would flourish as our 8th inning setup guy. I’ve been hearing a lot of talk on Baseball Tonight about how he could be available; though I have no idea what kind of package it might take to get him here. Acquiring him would mean that our starters would only need to pitch 6 innings and then they could hand the ball over to a Guerrier-Fuentes-Nathan trio to end the game. That would be very tough come September and October.

Realistically, however, most Twins fans know by now that one of two things will happen at the trade deadline. Either the team will stand pat and not make a move because they are unwilling to put together a solid package or deal prospects, or we will trade for some fringe Major League pitcher that no one has heard of (someone in the Craig Breslow mold). Then the blogs (like this one), sports radio shows, etc. will be all over the organization for not making an impact move. Until we make the playoffs, that is…

LVP...LVP...LVP...

2008-07-16T00:26:00.004-05:00

You know who sucks? Dan Uggla. The following is the Marlins' second baseman's line from Tuesday night's All-Star Game:

0-4, 3 K, 1 GIDP, 3 E

Yuck. Way to step up on the big stage, Hank.

Yay or Nay?

2008-07-14T14:20:00.002-05:00

They said I wouldn't look good in Purple...look at me now...look at me now...

This story is too good to ignore. This isn't going to happen is it? I'm putting it at 99% it doesn't, but Favre just came out today stating he wants to play for sure and not at Green Bay. He wants to be released and that's right from the horses mouth. September 8th is the first Monday night football game, Vikings at Green Bay. Can you imagine Brett Favre showing up as the quarterback of the Vikings to the game that the Packers were going to retire his number? That's the best sports story in 10 years. He might get murdered if that happens. That's not a joke. I can't wait to see how this plays out...

Twins Mid Season Report

2008-07-10T21:27:00.010-05:00

The All Star break is generally considered the halfway point of the 162 game MLB season (even though most teams have played closer to 90+ games at that point). Since that break is coming up this Monday, it seemed appropriate to review what has transpired so far this year and take a look towards the second half of this 2008 Twins season. What follows is a list of questions about the team and my breakdown/answers to those questions. If you have anything to add or a different opinion on something, feel free to get that comment section going.

Record
--Is the Twins record (51-41 as of Friday) an indication that this team is better than most people thought, or the product of favorable schedule?
At this point in the season, most “experts” had the Twins penciled in for roughly 40-43 wins. Sitting 10 games above .500 with three games left until the break should be considered a major success. Of course part of the reason for that record is the run the team just went on where they won 18 of 21 games. Did we take advantage of a weak interleague schedule? You bet. But that shouldn’t take away from anything the team has accomplished so far. Going 14-4 against inferior competition is what good baseball teams do. It is funny to me how a couple of games can change everyone’s perspective in a very short amount of time. Before the Boston series, everyone was talking about us winning the division/wild card and discussing potential trade deadline moves that should be made. A three game sweep later (in which, it should be noted, we could/should have won at least 2 if not all 3) and suddenly the team has been “exposed” and the naysayers feel that we’re done. Not me. If you had told me, or any other Twins fan, that we would have at least 50 wins at the All Star break, I would have been ecstatic. I’m going to say that this team is good and will be in contention for both the division and the wild card throughout the rest of the season.

Pitching
--Is the starting staff this good?
This might be the toughest part of this Twins team to figure out. The season started with Livan Hernandez of all people leading the way for our otherwise young staff. The young guys got knocked around a little bit, but they gained experience. As the season progressed, especially during the recent hot streak, all four of them (Baker, Blackburn, Perkins, Slowey) have showed signs of being capable, if not very good, major league starting pitchers. During that same stretch, Livan has shown signs of being the 5+ ERA pitcher that he’s been for quite some time now. Those shifts make this staff a bit tricky to figure out.

--So is the emergence of the young starters a sign of things to come?
The homer in me wants to say yes. I’ve watched a lot of games and it doesn’t appear that these are mediocre pitchers who are getting an enormous amount of run support or getting lucky throwing bad pitches. All four guys seem to have spot on control and a very good ability to mix their pitches. The only problem I see is that all four remind me of Brad Radke. That is to say that they are good pitchers who can be very solid at times, but not dominant, number one type guys. Can a team win a title with four good, but not great pitchers? Historically, you’d have to say no. Depending on what the teams around them do, they might be able to get into the playoffs with that kind of rotation, but it seems like you need that top dog in order to win in October. That said, they will be good enough to at least keep things interesting and keep the team in contention.

--What happens with Livan and Franchise?
The prevailing attitude among the fans and media in this town is that Hernandez should be shipped out for a box of baseballs at the deadline and that Liriano should be brought up to reclaim his spot as staff ace. That sounds nice and all, but there may be some issues with it. First of all, finding a taker for Livan might be quite a bit more difficult than most fans realize. Not too many contenders are looking for a starter who will pitch 6-7 innings with 10+ hits and 5+ runs every outing. Then there’s the matter of Liriano, who’s been less that dominant during his stint in AAA. It would seem that the Twins standing in the division and wild card races will be the determining factor in the fates of these two gentlemen. If we are still in contention at the end of July, Hernandez probably stays. If we seem out of it, Franchise comes up to set up the rotation of 09 and beyond.

--What do we make of the bullpen?
Oi. This has been, far and away, the most frustrating part of the Twins this year. There have been stretches where guys like Guerrier, Reyes, and even Crain have looked unhittable. Of course there have also been times where they have looked, well, let’s call it less than capable. The truth probably lies somewhere in between the two extremes. Here’s what we know: with Neshek out for the year, most of the guys in the pen have been pitching in situations that they are not used to. There’s also the issue of Gardy mismanaging the bullpen very badly, but we’ll get to that later. So basically, the answer is that we don’t know. If you believe that the Boston series was simply a hiccup or a learning experience for some of these guys, then they should only get stronger as the season progresses. If you’re in the camp that said series exposed our weaknesses and showed that we’ll buckle under pressure, then it could be a frustrating end to the summer.

Hitting
--Can the clutch hitting continue?
Even with the struggles in Boston, the Twins still have the best batting average with runners in scoring position in the majors (and it’s not even close). The team has found a way to win games that we would not have won in the past couple years. Even more impressive is the fact that we are not leaning on guys like Mauer and Morneau to do everything. Seemingly every game has a different guy stepping up with multiple hits, clutch RBI’s, and/or some unexpected power. While this is very encouraging, you have to ask yourself, “Can we consistently expect guys like Brendan Harris, Nick Punto, and Brian Buscher to deliver clutch hits?” Realistically, it would seem like the team needs its stars to step up a bit over then next couple months. Sure we can hope that the younger players continue to improve and that the clutch hitting continues to be contagious, but in order to be a division winning team, you need the studs to carry the team at times.

--So where has Morneau’s power gone?
It seems like Justin has gone to the Joe Mauer school of hitting (Quick Swing not included) and has decided that it’s better to hit .310 with 20 HR’s (still 5x as many as Joe hits) than to hit .275 with 35 bombs—seemingly standard for all Twins hitters. While this approach is getting him quite a few RBI’s and keeping runners on base, I would say that it’s not the way to go. There’s no guarantee that guys like Span, Gomez, and Casilla are going to continue to be on base when Morneau comes to the plate. On top of that there are times, especially late in games, where a 1 or 2 out double simply isn’t going to be enough—we need the power. If it were up to me, I’d be pushing for #33 to participate in the Home Run Derby next week as a way to get the power back in his swing.

--What will the team do with the lineup when everyone gets healthy?
This is the most immediate and pressing issue facing the Twins right now. The outfield already has Gomez, Young, and Span looking like a very good, young core. Add to that Jason Kubel and Craig Monroe coming off the bench (and splitting the DH role) and you have a lot of talent. However, Michael Cuddyer is scheduled to come off the DL soon, so that gives the team a gluttony of players at this position. Do you really send Span back down to AAA? In the infield, Gardenhire has already shown that he’s determined to play Nick Punto on a regular basis at some position. Brendan Harris has been a viable player at multiple positions as well. Brian Buscher has been hitting very well, but has fallen victim to Gardy’s hatred of batting lefty’s against lefty’s. Also in the mix is Mike Lamb, who’s been terrible but is making a lot of money, and Matt Tolbert and Adam Everett are scheduled to return to the team soon.

--What can we realistically expect from The Kids in the second half?
The youngest players on the team (Carlos Gomez, Alexi Casilla, Denard Span, and Delmon Young) have been the most exciting and the most frustrating part of the offense so far this year. Gomez has the ability to bunt at any time and make things happen on the base paths, yet has shown poor plate discipline and an inability to get on base consistently. Casilla is still hitting over .300 and getting into scoring position for the big guns. Nevertheless, he was hitting only .220 in AAA for a reason. Span is flourishing (both in the bigs and in the minors) and seems to have found a bit of a niche in the 9 hole. But what happens to him when Cuddyer gets healthy? Young is hitting in the .280’s and has been hot lately, yet has shown none of the power that gained him many accolades during his rookie year in Tampa. So where does that leave us? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that each of these guys will continue to improve as the year goes along and will, at the very least, give the Twins and their fans a ton of hope for the future.

Coaching
--What kind of lineup decisions are we in store for?
Loyal readers know that I’m nowhere near being a fan of Gardy’s. I think he makes sketchy lineup decisions and constantly misuses the bullpen. It is scary to think about the lineups that he will come up with once the team is entirely healthy. I still think it’s a mistake to bat Mike Redmond 3rd when he plays for Mauer. I know he’s a .300 hitter and all, but for some reason this organization just doesn’t understand the concept that a 3-hitter should drive the ball and drive in runs. The decisions that are sure to cause a lot of talk and head scratching will be who Gardy plays at short and third on a day to day basis. It’s a given that his boyfriend will play at one of the infield positions virtually every day, but the rotation at third will be the thing to watch. Brian Buscher has been ripping the ball and hasn’t been nearly as shaky in the field as he was said to be. Yet somehow he can’t find his way into any playing time. Apparently a .330 hitter with gap and HR power isn’t good enough for Ron. That leads to things like Harris playing third and Lamb somehow being our late inning lefty pinch hitter. Because, you know, that makes sense…

--How will Gardy use the pen—especially Nathan?
I’m going to try and keep this brief (because I can, have, and will go on at great length about all of the mistakes I think Gardenhire is making with this team) and just let you know about a few things that are guaranteed to happen in the second half of the season. 1) Gardy will continue to refuse to use Joe Nathan in non-save situations even though it would make sense to have your best reliever come in during the most crucial situations. 2) He will continue to pitch the “Bassman” (Gardy’s pet name for Brian Bass—gawd he plays favorites more than any other manager in the game) in situations where he has no business pitching. 3) Someone in the bullpen will get overworked to the point that their arm and performance suffers (like he did with Neshek last year). Leading candidate at this time is Guerrier.

Schedule
--Will the team’s brutal July schedule be the downfall of this season?
Well, we’ve already seen the less-than-encouraging start to what appears to be a very difficult month of July. Along with the Boston and Detroit road trips that lead up to the All Star break, the teams has dates with the Yankees, Tigers (again), and White Sox, among others, still to come this month. The team’s struggles against the Bronx Bombers have been well documented, and shouldn’t come as any surprise should they struggle. They key to the month will be how well the Twins play against division rivals Detroit and Chicago. I know the media is trying to convince you that the Tigers are “coming around” right now, but that team doesn’t really scare me at all. I think we take 5 of 7 against them. Thus if we can simply hold our own against everyone else, we should be fine heading into August.

--How much will the long road trip in August affect them?
In an extremely rare scheduling quirk, the Twins will play 14 consecutive games on the road at the end of August. The majority of these games will be on the West Coast, which makes it even more daunting. With the AL West looking relatively tough at this point, except for Seattle of course, this might be a more important stretch than that brutal end to July that we just went over. If they can play well during that trip, it should give them the confidence to try and make a playoff push during the month of September. If not, it could be the beginning of a 2001-like collapse. Of course if we’ve already fallen out of contention by that time, all of this will be a moo point (you know, like a cow’s opinion—it doesn’t matter).

Quale-ty Ramblings

2008-07-02T16:15:00.008-05:00

Hey kids, I’m back with another set of tidbits that I was just itching to get off my chest. Hope everyone enjoyed the quick summer roundtables about the NBA Draft, but it’s time to talk baseball and a little bit of Purple. So as those annoying, awful, and incredibly poorly acted Coors Light commercials say, “Let's Vent!”

Twins
As we enter July, the Twins head into their most brutal stretch of the season. As has been documented in a previous post, they have to play, among others, Detroit 6 times, New York 3 times, Boston 3 times, and Texas 3 times. It cannot be understated then how important the Twins 14-4 interleague record was. The fact that they were able to beat up on inferior teams and pull within a ½ game (now 2 ½) of the White Sox could prove to be a huge factor in keeping them in the race. Now they need to find a way to keep up the impressive pitching performances and timely hitting against some of the best teams in the game. That means guys like Kevin Slowey and Nick Blackburn have to continue to be lights out—just like they have been over the last few weeks. The only reason we might crash and burn during this stretch will be our hitting. Having Cuddyer out doesn’t help things (really Mike? A finger, again?), and you know that Gardy will be playing Punto as often as he can.

Begin rant: So explain this one to me. The Twins are in the midst of a 10 game winning streak and playing phenomenal baseball, all without the “help” of Punto. Then the Tricky One comes off the DL and immediately gets a start over a red hot Brendan Harris (10 for his last 27, including a huge homerun, at the time of Punto’s unthinkable start). The result? A Twins loss and Punto putting up the big O Fer. The next day Harris is back in the lineup and the team wins again. Weird. And yes, in case you hadn’t noticed, I will bitch about Nick Punto every single chance I get. Get used to it. End rant.

So get down to the Dome to catch your second place Twins, just in case this momentum doesn’t last (which it might not if Monday’s game against Detroit is any indication—nice fastball, Jesse). And if they make it through this month within striking distance of first place, well then you may as well start printing the 2008 version of the Homer Hanky.

MLB
Because of the long season and the high number of games, baseball often gets thrown to the side until the playoffs, but this has been one of the best regular seasons in recent memory. At the midway point, we already have these incredible storylines: the Rays impressive play, Josh Hamilton, the Diamondbacks sharp fall, the Cubs impressive play, Ken Griffey Jr. joining the 600 HR club, the Tigers flat start and current rise, Chase Utley—a 3rd Phillies MVP?, Prince Fielder’s diet, Edison Volquez, the Under .500 Division, Rays-BoSox throw down, those gutty Twins, the potential end of Schilling and Smoltz, the end of Yankee Stadium, the Sidney Ponson Experience, the courting of CC, and Ozzie’s tirades. And we’ve still got 3 months and 82 games to go…

A few mid season awards:
MVP—AL—Carlos Quentin (CHI); NL—Chase Utley (PHI)
This was an easy choice for me. I know a lot of people would put Hamilton here because of his amazing comeback year and high RBI total. But Quentin’s numbers are almost as remarkable and he has held together a first place team when their conventional run producers (Thome, Konerko, etc.) have floundered. As for the NL, Chipper Jones and Lance Berkman deserve consideration, but Utley’s 23 HR’s for a first place ballclub are extremely impressive and he should continue to put up amazing numbers because of all of the talent surrounding him in that Phillies lineup.

Cy Young—AL—Joe Saunders (LAA); NL—Edison Volquez (CIN)
I would have given this award to Cliff Lee, but since the Indians are so incredibly terrible at this point, I just couldn’t do it. With all of the mediocre pitching in the AL, the award had to go to Saunders, who is top 7 in ERA and tied for the lead in Wins for a first place team. Volquez gets the nod in the NL because of his miniscule ERA and because he reminds me of Francisco Liriano circa 2006.

Manager—AL—Ozzie Guillen (CHI); NL—Lou Pinella (CHI)
I know that Joe Madden probably deserves this award for the amazing way that his Rays are playing so far, but I have to give it to the most entertaining managers in all of sports—who just happen to coach in the same city. Ozzie’s outbursts not only motivate his players, but also keep the scrutiny away from their downfalls. Pinella is a much easier choice. His Cubs have had to deal with injuries to studs like Soriano and Zambrano, yet still have the best record in the league.

Playoff Predictions (Revised):
AL—East—Red Sox, West—Angels, Central—White Sox, Wild Card—Twins (homer pick here; most “experts” would tell you that it will be a team such as the Tigers, Rays, or Yankees)
NL—East—Phillies, West—Diamondbacks, Central—Cubs, Wild Card—Marlins (another wishful pick; again, there are more likely candidates including the Cardinals, Brewers, and Mets)

Vikings
Am I the only one who’s noticed that the Purple have been everywhere in the sports media world lately? Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine had features on Jared Allen recently (as well as a Udeize update), Dr. Z picked us to win the Super Bowl, and the ESPN fantasy rankings have us with the #1 defense and #2 running back (Peterson). Now, I’m not the kind of guy who has a countdown until training camp going on, nor am I the guy that has already participated in multiple mock fantasy drafts (though I know a few people in each of those categories), but I’m really starting to get amped up for this year’s version of the Vikes. I know that the odds are against us, especially given the Minnesota Sports Curse and all, but has there been a Vikings team in recent history with this much hype and high expectations? The months of July and August are going to a lot of fun, and ESPN is going to have a lot of purple on its screens. Oh, and if you’re interested, the gentlemen of TK will be claiming their spots on the parade route sometime in mid-August, so feel free to join us.

Bonus NBA Rambling:
Ok, so I know that the guys already did their predraft roundtable and then discussed the Wolves moves at length on this site, but I have to add in my two cents. Let me preface this by saying that I like trading Jaric’s Contract for Cardinal’s Contract, and Mike Miller should help us out in the shooting department. That said, I really feel like everyone is talking themselves into Kevin Love at this point. We’re talking about an undersized power forward who is seriously lacking on the defensive end of the floor (where we already have multiple players who struggle there as well—Jefferson, McCants, etc.), and whose greatest asset is that he throws an outlet pass better than anyone else in the college game. Do I have that about right? I know K-Lo’s long passes got UCLA some easy transition hoops, but that kind of thing does not translate into the NBA. No one is hustling down for a quick two and that skill will be useless at the next level. What you’re left with is a guy who isn’t tall enough or strong enough to dominate on the boards (plus he’ll be fighting Al for those rebounds), doesn’t have a strong offensive game other than a 5-10 foot jumper, and will get abused on the defensive end of the floor on a nightly basis. Sorry, I’m not feeling it.

**Breaking News—Sources have confirmed that on Saturday, July 12, former major league baseball player and steroid snitch Jose Canseco will be fighting former NFL kick return specialist Via Sikahema in an absurd pay-per-view boxing match. Feel free to make your own joke at this time…

We love roundtables. Mayo/Love trade...

2008-07-01T11:34:00.007-05:00

Yes, it is Tuesday, five days after the fireworks that was the NBA draft, but we needed to put down our thoughts on what went down. It was too good. Many people slipped into bed naked on Thursday night thinking OJ Mayo was the next face of the franchise only to wake up in the morning with a blockbuster deal that Kevin “I’ve ruined my playing career because I blow as a GM” McHale pulled off at midnight. I got a text message late night from my roommate (he lives downstairs, but he felt a text would be better than knocking on my door) saying: “We traded Mayo.” Marx, Fuzz and Dogg had to have a roundtable that stretched over the past couple days to analyze this beast. Here is what transpired...

Fuzz: I have mixed feelings about this. I even wrote about this in that roundtable last week about this very trade. I asked: Is a Love/Miller combo better than O.J. Mayo? Well, I got my wish. We will see, because it’s exactly what went down. The deal doesn't bother me too much, other than; I really wanted to see Mayo on this team playing with Big Al. That would have been intriguing. But, like Dogg said, would he have stayed in the long term? He expressed displeasure earlier this month about coming here but softened that when it got closer to the draft. Love seems like a guy you can keep around. Anyways, mixed feelings at this point from this guy. Mayo could be a superstar, but we got a good basketball player, a good shooter and got rid of one of the worst contracts ever to be given out to an NBA player (Jaric). McHale has no dumped Hudson, Mike James, Jaric, Blount, Davis and Walker's contracts. It's about damn time he fixes for his mistakes. The roster is getting cleaned up fellas.

Marx: I am not very happy about this. You win with star power in this league and O.J. Mayo is the only one in this deal who could become a star. Did we potentially get better with this trade---it would be hard to get any worse. This deal looks to me like a salary dump and a “McHale knows better” deal. In the salary dump we got rid of two guys (A. Walker and G. Buckner) who’s contracts were expiring after this season anyway. We got rid of Marko Jaric, but we picked up Brian Cardinal and his contract that is only one season shorter than Marko’s.

This deal also is saying that we did everything right the past three drafts and we still believe Randy Foye, Rashad McCants and Corey Brewer can get it done. None of those players is anything more than a rotation player. Hopefully McHale is right about this and Mayo never becomes an all-star, but I’m not thrilled with the deal.

Let me ask you-what would you be happy with from Kevin Love? Would you be happy if he’s averaging 12 ppg and 8 boards in 3 years? Is that better than a guy carrying a team and making the all-star team? Mike Miller is a nice, overpaid role player who can absolutely shoot.

Fuzz: I've heard both sides and I'm confused as ever. I don't know what to think about it. I almost don't want to like it because McHale is involved. I just want him gone. It would have been a lot better if say like Hoiberg was our GM and pulled it off. It would seem different for some reason. McHale bothers the hell out of me. Anyways, the Star Tribune blogger, Michael Rand wrote about it and had this to say:

Maybe it’s dangerous to trust gut feelings when they align with moves by a franchise that has been less than successful when doing things the hard way, rather than the obvious way. But we think the late night blockbuster trade of O.J. Mayo for Kevin Love and Mike Miller (and others, mostly for money reasons) will go down as the best in Wolves’ history and perhaps a fleecing for the ages (in the right direction) once all is said and done. We can’t explain exactly what we don’t like about Mayo. We just watch him and see more bust than boom — way more Rider than LeBron. And despite Love’s ridiculous chinstrap facial hair, we’ve been infatuated with his game for a while now. He’ll make Al Jefferson better. He’ll make Corey Brewer better. We would have been happy if the Wolves had taken Love at No. 3; instead, they parlayed the pick into Love, Miller and the shedding of two problematic contracts (Marko Jaric and Antoine Walker). Miller is a sharpshooter. Sure, Cardinal has a bad contract as well (two years and $13 million left), but he’s at least a bigger body who can be useful off the bench. Jason Collins is a 7-footer who has 407 career NBA starts. Mostly, though, it comes down to Love. We like Love over Mayo, straight up. Factor in the rest of the deal, and it was a slam dunk.

Now, the only quibble we have: the way it went down. It’s tough to sell the public on a player like Mayo and then pull him back in the dead of night. Is there a good reason this deal couldn’t have been arranged and ready to go the minute David Stern stepped to the podium? We don’t think so. As we watched the draft with some RandBall regulars (good time had by all), we started trying to convince ourselves that Mayo could be a good fit. Local fans who wanted Mayo were ecstatic, only to be disappointed later. The timing and handling was bad; the end result, though, will be the best thing to happen to this franchise in a long time. And we’re not just saying that because we kind of predicted it.

I thought this was interesting. I've been reading both sides of this thing. It's either hot or cold with a lot of people. I’m starting to warm up to it…

Dogg: Well you two know my feeling about the draft day trade, LOVE IT! I honestly pin a 95% chance on Mayo leaving here after his rookie contract if not earlier. We were making the playoffs when Marbury was here and even he was bitching every season about getting out of dodge. Mayo is just as high priced talent as Marbury and like Fuzz said, he showed discomfort getting drafted by MN even before we took him. Did you see his reaction by the way when we drafted him? He didn’t look the slightest bit impressed and I think Love is going to be a very good NBA player. If he continues to lose weight and hit the weights he could easily be a Carlos Boozer/Brad Miller mold, both very good NBA players. Getting rid of Jaric, Walker and Buckner is the biggest key. Jaric had 3 years $21M left on his contract. I don’t know what Brian Cardinal is getting paid but I can’t imagine it’s a worse contract that Jaric.

Marx, what is your issue with Foye? He had knee issues last year and I believe he has one full healthy season that he can be a legit 15 ppg 5 apg and 5 rpg. Almost an Andre Miller mold. It might be wishful thinking but he has major talent. I say we make the playoffs in two years if we can hold onto Mike Miller.

Marx: Andre Miller and Foye are totally different players. Miller is a true pg who looks to run the offense and pass (He can't shoot.) Foye is a gunner who would like nothing more than to squeeze off 20 shots a game. I don't have a problem with Foye; I just don't think he will ever be more than a rotation player, which is fine except we have a lot of those guys. Why are you guys so high on Mike Miller? He's a shooter, but he seems to be one of those guys who gets his number on bad teams. Has he ever been in the playoffs? Maybe once or twice in the first round with Memphis. He's a good player, but he is not going to get us over the top in the West. He seems like the kind of player you add when you are tweaking your squad to make a run, but not be one of the top players on a rebuilding team. I hope I'm wrong and maybe this trade will grow on me over time, but damn.

Fuzz: The key of the deal is still Kevin Love. He needs to prove he can play the NBA game. He's in between positions and he is for sure the key to this deal. He is a natural rebounder, regardless of his size, which I love. Big Al and Love should grab their fair share of boards. Mike Miller and Brewer are good rebounders also. We should be a good rebounding team next year. Mike Miller averaged 7 last year and that's not bad at all. What's our starting five? Foye, Miller, Brewer, Love and Al? Or do Gomes and Telfair (assuming we sign them) make the starting lineup?

I know Mayo looked pissed off being drafted by us, but how does he feel now? Memphis is probably worse off than us and this area has twice what Memphis has to offer. Maybe the cold factor got to him, but the Twin Cities is a lot better area for nightlife/entertainment than Memphis.

Dogg: Foye has been limited to jump shot because of his injuries. Did you see his game in college? Yes, he shot some 3’s but he was mostly a guy who took it to the tin and finished. I know we’ve gone through this discussion before and I think me and you just have totally different perspectives on Foye. Allan Ray was their gunner and Foye was the guy who did it all. Drive and kick, hit the open 3or take it all the way to the tin. I think he can be that all around PG you need. Mike Miller can bomb but also has a deceptive penetration game as well. He’s just not a stand-alone shooter like James Posey. James Posey showed how much damage he can do in big games and I think Mike Miller is a much better player than Posey.

Marx: Here's a question-Do we have anymore moves coming? I think Telfair, Gomes, Snyder, and Doleac are some type of FA, either restricted, unrestricted or they have an option. Do we bring those guys back? Do we try to sign somebody's else's FA, like Andris Biedrins, Monta Ellis, Jose Calderon, Antwan Jamison, or obviously much lesser players?

Fuzz: I heard all the money would be more available after this season. This is still a rebuilding year and I don’t think they bring in anyone new. I heard Gomes is on the traveling caravan this summer, so they must think they can sign him.

This portion was done after the weekend.

Dogg: Back to the Mayo deal. Sludge from KFAN loved Mayo but he warmed up to the trade over the weekend and was saying this morning how much he liked the trade. If he liked it I think we can be safe to say that it was a good trade for the time being. Whether Mayo turns out to be absolute stud, who knows but for now I like it a lot.

Fuzz: I started loving it more and more the next day and I'm absolutely on board right now. If it wasn't McHale pulling the trade, I think more people would like it. Some random tidbit's about it:

1) I'm assuming, but I think Mayo would have pulled a Marbury and bailed. We invited him to workout for us in Minnesota and he denied it. Said he wasn't coming up here to workout. That’s not a good sign. We had to see him in Chicago with other teams. Yet, Miami asked him on a whim last week for a secret workout and he was there in a millisecond. F-him. He expressed he wanted to go to a larger market early in June but softened that stance later. He wanted no part of us.

2) Ryan Moe, our close and personal friend made a good point to me saying we need to start acting like Utah. Dogg mentioned something similar also. Start drafting high character guys and not worry about the thugs and piss-poor attitude players. This market has a lot to offer but I don't think people realize that from afar. The cold scares them. Start drafting high character, system players. I do think we need to change coaches in 1-2 years to take the next step for this to work.

3) A high school friend of mine, Jon, said Love is going to be the next Sean May or Sheldon Williams. He hates the trade. I heard others comparing him to Al Horford. Since I like the trade, I obviously believe he'll be more like Horford. May and Williams didn't have a jump shot, that's where I think he's going to be better than those guys. Plus, he's a ton better passer than May or Williams.

4) Mike Miller loves the trade. He's from South Dakota and I've heard he's ecstatic to be here. Anytime you have guys wanting to play for you (love and miller), I think that's a good thing. Mayo could be a stud, but he's not the next Lebron.

Marx: The Utah argument is a little misleading. They sniped Boozer away from Cleveland and they traded up to draft the correct player (Deron Williams), which is where this argument stems from- the draft and trades. They also signed Mehmet Okur away from Detroit when he became available because Detroit had to pay their other guys like Chauncey and Prince.
If you’re talking about having a Utah model, then why don't we go after young foreign talent that’s potentially available this summer, like Andres Biedrins and Juan Carlos Navarro? I still don't believe McHale has the smarts and scouting ability to pick off these guys.

I heard today that next’s years draft is not great but it does have a couple pg's that could be very interesting. If we draft one of those next year then we can finally have a blueprint in place that makes sense. Realistically, Love is probably going to be somewhere in-between May, Williams and Al Horford.

Dogg: May, Horford and Williams never shot outside of 5’ in college. Love has a much better all around game than any of those guys. I say he’s better than all those guys including Horford. Who cares where Utah got their players from? They got them now and Sloan has never put up with any character issue guy like a Mayo. That is why Utah is always in the mix of things. Sloan knows which players will work hard for him and if you have talent and work hard, you’ll win. Everybody in the NBA has talent but half of them don’t want to work very hard.

Should’ve definitely kept Chalmers this year. I think he might be one of those 2nd rounders that turns in a nice pro career.

Marx: What do you mean "who cares"? That all comes back to McHale's drafting and scouting of available talent. We could have had Okur for a very reasonable price. They locked in on Deron Williams, traded up, and drafted him. All of this argument leads back to the draft, trades, and acquisitions by McHale. The Chalmers deal is what makes people so mad at McHale. A good GM would be able to think a couple steps ahead. If we had make the Love trade first, we never would have made the Chalmers move as we now need a pg, or at least a backup pg, and another player who can shoot. Chalmers fills that need and he was a potential 1st round pick who we got late. Why did we have to trade him on the spot? Why couldn't we wait until the next day or later? Sorry to be so negative, but I'm still not thrilled with McHale's moves.

Dogg: I know it is McHale’s fault. All I’m saying is I don’t care if you don ALWAYS draft well or don’t ALWAYS sign free agents well but do it well once in a while. Also, I’m saying find these guys via draft, NBDL, internationally…I don’t care but build your team around character guys like Utah and Sloan have done for years is all Fuzz and I are saying. The Chalmers move pissed me off. Now we are going to sign Telfair for more money than he deserves and also rumoring that we are signing John Lucas. Seriously? Chalmers would mop either of those two.

Fuzz: The point I was making about Utah is that they have high character guys that want to play basketball. They have guys that want to be there and aren't thugs. They don't have guys like Marbury, Melo, Artest, etc... They don't have any prima donnas, except maybe Ak47. He's pretty calm if you ask me though. I don't care where they are getting these guys, they aren’t drafting guys that don't want to be there or don't want to work. Getting rid of Ricky Davis, Mark Blount, Marko Jaric & Antoine Walker is a very underrated thing. I like McCants, but on this point alone, I would have no problem dumping him. I think Mayo would have pouted here and we don't need that.

Dogg: Couldn’t agree more!!!

NBA draft--mini roundtable

2008-06-25T16:44:00.007-05:00

Look who's back, back again. Yeah, that's right--Fuzz and Dogg make their summer appearance on TK. Q had to sit out this one, but we brought in the crafty lefty out of the pen, NBA guru Marx to fill in for his spot. Tomorrow's NBA draft is such a biggie for the local franchise that we had to call for a summer roundtable. Like usual, cigars, whiskey, and hookers were all present. Here is what transpired from the brothel...I mean...the roundtable...

Dogg: Now, I read that Wade might be available come draft night. This draft might be off the charts for trades. Suns are looking to move Diaw and Barbosa as well. I say we take Mayo or trade with Bucks/Bobcats for Yi or Morrison. Grizzlies might trade us Mike Miller or Kyle Lowry for our #3 and then we would draft #5 in their spot and take Joe Alexander or Kevin Love.

Fuzz: I don't mind that Grizzlies trade, especially if it's Mike Miller. Mike Miller can flat out shoot and that is something the Wolves are missing. I've been slowly convinced on Kevin Love. He's like one of those fantasy football players you talk yourself into after months of speculation. Like when I drafted Willis McGahee 4th overall two years ago and he ended up sucking ass. Love's slowly growing on me and I'm leaning toward him. He does everything pretty well and he wants to be great. I think that's a key factor with judging these guys. Most of these guys get the money and they mail it in. For all accounts I've read, Love is different than that. He has a lot of motivation to be good in the league. Plus, he'd help out our wings a lot with his passing ability (Paging Mr. Corey Brewer). Is a Kevin Love/Mike Miller package better than O.J. Mayo?

Dogg: I just don’t know if the Wolves are ready to be that good even if we get Mike Miller but they would take an expiring contract or two from us in the exchange as well so maybe it is worth it. Miller probably only has a few good years left in him but I do think Kevin Love will be dang good in the league. He seems like somebody that wouldn’t mind staying in MN either where Mayo might be 3 years and done. I’m starting to think Love is the pick for us after trading down and getting a player from that team.

Fuzz: We pretty much worked out everyone in the top 10, so we must think that a trade is a legit possibility. They looked at Bayless and Gordon this week. I don't think they go either of those guys, but who knows? It's McHale. He might shock us all again. Watch, we take that foreign guy with the stinky armpits no one knows anything about...

Danilo Gallinari

Dogg: Yeah, I can see him take that Dano guy but I sure hope not. I say we take Mayo or trade down to get Love. Gordon and Bayless are just scorers so I sure hope we don’t take either of those guys.

Marx: I’ve got five things to say:

1. I don't think there was ever talk of us receiving Mike Miller. We should never take him right now as he is a one dimensional player with a big salary who would not make that much difference to us. The Wolves still owe alot of money to Juwan Howard and T-Hud. We are also going to buy out Antoine Walker this summer so we will not be looking to increase our payroll. The rumors involving the Grizz have Miller, Kyle Lowry, and the #5 pick going to Miami for the #2 pick and Mark Blount. The Heat are reportedly trying to hold out for Mike Conley instead of Lowry, which makes sense on their part.

2. I don't want to drop down in the draft if all we receive from the Bucks is Yi. He might be a solid player, but he has no star potential and he also plays the 4, which is where we want to play Al Jeff. I would, however, strongly consider it if they offered us Andrew Bogut and the #7 pick for the # 3 pick.

3. An interesting rumor I heard that is totally not true but is intriguing is Randy Foye and Marco Jaric for Kirk Heinrich and his big salary. I would take a backcourt of Hinrich and OJ Mayo for the next 10 years. It would also allow the Bulls to re-sign Ben Gordon and Luol Deng to play alongside of Derrick Rose.

4. Right now, if the #2 pick is available I would do whatever I could to get into that spot. I think that the #3 pick this year, the return of the 1st round pick the Heat owe us, and possible Rashad McCants would potentially be enough.

5. Lastly, I have no problem standing still and taking Mayo with our pick. We can plug into our lineup at 2 guard next year and start Foye, Mayo, Brewer, Al Jeff, and a mystery player. That would get us moving in the right direction.

Dogg: Paul Allen from KFAN talked about Mike Miller this morning but the Grizzlies were hesitant of getting rid of him to us for the #3 pick. They were willing to give us Kyle Lowry who I believe is and will be better than Mike Conley in the league. I don’t think much of Conley at all. He has no jump shot and doesn’t do the little things as good as a guy like Rajon Rondo who also doesn’t have a jump shot but plays tremendous defense and can finish near the rim with the best of them. I would take a Rondo over Conley in a second.

They won’t give us Bogut. Yi is probably the best we can do from the Bucks. Q mentioned Villanueva but I don’t know if I would want him either…..Foye and Jaric for Hinrich? If that was offered and we didn’t take it, kill me now. That would be a killer trade….I also believe we trade our two 2nd round draft picks to hop into the first round because there are several teams who don’t want to pay that luxury tax with a player in the 1st round. I wish we could select Love early and then Augustin in the teens but DJ is rising quickly.

Marx: The only conceivable way that we would get Augustine is if we made trade with the Bucks and then picked him at #7.

Fuzz: Brewer has to get better this year or will be looking for another wing player. He can't shoot 35% like he did last year. I wish you could mess McCants' offensive skills with Brewer's defensive abilities. That would be a good player. They both need to improve on their weaknesses to have a good career in this league. That's why I wouldn't mind the Mayo pick. Seems like a guy that has it all.

Dogg: Augustin is rising up the charts so we would have to trade down with somebody in the top 10 for sure. Bilas has him as the 6th best player in the draft but he also has Brook Lopez 3rd. I can still see us taking him even though we haven’t said much about him. That will be McHale’s big play, not talk about the guy he likes and then draft him like it was some huge secret. Take Mayo then trade your 2nd round picks to get in the 14-20 area and take Hibbert is what I like.

Fuzz: All I know is that this draft is going to be off the charts for the Timberpuppies. Three picks and a ton of trade potential. Last year it seemed like Brewer was a lock for us, but this year it’s hard to pin them down. They aren’t given us much. I’m really excited but scared at the same time. Somehow, we’re going to fuck this up…

Have Some

2008-06-23T17:40:00.006-05:00

“I ask him, ‘Who own the Chiefs?’
‘What did he say?’
‘Owns, owns...’”
That classic exchange comes from the movie Slap Shot and with a slight alteration, could aptly summarize the Twins during interleague play. The reason? We absolutely own the National League. Every year at this time, we come into series’ against the Senior Circuit playing below average to terrible baseball. And every year we dominate whoever the NL throws at us and we get right back in the hunt for a division title. In fact, the Twins have the third most wins all time in interleague play, with 116 (the Yankees and A’s both have 119). So it should be no surprise that the Twins have won 8 of their past 9 games, including 6 in a row against NL teams.

Who's the sucker that's going to trade for this guy?

Everything always starts with pitching, and the Twins have been getting some quality outings from their starters and the bullpen. Prior to this winning streak, both groups of pitchers had been having their struggles. The starters were inconsistent at best and the pen was allowing the opposition to come back and/or extend leads—very odd since that is usually such a strong part of our team. All of that has changed over the last couple weeks as the Twins have gotten very strong outings from all of their starters, including two quality starts from Livan Hernandez during this run. This could lead to some team actually believing that Livan could help them down the stretch and we would be able to unload him before he completely blows up (which will inevitably happen). Another guy who has been surprisingly good of late is Jesse Crain. Personally, I have always disliked Crain, mostly because he has only one pitch: 93 mph down the middle of the plate. But he’s been spotting his fastball more, getting some movement on his pitches, and even throwing something other than a fastball occasionally. All of which has led to him and Matt Guerrier being our most consistent late inning pitchers who have been getting the ball to Joe Nathan in the 9th with the lead.

Proving the doubters (like me) very wrong so far...

The team has also been scoring runs in bunches. Big innings have been a critical part of the roll the Twins are on, and it’s usually starting with the top of the lineup. As much as I rip Gardy, it’s only fair to give him credit on using Alexi Casilla in the 2 hole. I thought this was a terrible idea at first, given Casilla’s track record of not hitting in the majors, but he’s been thriving. With leadoff hitter Carlos Gomez only hitting about .270 (still good for a 22 year old), Alexi has stepped up big time and has consistently been on base for Joe Mauer (now leading the AL in average) and Justin Morneau (currently boasting an 11 game hitting streak) to drive him in. But it’s not just the top getting things done. Currently, the Twins have the highest batting average in baseball with runners in scoring position. If we can continue to get guys on, the team will surely continue to succeed.

That's our boy...

Another hitting star during this hot streak is new third baseman, and TKOT’s boy, Brian Buscher. The kid is a straight masher and is coming up with big hits seemingly every night. In his last 10 games, Busch is hitting .353 with 12 RBI and the team is 7-3 in those games. I know it’s a very small sample size, but given the Twins extreme lack of production from the third base position over the last number of years, it’s hard not to get too excited. Granted, the kid is still shaky with the glove, but if he’s going to hit like this, who cares?

Nicky assuming Gardy's favorite position...

Some things never change, and this apparently includes Ron Gardenhire’s love affair with Nick Punto. The cute couple has had a strong bond with each other for many years now and I think it might be getting serious. How else could you possibly explain sending down Matt Macri (hitting .367 while he was up with the big club—or roughly twice what Punto usually hits) to activate Tricky Nicky? And on top of that, Gardy has pretty much handed him the starting shortstop job. Look, I know that shortstop hasn’t been a solid position for us this year. Adam Everett was just plain terrible and Brendan Harris has been unspectacular. Nevertheless, to just give that job to a guy who can’t stay healthy this year and flirted with the Punto Line (it’s time for Mendoza to lose this title, who better to take the crown than Nick?) while playing every day last year is odd, even for Gardy. But then again, you can’t deny true love.

With the Twins only 1 ½ games behind the AL Central leading White Sox, this could be a big week for the team. They have three games coming up in San Diego against a Padres team that has been playing quite poorly of late, and then come back home for a three game set against the Milwaukee Brewers. Given the difficulty of our July schedule (Detroit twice, Cleveland twice, Chicago, Boston and New York), it is absolutely crucial that we dominate the next week. If the Twins keep getting quality outings from their starters and some clutch hitting, there’s no reason why they can’t take at least 4 of 6 and possibly be back in first place come next Monday.

Q's News

2008-06-17T22:36:00.008-05:00

As you already know, TK is going to be a bit light on content for the summer. It just had to be like that; we all got burnt out (get it? Burnt Toast) and the writing seemed forced and not up to the high standard we have set here at the House that Toast Built. To get us back in gear, here are some random sports related thoughts that I have.

What a chode

NBA Referee Scandal
I really hate that this is a story that is headlining most sports coverage these days. We all know that Tim Donahey is an admitted cheater and that he altered (or at least attempted to) the outcome of many games. We also know that the NBA is the shadiest organization in sports, so this shouldn’t have come as a complete shock. There have always been rumblings of draft lotteries being fixed for certain teams and/or players. There are almost never sweeps in the playoffs (because the NBA wants more TV money) and no lead is ever safe. Just look at this year’s playoffs: there were at least 4 giant comebacks in the Lakers-Spurs and Lakers-Celtics series’ alone. Is this because the teams don’t try hard all the time? Possibly. Could it be because the refs either choose to or are told to keep it close? Also a possibility. The point is, that nothing that comes out of Donahey’s mouth should be so ground breaking that we stop the presses for it. I know he claims that the refs handed Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals to the Lakers. But this is an admitted cheater, why is his word worth anything? Just like with Matt Walsh and “Spygate” (stupid name and why do we always have to call everything a “gate”?), the timing is a bit curious and you really have to consider the source. Plus, it’s in the past and there’s nothing that can or will be done about it now. So quit updating me every hour as to the on goings of this scandal (I’m talking to you SportsCenter/Around the Horn/PTI/NBA Live/NBA Countdown…) and focus on sports.

Way to step up Kobe...

NBA Finals
I’ll be honest; I did not see this coming. Heading into the series I thought that the Lakers were clearly the favorites, even if Boston won 66 games this year. They had played better in the playoffs, seemed to match up well, and had a deeper bench. It all added up to the Lakers taking the crown in 5 or 6 games—or so I thought. Then I realized four important things: Kobe is not MJ—not even close, Pau Gasol sucks, Paul Pierce is really good, and Ray Allen isn’t finished yet. Add it all up and you get Boston in 6. Oh well, at least KG gets a ring. I think everyone in Minnesota can appreciate that.

The men who should be playing in the House that Ruth Built in early July

MLB All Stars
The All Star game is coming up in just a few weeks. The one thing I’ve always hated about MLB’s version of this gathering (other than the whole “It Counts Now!” angle) is the mandatory representative for each team. Do baseball officials really believe that a ton of people in Pittsburgh, who wouldn’t have watched otherwise, are going to tune in just to see Jason Bay come in as a defensive replacement in the 6th inning, only to be pinch hit for right awa? C’mon. It’s absurd and it takes at least 3-4 spots away from deserving players every year. That said, here are the guys I think should make the All Star teams (position players only) without the mandatory representative rule:
Note: A bunch of these guys won’t make it because of fan voting. “Oh, Ichiro? I’ve heard of him.” It's just another reason why the Mid Summer Classic is a joke.
American League: C—Joe Mauer, AJ Pierzynski 1B—Kevin Youklis, Justin Morneau 2B—Brian Roberts, Ian Kinsler 3B—Alex Rodriguez, Joe Crede SS—Orlando Cabrera, Edgar Renteria OF—Josh Hamilton, Milton Bradley, Carlos Quentin, Manny Ramirez, Magglio Ordonez
Thoughts: A lot of Rangers considering they're not a very good team. By the way, what happened to the shortstop position in the American League? Was it that long ago that it was the glory position in all of baseball? Back when A Rod, Nomar, and Jeter were at the top of their game and a guy like Tejada couldn't even crack the lineup even with his ridiculous numbers. Now? Christ, I could make the league and hit .260 and probably be a reserve.

National League: C—Geovany Soto, Benji Molina, Russell Martin 1B—Adrian Gonzalez, Ryan Howard 2B—Chase Utley, Dan Uggla 3B—Chipper Jones, David Wright SS—Christian Guzman, Hanley Ramirez OF—Nate McClouth, Lance Berkman Ryan Braun, Ryan Ludwick, Alfonzo Soriano
Thoughts: NL catchers are very good this year. I could have put Brian McCaan on this team too and he would have deserved it. Nice to see McClouth having a good year for Pittsburgh. Xavier Nady is a strong candidate for the Pirates too. I put Soriano on even though he's been injured because he's been absolutely dominant when he's been in the lineup.

Bristol is about to be empty during Week 1 of the NFL season

MNF—Pack/Vikes
I just read the other day that ESPN is pulling out all the stops for the first Monday Night Football game of the year. The game features the Purple playing in Green Bay against the Packers, and I guess that Brett Favre’s jersey is going to be retired (cute). Apparently this is a big enough deal that the MNF crew will be live in GB, along with the 7 man NFL Countdown crew, PTI, SportsCenter, and at least 4 sideline reporters, not to mention all of the camera and technical crews. Seriously? This isn’t going to be some sort of significant or historical moment in the annals of football. It’s the first Monday game of the year and they’re retiring a guy’s jersey. I honestly cannot believe how much the media D rides Favre. Do you think he gets chaffed from ESPN sucking him off so much? I know that the World Wide Leader is known for overdoing things at times, but this takes the cake. I guess I’ll just have to be ok with the world watching as we kick the sh*t out of the Packers on the first stop on our Ass Kicking Tour 2008. Per Jarred Allen’s warning, I really hope Aaron Rogers took out some extra life insurance.

Easy there Tiger...

Chad Johnson, Adam Jones, etc.
Speaking of things that I don’t understand, can someone please explain to me why A) NFL Live is on every single day, but Baseball Tonight isn’t and B) I have to hear about guys like Chad Johnson and Adam Jones (I’m not going to call a grown man “Pacman”) every day? Our country is obsessed with the negative, and nowhere is it more prevalent than in professional sports. We constantly focus on the negative (Michael Vick, Spygate, Steroids, etc.) and give it way too much coverage to the point where it is glorified. As a professional athlete, you get more time on TV and in the papers if you do something bad than if you’re staying clean and having outstanding personal or team success. Then we wonder why high school and college athletes consistently get busted for using performance enhancing drugs, partying all night, and doing all sorts of other dumb things. Just because Chad says he’s not coming to camp and then shows up doesn’t mean that I need round the clock coverage of his OTA’s. Stop giving these guys so much attention.

Update

2008-06-04T15:02:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since we've posted and the sign above says it all. To be honest, the TK house got busy and weren't that motivated to write. After some discussing and an idea from a friend, we'll be taking a hiatus until the late summer/fall. And by "we," I mean myself. Truthfully, I'm not motivated to write at all and I don't want to do a POD everyday with no stories. That's lame. I've spoken to Q, and he'll be writing about twice a week coming up here. He's our Twins expert, so expect a lot of baseball talk. A lot. Come fall, we'll have football (college and NFL), a new TV season, baseball playoff races heating up and college basketball season in close proximity to write about. Plus, the start of the OJ Mayo era in close range.

So, keep coming back this summer to see what Q has. He'll be holding down the fort. Just found out Dogg we'll be jumping in when he can also. And, I'm sure I'll jump in a roundtable now & again with those two and maybe a cougar city article will pop up. We'll be in full force come mid Augustish. Sorry for the lack of material and have a good summer!

-Fuzz

POD

2008-05-27T11:05:00.003-05:00

Dogg: That dunk by Maxiell was absolutely nasty. I think he was about 2’ in from the free throw line when he took off. This Boston-Detroit series has been much more entertaining than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, there isn’t a lot of points being put up on the board but it is extremely intense. Hard fouls every night and you can see how much both teams want this series. I hope it does come down to game 7 in Boston. Detroit has dealt with that in previous seasons so it would be fun to see the outcome of a game of that magnitude...On a side note, I really with the T-Wolves could draft a player like Maxiell that late in the draft and have him pan out. I think this our year that we hit it big in the draft!

Fuzz: Why can't I do something like this? That is complete bullshit. I would pay $500 to do that once. Some guys can literally jump out of the gym and I'm jealous as hell. I think Boston is in a must win situation for Game 5. I know they won one in Detroit but I don't see them winning game 6 if they lose game 5. They need a big home win tomorrow night. I don't think this is the year for the Wolves, not with McHale still involved. I see us drafting flops...again. We have to be the worst NBA franchise ever. I see them contracting teams down the road because they have too many and we'll be one of them for sure.

Q: Dude, Jason Maxiell is an athletic freak. If it wasn't for him and McDyess, the Pistons would be done by now. Instead, they've got a fighting chance in Game 5. Stu Scott said on SportsCenter last night that 83% of series tied 2-2 had the winner decided by the outcome of Game 5. So I guess you could say that it's a huge game. I know people are going to say that since Detroit won a game there already that they have the advantage. I disagree. I just don't see that team going into the Garden and winning twice in one series. Boston in 7 is the new pick.

Playing the Lottery

2008-05-21T19:34:00.016-05:00

On Tuesday night, the NBA held their annual Draft Lottery to determine the order of picks 1-13 in June’s amateur draft. As was the norm for most of the first ten years of the franchise’s existence, as well as the last few years, the Timberwolves were prominently involved. Here is our expert takes on some of the proceedings from the lottery. Obviously we will have a more in depth look once we get closer to the actual draft weekend.

Question 1: The Chicago Bulls and their 1.7% odds became the second least likely team in lottery history to land the #1 pick last night (second only to the 1993 Magic). Two part question: was this a fix? Who do they take at #1?

Dogg—I don’t think it is ever a fix but ridix for sure. I think they take Derek Rose. The Bulls have a number of players worth something to other teams so I would be dealing some players for sure. I would deal Gordon/Deng/Hughes, Gooden/Nacioni because they have too many guys who can play ball. I would personally deal Gooden and Gordon for picks or a better top player. Whatever they decide to do, the Bulls should be near the top of the Eastern Conference next year.

Who gets to live in MJ's shadow?

Fuzz—Tim Donaghy is out of the league so I don’t think it was fixed---kidding. I don’t think it was fixed, I just think the Bulls got extremely lucky and something like that never happens to our club in town. We’ve never had the first pick and we have been an abysmal franchise. That’s the part that sucks. Anyways, I see the Bulls taking Beasley. This is a hard pick in the sense that they have a ton of forwards and a ton of guards. Beasley or Rose is going to add more competition to their team and bump someone out. They could be looking to trade some of the riff-raff on their roster to clear some things out. With guards Hinrich, Gordon Duhon, and Hughes, I see them going with the forward Michael Beasley.

Q—Apparently I’m the only conspiracy theorist in the group. I feel like the NBA is the shadiest professional sport, by far. Can you imagine the uproar if an NFL official was being charged with fixing games? NFL Live would be on 24/7. Somehow the NBA manages to sweep it under the rug. There have been a ton of sketchy lottery proceedings as well: the Knicks getting Ewing, the Magic getting Shaq, etc.

Yeah, this was legit...

Now you have the Bulls, a major market team (and former home of Basketball God) who is down on their luck and needs a boost, beating unbelievable odds to get the first pick and their choice of two instant League studs. Naw, that’s not fixed at all. Anyways, I think they should take Beasley with the makeup of their team. They have some talented guards and he would make their team much more complete. That said, I think they’ll end up taking Rose because everyone is scared of passing on the next Chris Paul.

Question 2: The Wolves landed at #3--not great, but not terrible either. This means they have their pick of anyone outside of Beasley and Rose. Make your case for who we should pick and why.

Dogg—I think this draft is loaded with players. I believe our franchise will take Brook Lopez or O.J. Mayo. What do I think we should do? After pondering about the draft I think we should trade down and get D.J. Augustin. Try and move into the 1st round with another pick and take Robin Lopez or Roy Hibbert. I know both won’t be NBA superstars but I’m still a firm believer that this team needs a true center who can rebound and play very good defense and take the load off Big Al a little bit. Maybe even a guy like Kosta Koufos if he can manage to guard low post players effectively. He seems to be a little perimeter oriented but he’ll be a good offensive player in the NBA.

TKOT's choice for the 3rd overall pick

Q—For sure we should take Lopez. He’s already proven that he can score the ball, plus he’s seven feet tall. At the very least he’ll be a presence defensively and on the boards, maybe more than that. I know the “experts” are going to yell until they are blue in the face that Mayo is the 3rd best player in this draft, but I don’t like him for the Wolves. We have some talent at the guard position; we don’t have a center. If you can get a center to pair with Big Al for the next 10 years, you’re rebuilding project is going well.

Fuzz—Brook Lopez, Center. Our main needs are at Center and Point Guard. He fills one of these needs. He isn’t going to be a sexy pick, but we’re rebuilding here. We aren’t making the playoffs next year with anyone we draft, so I would like to go with a solid 7-footer. He’s not a stiff. He has moves and a reliable jump shot already. Plus, he in no way will demand the ball to score, leaving our main man Jefferson free to do what he does best. We’d have a very good frontcourt for years to come with Lopez.

Question 3: Ok, now for a little negativity. We know that McHale destroys just about everything he touches, so what is the worst case scenario for our pick and why?

McHale might draft this guy just based on this picture

Q—Is it possible for us to run out of time and lose the pick? If not, then it has to involve us taking some foreign pud (copyright Kevin Kelly) who never leaves his homeland or sees the inside of the Target Center. Since there are one or two guys like that projected in the top part of the draft, the likelihood of this happening seems extremely high right now.

Dogg—We take Danilo Gallinari from Italy. I know the league has some great foreign players but odds tell us that most foreign players don’t pan out in the NBA.

Fuzz—A lot of people are jumping on the OJ Mayo bandwagon. He’s the risk/reward guy. Before the college season, he was the #1 pick. Now, he’s somewhere in the top 5. I’ve never liked him, so I don’t want him but I’m afraid we’re going to take him. I think he’s an egomaniac that has a piss poor attitude. The worst case scenario is for Mayo to turn out to be a superstar only to pull a Marbury and ship himself out of here. I’m stereotyping here, but guys like Mayo don’t want to be “stuck” here in Minnesota. We take him 3rd, he rips it up and he’s gone in three years. That would suck…

Does this look like a guy who would want to stay in Minny?

Question 4: One last Wolves question: we have two of the top four picks in the second round. What are some names that you'd like to see us go after with these picks?

Fuzz—I think those picks will be based off what we do with our 1st rounder, obviously. If we take Lopez, we’d go with someone smaller with these picks. Vice versa if we take a guard/forward. Anyways, if there were a way that we could trade these picks to move up to the late first round and take a guy like Ty Lawson, I wouldn’t be pissed. I don’t know if this is even a possibility, but I would like them to make a move up if they could.

Potential 2nd Round Pick?

Dogg—If we take Brook Lopez with the #3 pick I say we roll with Ty Lawson early in the 2nd round. He is small but he’s got strength so I wouldn’t worry about him getting abused in the low post. This team needs a true PG and I think Ty Lawson can be effective in this league. The other guy who I think could have a solid NBA career coming out of the 2nd round is D.J. White from Indiana. He seems he could be that guy off the bench who averages 10 and 5 which every good team needs.

Q—These guys hit the nail on the head in that picks 31 and 34 depend entirely on who we take at 3. Since this isn’t the NFL, I seriously doubt that we’ll be able to move up by exchanging the two of them either. So if we take Lopez at 3, then I’d like to see us go after at least one guard, maybe two. Some guys I wouldn’t mind seeing us take in the 2nd round include: Ty Lawson, Kyle Weaver, Davon Jefferson, and Wayne Ellington.

Question 5: Make a call--who is the sleeper in this draft that no one is talking about right now?

Fuzz's Sleeper: Donte Green

Fuzz—Jerel McNeal. Kidding, he fucking blows. I like Donte Green from Syracuse. He’s been overshadowed since day one. He was a top 10 freshman coming in last year, but all the accolades went to Beasley, Rose, Love, & Mayo. He’s a big kid at 6’10, 225. He averaged nearly 18 points and 7 boards a game his freshman year. A few casual college hoops fans don’t even probably know who he is. He projects in the mid 1st round and could end up being the steal of the draft. His perimeter game improved greatly and if he could be a #3 in the NBA, he’d be lethal.

Q's Sleeper: Davon Jefferson

Q—I really like Davon Jefferson out of USC. He’s a 6-8 wing who can score, rebound, and defend. Obviously, as is the case with most draft sleepers, it is going to depend on who he gets drafted by. If he can get on a team where he can fill a niche, a la Brandon Bass in Dallas, then he could be very good. I’d love to see the Wolves pick him up at 31 to come off the bench as Brewer’s sub when he inevitably gets benched.

Dogg's Sleeper: Kyle Weaver

Dogg—I like Kyle Weaver out of Washington St. He knows how to play tough defense coming from that school and seems to have good NBA game. I’ve seen him in the low block and also on the perimeter with scoring abilities from both positions. I would love to see the Wolves select him in the 2nd round.

Voices from a Stranger

2008-05-19T20:01:00.008-05:00

The fellas are back from HK Stables to give you a recap of the Preakness this past weekend.

The H from HK Stables

Two down and one to go for Big Brown's chase at the elusive Triple Crown of horse racing.

HK stables again, back to recap everything that went down this weekend involving the Preakness and local live racing at Canterbury Park.

Preakness-

Once again, Big Brown, showed on Saturday why he is currently considered the best horse in the country. Big Brown in his past two races has won by a combined total of 10 lengths over the competition, and has looked unstoppable. Most who caught the race on Saturday from Maryland noted that Big Brown actually took it easy coming down the stretch and the jockey has been quoted as saying "I eased him up. There was no reason to keep pushing him; he had the win wrapped up". Big Brown is still searching for competition and may find it in a Japanese import known as Casino Drive in the final race towards horse racing history.

The win was pretty inevitable as all who took note could have told you and this was no clearer than in the winner's payouts. Big Brown was the clear 1-5 favorite and only paid out $2.40 for the win bet. He also was the lead horse in the following payouts: $36.60 exacta, a $336.80 triple and a $1,192.30 superfecta. Big Brown has made it hard for all of us bettors out there to make money and this will continue into the Belmont Stakes on June 7.

HK stables does not want any credit for those who took our advice and played Big Brown in the favorite over the field bet, but congratulations to those who took it. As for the two of us, we split up a fairly hefty Trifecta bet (see photo) only to come out slightly ahead. This is what will happen when there is a heavy favorite and a weak field; just how the Preakness shaped up.

Canterbury-

Members of HK and Bluewater Stables were in attendence for this past weekends live racing at Canterbury Park, with some members attending the races Friday through Sunday. There were two major races on Saturday with the 10,000 Lakes stakes and the Lady Slipper stakes. Both races paid $50,000 to the winners.

In the 10,000 Lakes Stakes (boys only), Bankers D Light edged out the competition winning over Trickeyville Dew and Bee o Bee Bob. The filly paid out nicely for those who had here parlayed into exotic bets such as Exactas, Trifectas and Superfectas, as she was a long shot going in at 10-1 (morning line)

In the girls' race, the Lady Slipper Stakes, it was A.J. Banks and jockey Scott Stevens brining the win home for trainer Todd Hoffrage. A.J. Banks (7-2 morning line) beat out Hills of Ireland and Pretty as a Smile to claim the $50,000 stakes at Canterbury.

On a side note a new partnership was formed at Canterbury on Sunday afternoon with the newly named Tres Borrachos (named after the horse in the Preakness race) all holding winning Trifecta tickets. H, K and Moe all bet the same trifecta combination (without knowing it) in race 6 yesterday paying off $110.80 for the $1 investment! Needless to say the Oil Cans (Fosters Beer) were flowing after that, and the Tres Borrachos all left the track Sunday with cash in our pockets.

The K from HK stables says:

I couldn't have thought of a better weekend to take in the races. The official formation of Tres Borrachos was one of the highlights of my young horsemen career and I couldn't have been more proud of the handicapping we completed that race. That seemed to be the start of something good, the very next race, we didn't handicap the same race but Borracho Moe's horse beat mine out by a nose in a photo finish for the show and he won another, smaller trifecta. Even though I lost, it's always more fun when the horse you liked at longer odds makes a run for the money. Borracho Moe and I are also on the lookout for the owner of a certain horse that absolutely screwed us both on a rich trifecta. When we find that horse, it's going to the glue factory. Borracho Moe wasn't the only hot handicapper this weekend, I managed to pick A.J. Bakes in the Lady Slipper, a nice $68 exacta payout. And finally, Borracho Hill hit the biggest winner of the weekend, taking the field over Trickeyville Dew in 10,000 Lakes Stakes. Unfortunately, after a few too many Oil Cans on Saturday, I was literally a Borracho and threw the damn ticket away. I got you on that Borracho Hill.

As for Big Brown, nobody is going to beat this horse. End of story.

Three weeks until we find out if Big Brown can end the 30 year Triple Crown drought...

Picture of the Day

2008-05-19T10:21:00.002-05:00

Dogg: Garnett just laid a load on Paul’s grill.

Q: There's a lot of inappropriate things that could be said about this picture. The bottom line is that the Celtics may not be as good as everyone thought they were. It took an improbable game from THe Truth to get them to the conference finals. Their opponent, the Pistons, are one of the few teams that have proven they can win on the road, plus they're rested for the series. I got Detroit in 6.

Fuzz: I agree with Q in that the Celtics aren't as good as we thought. It's strange because they won 66 games but seem to be just hanging on in the playoffs. Why? Maybe it's because Ray Allen still hasn't showed up. Or they aren't even coming close to a road victory yet. I think they'll need to win at Detroit in order to win the series because I don't see the Pistons losing every road game. They are too much of a veteran team to do so. Buuuutttt, I still like the Celtics taking the series. I think a lot of people will be on the Pistons bandwagon, but I'm taking the Celtics in 7.

Voices from a Stranger--Preakness Preview

2008-05-16T09:20:00.000-05:00

HK stables back at you again for another preview of one of the horse racing worlds Triple Crown events. This week we are taking a look at the second jewel in the crown; The Preakness from Pimlico Park in Balitmore Maryland.

CURLIN wins the 2007 Preakness

The Preakness being held on May 17th this year, has a long history, running for the first time in 1873, two years before the first Kentucky Derby. Many people will write off the Preakness as the worst of the 3 triple crown races. What it does do, is set the stage for a possible Triple Crown winner (a horse that wins all 3 Triple Crown races; Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes). Throughout the 125 year history of the Triple Crown ONLY 11 horses have accomplished the goal, and not one has done it since AFFIRMED in 1978.

Typically, the Preakness is run by the winner of the Kentucky Derby; this year Big Brown, as well as other horses that didn’t quite perform as well as they had hoped. This year however, only one other Derby contestant, Gayego, will try for another shot at Big Brown. Many people say that this is due to the fact that Big Brown is the best horse they have seen and can not be beaten, others say it is just too quick of a turn around to run another race (2 weeks) for these young horses. Recapturetheglory, who finished 5th, at the Derby behind Big Brown was scheduled to race, but was with drawn due to fever and will not risk further sickness or injury to try and catch Big Brown. Gayego, may be the only real threat that Big Brown would face in the Preakness after he got off to a bad start in the Derby and finished 17th out of 20.

BIG BROWN

Other contenders to Big Brown’s race towards the first Triple Crown in 30 years are Behindatthebar, Kentucky Bear, and Macho Again. Of those three many feel that Behindatthebar is the closest competition that Big Brown will face. He did win his last start just before the Derby, winning the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland , but was purposely kept out of the Derby. His trainer, Todd Pletcher has said, “it was too soon for him to come back (for the Derby), I am much happier with these 4 weeks off to get ready for the Preakness.” The other MAJOR area for concern, especially for me is that the only other starts of Behindthebar’s young career have all come on synthetic tracks, never racing in a major stakes race on a dirt track. As we all found out in the Derby, the previous synthetic track horses did not fair well.

K of HK stables says:
The Preakness is going to be a race for second place. Desormeaux can run BIG BROWN in reverse and he’ll still win by three lengths. GAYEGO is the only derby horse to take on the challenge at Pimlico on Saturday and I don’t know that this colt has what it takes to pull it out. I’m not going to put too much time in trying to handicap the Preakness because I’m that unimpressed with the contenders and I’m just that confident BIG BROWN will completely clobber these horses. I don’t remember the last time I used the word “clobber”, but this is as good of an occasion as any to put it in my vocabulary. I’ll admit, I wasn’t too excited about BIG BROWN’s starting position in the Derby, but I did know this horse was good. The fact that he won from that post, and in such amazing fashion, proves (affirms if you will) win the Triple Crown. For those of you who don’t get my pun, AFFIRMED was the last horse to accomplish this feat, way back in ’78. I am not nearly as excited for the Preakness as I was for the Derby but any horse race is an exciting horse race….except harness racing I guess. YUCK!

Harness Racing!!

Current odds for the Preakness on Saturday, the 17th (after post positions were announced):
Post/Horse/ML Odds
1 Macho Again 20-1
2 Tres Borrachos 30-1
3 Icabad Crane 30-1
4 Yankee Bravo 15-1
5 Behindathebar 10-1
6 Racecar Rhapsody 30-1
7 Big Brown 1-2
8 Kentucky Bear 15-1
9 Stevil 30-1
10 Riley Tucker 30-1
11 Giant Moon 30-1
12 Gayego 8-1
13 Hey Byrn 20-1

H of HK stables wagering guide for the Preakness:
Win bet: Big Brown
There is no doubt this horse will win….unless…..never mind he WILL win

Exacta Box bet: Big Brown with ALL as well as ALL with Big Brown
HK touched on this last week following the Derby as our new favorite betting option when there is a clear favorite, and then the outside chance that a long short could win (great for big races and sloppy tracks). You are placing 2 bets, one as the main bet and one is sometimes referred to as the “hedge bet” or covering you’re a** if the favorite you pick does not come in first he can still come in second and you would win the bet.

The theory behind the bet is that you have a favorite, Big Brown, and then a bunch of other longer shots who could win. Ultimately, with the bet you are hoping that any other horse comes in first and Big Brown will come in second, this will pay out much higher than the flip side of the bet.

The cost of the bet will be a bit higher than a traditional bet, such as win, place or show, but you are betting multiple combinations of scenarios, as long as the favorite you have picked comes in first or second.

Win/Place/Show bet: Kentucky Bear
I placed this same bet on Eight Belles at the last minute before the Derby and made a decent return. If the final odds drop to 12-1 or 10-1 on this horse, I may rethink this, but for now I will be putting a little change on the horse named after Krebs if he moved to live closer to the Derby.

Example ticket of the Exacta bet explained above

K of HK stables wagering guide for the Preakness:
As for bets, I’m with Hill on this, I’m going to place BIG BROWN over the field and hope the long shot places. I’m also going to take the Field over BIG BROWN (now that sounds like a porn flick), and secretly hope that somebody edges him by a nose. My choice for the sleeper is TRES BORRACHOS. Until about five minutes ago, I didn’t know what a borracho was but I found out it means drunk in Spanish. Hopefully the trainer gives him some Corona before post time. The U.S. Treasury tells me that my economic stimulus check will be deposited by Friday, if so, look out Canterbury!

That’s it folks. Not much else to be said. The Preakness is not the most exciting of the three Triple Crown races, but as stated, you should watch; you may be witnessing history in the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years. GO BIG BROWN!! RIP EIGHT BELLES, you are with us at every race.

-HK stables.

NBA Roundtable

2008-05-15T01:00:00.000-05:00

Another roundtable! This is a random conversation about the current NBA playoffs. Let's roll!

Fuzz: First off, I want to first give props to the Detroit Pistons for their sixth straight conference finals appearance, but is anyone else sick of them? I am. And, I have no idea why? I've always liked Flip, because Flip coached here and I love anyone that has Minnesota ties. Love Billups and Prince. The others are also good players as well but I'm not crazy about them. Rip can still shoot the lights out and RaWeed is still one of the best characters in the league. They also play mad defense in a league that forgets that once in a while, or all the time. Yet, I don't want them in the finals. Am I alone here?

Q: I don't hate Detroit. I think Flip is an overrated coach and that they'd have been to more NBA Finals (maybe another title too?) with a different/better coach, but that's just me. As good as Billups is, I just don't get him. How can he spend the first half of his career bouncing around with terrible teams (Denver, Boston, Minnesota) where he can get all the playing time in the world and not be any good, yet as soon as he lands in Detroit, he becomes captain clutch and the leader of 6 time conference finals team? I love Wallace because he's extremely talented, emotional, and hilarious. I love Prince because I told Dogg that he would be a great pro coming out of Kentucky and he's proved me right (one of the few calls I've ever been right on). They may not play the most exciting brand of basketball, but they do have continuity, likeable players (which separates them from San Antonio), and they just flat out win. I'm cool with them beating the Celtics/Cavs in 5 or 6 games and then getting destroyed by LA in the Finals.

Dogg: The Pistons aren’t the most exciting team to watch in the league but you’re right when saying props is a must with this organization. 6 straight conference finals? I don’t know what to think about that because the East has been the JV to the West for the past about…6 years. They do have an NBA title though but with a road that easy to the Finals is definitely an advantage against the West teams who have to struggle to get out of the first round. That hasn’t been the scenario this year but has been in past years. Billups, Weed and Prince are very good players and I actually don’t mind these players either. I cannot stand Rip Hamilton though. First of all, I call BS on that nose protector. He said this year that he has to wear it because he would need surgery if he broke it one more time. Why didn’t you tell us 19 years ago when you first started wearing the stupid mask? Rip is a little bitch on the court and I hope Ray Allen absolutely destroys him in the next series. Yes, I think Boston advance because nobody can touch them at home right now. It would be great to see Boston win the NBA title without winning a road game. What you fools think about that?

Fuzz: If Boston pulls that off, that would be frickin great. They have home court advantage throughout, so this is possible. Plus, they play like shit on the road and awesome at home making this a real possibility. This Boston team has shown some serious weaknesses this postseason. They won like 65 regular season games but they have no go-to player (not surprising with KG on your team) and they seem a tad bit old. Atlanta and Cleveland won because they are out running/working them. Boston can't keep up with these teams. Another side note about this: If it's a Boston/New Orleans finals, the Hornets are going to kill the Celtics. Also, has anyone seen Ray Allen this playoffs? I'm surprised he's not on a back of a milk carton by now, because he's been missing for 3+ weeks. It's a little shocking Boston isn't worried about him because he is no where to be found. I still probably also like Boston taking the Cleveland series but I have them losing to Detroit. Detroit is the better team.

Q: I'm starting to get a little tired of all the hype around the Celtics. They are on every single commercial, story, and magazine cover involving the NBA. We get it: they have three veterans who are all very good and have not won a title. Maybe there's a reason for that. I do love listening to all of the Boston fans bitch and moan about KG doing nothing in the fourth quarter but fall away J's from 15 feet out. Did you guys miss the first 10 years of his career? He's been doing it for quite some time now. It's also embarrassing that they can't win one game on the road. They had the best overall and road record in the league this year, but they can't beat the Hawks in Atlanta or the Cavs in Cleveland when LeBron isn't playing like LEBRON JAMES? C'mon. I know it's their "right" to play at home more than on the road, but if they lose one home game, they're screwed. I don't want my NBA Champion to be completely inept in games away from their own building.

Dogg: I don’t know why everybody is so concerned with Boston after winning 65 regular season games. Yeah, they aren’t dominating teams like they did in the regular season but who is? Detroit had a tough time with a poor Philadelphia team and the Hornets/Lakers are both going deep into their 2nd round series. Both teams have shown major weaknesses on the road so I don’t understand why Boston is getting criticized for not winning on the road when no other team really is either besides Detroit.

They don’t have a go-to player? That is really weird since they have 3 HOF’ers (Allen, Pierce, Garnett) in their starting lineup. I believe all 3 of them are go-to players in their own right and don’t buy any of that talk about Boston not having “the man” in the 4th quarter. Play team ball and get a good shot then. It doesn’t always take a Lebron or Kobe to charge into the lane every 4th quarter and throw up a shot no matter how many guys are surrounding them. Make the extra pass and get an open shot. Your players playing crunch time should all be able to knock down open jump shots and Boston should just play a solid team game even in the 4th quarter. They are not short on great players so things shouldn’t get difficult just because it’s the 4th quarter. Shouldn’t we be scared that Ray Allen and Paul Pierce haven’t shown up in playoffs yet? They are still winning games and advancing without having 2 of their best players not showing!

Fuzz: That's not a bad argument. I don't have much to say to that, other than that either those three don't take the big shot or aren't that great at it. KG always passes during clutch situations or fades away if he does take it, like Q said. I like the guys that go in the lane and try to draw a foul and KG doesn't do that. Yes, he probably can and should, but 12 years of watching him locally says he does not. Pierce can probably get in the lane (and would be my pick for a game winning shot), but he's dirt slow now and guys like Lebron are too quick for him to go around. Ray Allen? He's been dead this playoffs and he's more of a spot up shooter. He needs to break loose. Yes, they have three talented players but they have weaknesses in a tight game. It might not hurt them, you're right. However, if the situation arises, it will be interesting to see if they can pull through. I'm not sold yet they can in a really tight game against a good defensive team--example the Pistons.

Q: I agree that you can win without a dominant player. Just look at the Pistons and Spurs over the last few years. The problem is they seem to shy away from the spotlight late in tight games. All season long they have made the extra pass, gotten clean looks, and pushed the ball in transition. When it comes down to the end of a close game, that style doesn't necessarily work because NBA teams actually try on defense at that point and everything is a slow-down, halfcourt type of game. That doesn't suit the Celtics at all. Pierce is the only guy who can (and is willing to) create his own shot. When he's getting doubled or not doing that, their offense sucks.

By the way, I'm not so sure that all three of those guys are HOF'ers. KG for sure, but the Hall has proven that you need to be more than a three-point shooter to get in (Ray) and I'm not sold on Pierce's credentials either. Also, you can't call Ray Allen anything more than a glorified role player at this point. He sucks.

Dogg: Ray Allen is not just a glorified role player. He is one of the best 3-point shooters in NBA history and you just don’t lose that overnight. Yeah, he hasn’t performed well in the playoffs but neither has Carlos Boozer. Is he just a role player now as well? No, he’s just having a tough stretch in an important time so all fans are seeing it. Guys go through slumps but nobody knows during the regular season. Ray Allen will hit a clutch shot in this postseason and will turn it up a notch soon...Pierce and Allen are fringe HOF’ers but KG is a lock.

Fuzz: Ok, enough about the Triple A of the NBA and onto the West. With a 3-2 lead, are the Hornets going to take down the dynasty that is the San Antonio Spurs? If so, is this the end of the Spurs as we know them?

Dogg: I guess I will continue with this year's trend and take the Spurs at home in game 6 and the Hornets take game 7 at their place. Until this trend changes, I'm going to continue to believe nobody is going to win on the road. I wish I would've known that no NBA team can play on the road because I would've been betting the home team the entire postseason. I don't know what the Spurs do if they lose. Do they really destruct after going into the 2nd round and to a game 7 at that? I don't see how they are going to get any better unless they sign somebody under their average age of 57. I would say they try one more after this year with the same core and if that doesn't work then they blow up a little bit. I don't see Duncan going to another team though. Maybe he plays one more season and calls it quits. He's already got 4 rings I believe so he might get out of dodge early. I hope so because I hate him and the Spurs.

Fuzz: The Spurs have to be close to being done as a dominant team. I guess it all depends on Tim Duncan. Once he retires our starts breaking down, the Spurs will never be the same. He's showing signs of this already. Personally, I think this is their last year to do anything and it's not looking good being down 2-3. Teams like the Hornets, Lakers and maybe even the Jazz are better than them now and will be next year just based on their youth & experience they are getting this playoffs. They better turn it around ASAP because I see this year as their last real shot at another ring.

Dogg: The Spurs need to get rid of Finley, Horry, and Vaughn. They are veterans but these guys can only manage the game for so long. If they can keep Duncan, Ginobli and Parker to go along with a couple fresh role players, they still have a good shot. Ginobli and Parker are still in their prime but they need some fresh meat as role players. Go out and get a Bonzi Wells type player (not this playoffs). I'm not counting them out until they have a bad regular season and a bad postseason or even missing the postseason.

Fuzz: Speaking of the Hornets, you have to love this squad. This team wasn't in the playoffs last year and now they're one game away from the conference finals. I love stories like this. It's what makes sports so great. With Chris Paul cementing himself as a superstar, this team could be good for a long time. I hope one day the T-wolves have a turnaround like the Hornets had. They waited & waited and now the fans there are in for a decent run the next 6,7,8 years. I'm jealous.

Q: I think that NO will take down the defending champs, but it won't be in Game 6. Good teams don't lose at home in the playoffs. Scratch that. NOBODY loses at home in the 2008 playoffs. San Antonio will be jacked up, Timmy will bank in 15-20 points, Ginoblli will be flippy-flopping all over the place, and CP3 will shoot about 35% from the field. Game over. Then the Hornets will take care of business at home in Game 7. Is it the end of the dynasty? I'm going to say yes unless the Spurs make some serious changes this summer. They have one of the oldest teams in the league with guys like Finley, Horry, Barry, Duncan, Thomas, etc. I just don't see them making deep playoff runs with the team they have right now, especially that bench.

Fuzz: We didn't even touch the Lakers/Jazz series but we'll be back next week with another one of these. The NBA playoffs have been phenomenal so if you're not watching, I would start. They have been extremely entertaining and the TNT halftime crew is a must watch.

The View from 101--Part II

2008-05-14T13:11:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the second installment in this six part series in which the three writers of TKOT travel to downtown Minneapolis to take in a Twins game as part of a ticket package that we purchased. As usual, we see a lot of things worth mentioning (both sports related and not) and feel it is our duty to pass along this valuable information on to our readers. So here’s what went down at Monday night’s game against the Boston Red Sox.

Well, I have to start with a major complaint. Traffic in the Twin Cities metro area has gotten out of control. It took Dogg and me an absurd amount of time to get to the Dome because of all of the backups due to construction. I know the 35W bridge collapse was an unforeseen dilemma, but is this really the best that the Minnesota Department of Transportation could do? When planning all of these construction projects at the same time, didn’t someone on staff raise their hand in a meeting and say “Hey, maybe we should stagger these a little so people can actually travel through the area”? It is simply impossible to drive more than 5-10 minutes on any major freeway in the Twin Cities area without hitting some sort of congestion due to construction.

That said, we entered the Metrodome with two outs in the bottom of the first because of the aforementioned traffic issues and because ESPN has an East Coast bias and moved the time of the game up to 6:10. Lucky for us we didn’t miss much, just an RBI single by Ortiz and a two-run homer by Ramirez in the top of the first and an RBI double by Morneau in the bottom half. There was a pretty big crowd at the Big Inflatable Toilet (copyright 93x), especially for a Monday night game. I’m not sure if this had more to do with the national TV thing or the fact that we have a first place ballclub on our hands here. Either way, it was nice to see some support for the Twins.

Rant: Is it even remotely possible for casual Twins fans to cheer for anyone other than Joe Mauer? We get it, he’s from St. Paul and now he plays for the Twins and you all think he’s god. I’m just getting really tired of all the cheers and screams for only him. We have other players, good players, hell, local players on this team that deserve some acclaim as well. It’s time for the fans to quit sucking Mauer’s popsicle and cheer the entire team and their actions like they actually know what’s going on. End Rant.

Livan threw a heck of a game after those first inning jitters. He might be the king of “scattering 10 hits”. There was never a legitimate scoring threat for the Sox after that rough first inning. He may not throw hard, but the guy what Gardy might call a “professional pitcher” and he knows how to get things done. If he doesn’t suffer from Ramon Ortiz Syndrome, when might be able to sustain this winning pace.

It was really nice to see the team hit so well with the national audience watching us. Mauer was his usual patient self at the plate, Morneau collected a couple of hits, Monroe continued his hot streak of late, and Young even managed a couple of hard-hit singles. This is the production a lot of people were expecting from this lineup before the season started. As long as the bats don’t have any prolonged cold streaks, this team should stay in contention throughout the summer.

Alright, enough about the game: if you wanted game stats and observations, you’d probably go to a much more credible website. One of the very best things about going to Twins games is the people watching. There is so much to see and gawk at, that you can get distracted very easily and miss parts of the game. Here are some things we saw:

•We sat in the highest traffic area of the entire Metrodome. At the end of each inning, no fewer than 150 people made their way up the stairs to hit the bathrooms, concession stands, souvenir booths, etc. It was simply astounding how many people left their seats after every single inning. When it first happened, Fuzz asked me if we were missing something in the concourse. I’m still very sure that we missed the free beer that they give out after the bottom half of every inning. There is no other excuse for the volume of people leaving their seats. The most amazing part was how many people seemed to do this just about every inning. Are people’s attention spans that short that they can’t just sit and enjoy a game?

•People love to drink at Twins games. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Monday night and they have to work the next morning; if the majority of fans over the age of 21 (and quite a few under) are going to be at the BIT, then they’re going to do so with a beer in hand. More than a handful of people were seen in an alcohol-induced dance, conversation, yelling match, or struggle with staying upright. I just don’t get how these people can go out the next morning and perform at their places of employment.

•Jerseys: it’s a topic that seems to come up at every single Twins game I’m at. Maybe I’m a jersey snob and that’s why I notice/complain about these things, but some people need to buy a clue when it comes to purchasing team-related regalia. Last time, we covered the whole “don’t let your mom sew the name/number on your back” thing. Today’s gripe: don’t put an old player’s name and number on a new jersey. It doesn’t work. I have no problem with a pull-over, powder blue “Gomez 22” jersey circa 1984. It’s fake retro, but it works for some reason. The opposite is not true. Do not buy a navy blue Twins alternate jersey from 2007 and put “Gladden 32” on the back. It looks terrible and you look like an idiot wearing it.

•On a related note, we were discussing with Twin we would get on a jersey or t-shirt if we had to. None of us understood why EVERYONE needs to wear a Mauer or Morneau jersey. I know those are the two best players and they’re the most commonly sold, but you can be more creative than that. Anyways, Dogg decided that he would go with Punto (because he’s gay), Fuzz thought a Neshek jersey would be cool since he’s a local guy (you mean there’s another one other than Joe!), though I think it would be required that you wear navy Under Armour with it at all times, and I took Guerrier because, well, it was unique.

•As usual, there were an inordinate amount of good looking women at the game. We’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Twins games are an amazing place to scope out the ladies. And almost every woman looks 10 times hotter than they normally are in a Twins jersey/t shirt and a hat with the ponytail sticking out. All in all, it’s a pretty good situation—or so I thought. Then I looked into it more closely at Monday night’s game (I know, it’s a rough and creepy job, but someone’s got to do it) and realized this: 90% of all the good looking females at a Twins game are either A) with their boyfriend/husband or B) at least 5-6 years younger than I am. Apparently the Metrodome is not the place to meet attractive, single women in their mid to late 20’s. Who knew?

•The pretzels with cheese at the Dome suck. Don’t buy them…A small pop is 42 oz. and definitely not “small”…Cookies and milk at a baseball game is still a stupid idea…Obviously there were a ton of beer vendors in our area during a game when we’re not drinking…Dome Dogs are one of the greatest creations on earth…Does anyone ever actually buy the Lemon Chill?

All in all, it was a great game to attend. The Twins won and thus held on to their game and a half lead on first in the AL Central, we actually were able to see this team hit the ball for once this year, and Fuzz finally decided that it was ok for the three of us to not sit rightnextto each other’s during the game. Good times.

Minnesota Sports Notes

2008-05-13T22:12:00.002-05:00

A little round-up from the local teams.

Gophers

I saw a little action from the recent AAU tournament this past weekend. The main attraction was the 17+ team, the Howard Pulley Panthers. It’s the best traveling AAU team in Minnesota. My friend Kevin has a brother (Michael) that plays for this team.

(A little background: Kevin, the oldest brother, became famous for his stifling defense at St. Thomas and memory loss at the bar Major Goolsby’s in Milwaukee. The second brother of this trio is Dan and he became famous for his long-range shooting at Marquette and his ability to tolerate six traveling fanatics. Michael is the youngest brother and he’s already famous for his silky smooth J and being waaaay cooler than his brothers. Back to the column...)

Anyways, the team is consisted of about 10-12 local Twin Cities kids that are all bound to play college ball at some level. The two headliners are Royce White and Rodney Williams. The Royce White name should ring a bell since he just verbally committed to the Gophers a couple weeks ago. White and Williams are two very highly recruited players in the whole country. On rivals.com, White ranks 32nd and Williams ranks 43rd. To put that in perspective, in the last five years, Minnesota has had only two players ranked better than 43rd. Cole Aldrich was 30th in 2007 (now at Kansas) and Kris Humphries was 15th in 2003 (now in the NBA). So, if you’re not catching my drift, these kids are real good. Nationally good.

I’m kind of a college basketball-recruiting nut, so I was excited to see this team and specifically these two players in action. This was my first time seeing both White and Williams. First reaction is that they both lived up to the eye test and the ability test. Both are in the 6’6-6’7 range and both are extremely athletic. Williams needs to put on some lbs and White is already pretty cut for being just 17 years old. Ally-oops, flat footed-stand still dunks, and threes were in both of their arsenals. Williams probably had the dunk of the year and only about 200 people saw it. It was ridiculous. He jumped from about the third block up the lane (yes, that far) on the right side and two handed hammered it. Brought down the house. Kevin mentioned that it was like “Rucker park-MN edition” after the dunk. The whole bench exploded with about half the guys on the court.

On the flip side, I personally saw one thing that wasn’t that pleasant. Royce White’s attitude. I only saw one game and they beat the team by 40 points, but he was unbelievable lackadaisical and cocky for most of the game. Almost like he was too cool. Side note: He also had a mohawk with a huge letter “M” carved in the back of his head. I guess he wants to broadcast that he in fact is signing with the U. I don’t know if this is always like he acts, but it was noticeable. Everyone else on the team played relatively hard given the fact that they were killing them, but White stood out. I’m interested to see how he plays when Tubby’s watching. I bet his demeanor changes. And it will have to, because Tubby isn’t going to put up with that shit.

Overall, the team has good talent and White & Williams have the potential to be game changing college players. The word is that they are good friends and it would be great for the program to get both of them and let Tubby work his magic.

Twins

Your Minnesota Twins just took 3 of 4 from the best team in baseball, the Boston Red Sox. They are now 20-17 and leading a balanced Central division. We talked a lot of Twins last week but this weekend series win vs. the Sox was a good sign. This wasn’t a below average team, they had the best record coming into this series and we took three games. Our pitching is holding up, our bats are coming around and are fielding is right there again. I didn’t see this coming. If we’re hanging around the lead at the end of May and into June, then that’s a pattern and I’ll really start getting my hopes up. Right now, it’s cautious optimism. Random Twins thoughts:

-The Neshek injury is a biggie. From the sounds of it, he’s gone for the season. The Neshek/Nathan combo was almost like having two dominant closers on your team. If you can get to the 8th with a lead, it was pretty much game over. Now, the 8th inning is going to have to be pieced together by guys like Rincon, Guerrier, Crain, and Reyes. Some decent arms in that group but not nearly as effective as Neshek. Gardy is going to have to work his pen very well to soften this blow.

-Craig Monroe is seeing the ball like a beachball. He’s on fire. I didn’t think I’d say that line this year. A common theme this year so far, stuff happening that most didn’t see coming. Monroe’s hot hitting is one of them. Along the same lines...

-Livan Hernandez is 6-1! I think he’d get votes for the AL Cy Young right now. He throws about an 85 mph fastball but he keeps winning. Unreal.

-Morneau hasn’t had a homerun in 13 games. I’m calling one tonight vs. the Blue Jays. I deposited my money in the bomb pool, so pay up when it happens.

Timberwolves

One week from today is the NBA draft lottery. The Timberwolves are again in prime position for a high draft pick. No surprise there. They have the third best position with a 13.8% chance of getting the #1 overall pick, which if we get, would be historic--since we’re a really shitty organization. We’ve made it past the first round of the playoffs one effing time and yet, we’ve never got the #1 pick. Is this the year? History says no. But, it has to happen one of these years or I’m going to start thinking this franchise is cursed.

We can go as high as #1 (unlikely) and as low as #6 (likely). Guys I want: Rose, Beasley, Bayless or Lopez. Guys I don’t want: Gordon, Mayo, or foreign guy from Italy. Those are the players that have been projected near the top of most mock drafts. Like everyone lately, I’m on the Derrick Rose bandwagon. An ultra quick, pass first, but not a midget point guard. He also can fill it when he wants. This is still a dream since anywhere out of the top two puts you at zero chance of landing him.

I know I sound like a poser since I’ve been pimping Beasley on this site for five months, but after everything went down with the season, march madness and media reports, I’m going with Rose now. If we get Beasley, I’m not going to pissed. Let's get that straight. But, word is his attitude sucks and Rose would fit in with our team better. Is Beasley going to play the 3? Big Al is a perfect 4, so moving him would seem stupid. Whatever happens, Beasley on this team wouldn’t suck but I’m rooting for that “make everyone else better point guard” and that is D. Rose.

So, stay tuned to next Tuesday to see where our luck lands...

Vikings

May is finally the month that the NFL kind of takes a break, which has been nice. Vikings notes have been minimal at this time. That of course doesn’t stop me from mentioning them on the back end of this column. It’s the Vikings for Christ sake; they are king in this town.

Anyways, SI.com and ESPN.com have both come out with their power rankings now that the draft is done. SI has the Vikings as the 7th ranked team heading into pre-season and ESPN has them at #12. Too high? Too low? Or just right? Personally, #7 seems aggressive and #12 seems a little low. I would put us at #10, a good round number. With the additions we’ve made (Jared Allen in particular) and assumed maturation of some players (T-Jack), I like the 10th spot for the Purple. That puts us right around the 4th or 5th spot in the NFC. I can live with that.

Another quick note- Our schedule came out maybe a month ago and here it is for those that don’t pay attention:

@Green Bay, Indy, Carolina, @Tennessee, @New Orleans, Detroit, @Chicago, Bye, Houston, Green Bay, @Tampa Bay, @Jacksonville, Chicago, @ Detroit, @Arizona, Atlanta and NY Giants.

Two things: 1) I should switch that #10 ranking, I only see three losses (Indy, @Jacksonville, and one of the Green Bay games). 2) The coldest place we play is Oct. 19th at Chicago. Everything else is perfect weather. That could be huge.

We’re comin, We’re comin...

POD

2008-05-12T10:26:00.005-05:00

I would click on the picture for a better version. It's a must.

Dogg: That photo is absolutely ridiculous. I know it was passed around last year but WOW! Is she single? I sure hope not. What would this girl look like on the beach? Seriously, how many awkward chubby’s has Natalie caused throughout her years? This might go down as the greatest POD in history…On a side note, do women golfers ever date men golfers? It seems that they should but don’t often.

Q: What? What's the big deal with this picture? It's just a girl stretching out to play some golf. I really don't unders...oh, wait a minute. Oh I get it now. There are plenty of comments to go with this picture, but this is a family website, so I'll just leave it at "Wow".

Fuzz: 41 days. Does anyone else have one of those Christmas type calendars where you pull off each day as they go by until the U.S. Women’s Open at Interlachen in Edina? I do. If you don’t, start doing that right now. We’re 41 days away until this “beautiful baby” graces the fairways of Interlachen. You need to get there. Clear your schedules right now for the last week in June. Seriously.

Minor League Report

2008-05-08T22:34:00.013-05:00

So it’s no secret that I love the Twins: more than a normal human being should like a sports team, some might say. I can’t help myself; baseball is the greatest sport, in my opinion, and the Twins are the only professional game in town. My love runs so deep that I follow all four of our minor league teams on a pretty regular basis just to be as informed as I can about my favorite squad. I know this is the second baseball article in as many days—deal with it. All statistics and records are current as of 5/8/08.

AAA—Rochester Red Wings (14-21)
Let’s start this thing off with our AAA team, the Red Wings. For the last few years they have been the toast of the International League. They were simply a dominant force, especially on the pitching front. Well, things have changed and this team is struggling, though through no fault of their own. When the big club is going through as much change as the Twins are, the team that suffers the most is usually the AAA team. Any talent that is major league ready is called up and most of the talent that isn’t ready still needs to prove itself in the lower leagues. Thus is the case with this year’s Rochester team. No where is this more evident than in the lineup, where the only two guys hitting over .300 are Darnell McDonald (you may remember him from his unspectacular call up last fall) and Denard Span (yes, the same guy you have been hearing about for years and has done virtually nothing). That’s it, that’s the list. So what about the rest of the team? TKOT’s boy Brian Buscher? .280 with a very low RBI total (11). Spring training superstar Randy Ruiz? .245 with a team high 37 K’s. The “second baseman of the future” Alexi Casilla? .215 with 2 RBI. Former power hitting prospect Garrett Jones? .176 and no signs of ever becoming a factor with this franchise. Yeah, you could say the team is lacking in the hitting department.

As previously stated, the strongest part of this team used to be the pitching. And even though the Twins have plucked the best that Rochester had to offer, this is still the case. No, there aren’t the gaudy numbers like Kevin Slowey and Nick Blackburn were putting up last year, but there is still some quality pitching to be found on the Red Wings. Before being called up for a start or two, Glen Perkins was 2-1 with a 2.97 ERA in 6 starts.

Unfortunately, he was the only starting pitcher to be putting up any kind of quality numbers. The other three starters (Brian Duensing and Santana tradee’s Kevin Mulvey and Phil Humber) combined to go 5-11 with an ERA over 4. However, the talent on this team lies in the relievers, who clearly have had to pitch quite a bit. They are led by closer Bobby Korecky, who has 2 wins and 5 saves while posting a 0.68 ERA, prompting his call up to Minnesota a few weeks back. There’s also Casey Daigle (aka Mr. Jennie Finch), Mariano Gomez, and Ricky Barrett, who all have ERA’s under 3. This team is struggling, and will continue to do so until some of the AA players are ready for a promotion. Speaking of which…

AA—New Britain Rock Cats (19-13)
With Casilla’s aforementioned struggles, the most likely candidate to move up is New Britain’s second baseman Luke Hughes. This kid has been on fire this year. You could make the case that he’s the best hitter in the organization right now. Through 31 games, Hughes is hitting .388 with 9 bombs, 20 RBI, and 88 total bases. In case you don’t know, those are unbelievable numbers.

He’s just the tip of the iceberg for a Rock Cat team that is absolutely raking to start this season. There are 6 guys on this team hitting over .280, and that doesn’t include Matt Moses, Eric Lis, and David Winfree, who have combined for 10 HR’s and 51 RBI. One of those big hitters is my personal favorite minor league player, Trevor Plouffe. When you look at the weakness that is the shortstop position for the Twins, it’s really nice to see such a promising prospect making his way through the system. He’s hitting .286 and has a freaking hose for a right arm (don’t let those 4 errors fool you; he’s a legit defensive player). Depending on the Twins position in the playoff race, it wouldn’t be surprising to see this guy get a call up in September to see what he’s got.

This team could be a lot better if the pitching would step up (another domino effect of the big club going with such a young rotation). The only starter worth mentioning is Yohan Pino, who has a 2.32 ERA through his first 5 starts. Otherwise, all of the other starters have an ERA over 4 and have only won a few games because our lineup has carried them. If New Britain can get even a little bit of consistency in their rotation, they should be able to win a league title. Otherwise, the only reason this team will matter is because it’s where Hughes and Plouffe used to play.

High A—Fort Myers Miracle (19-13)
The Miracle is another team that has had some early season success. The tough part about analyzing a single-A team is that you get two types of players. The first is a guy in his mid to late 20’s (or mid 30’s, right Danny Graves?) who is still trying to hold on to the dream for one more year or two. The other one is a kid who is just passing through for a short time on his way to bigger and (hopefully) better things. One example of the latter that currently resides in Fort Myers is Deolis Guerra.

You may remember him as the X factor in the Johan Santana trade. The 6-5, 200 lb righty is only 19 years old and already possesses a mid 90’s fastball, among other potentially dominant pitches. He started off the year impressively, giving up only 3 earned runs in his first 4 starts. It appeared that our phenom had arrived. Then, over his last two starts, the Future has gotten torched to the tune of 11 earned runs in just 8 1/3 innings. So maybe he won’t be in the Bigs by the time he’s 20, but he’s definitely a guy to keep an eye on.

Low A—Beloit Snappers (14-18)
Much like Fort Myers, the Beloit Snappers are a team that is tough to analyze. The one really nice thing about low-A ball is that you don’t have the older guys looking for “one more year in the sun” (copyright Jake Taylor). This league is just for young prospects to get their feet wet in pro ball. Team success means much less down here, which can be unfortunate because that means everyone is likely out to get theirs, which can’t be a fun environment to play in. Nevertheless, there are a couple of names on this squad to keep tabs on this summer. One of those is last year’s #1 pick Ben Revere. Despite less than glowing reviews and even comparisons to Span (yuck), the kid is starting off 2008 hot. After 9 games, he’s hitting .432 with an OPS of 1.043. Not bad for a “light hitting” outfielder, but only time will tell if he can sustain any kind of success. The other name of note is outfielder Chris Parmelee. He’s just 20 years old and has a shot at being a nice hitting prospect for this team in the next couple years.

Ok, so here’s an easy recap of our entire minor league system: Rochester—terrible team but only because the Twins are so young right now. New Britain—great hitting team led by stud prospects Luke Hughes (2B) and Trevor Plouffe (SS). Fort Myers—decent team; player to watch is SP Deolis Guerra. Beloit—watch the progress of OF Chris Parmelee to see if he can start to climb the ladder. Those are the names to know. Track them, use them to impress your friends, forget them, whatever.

We're going to win Twins

2008-05-08T11:19:00.015-05:00

The Twins have won seven of their last nine and are coming off a 13-1 rip job last night. We couldn't help ourselves, so we called for a roundtable. The usual suspects showed up: Q, Dogg, Fuzz and Marx. Whiskey and some of Jason Castro's wacky tobaccy were present. Read on for strong thoughts on Carlos "Go-Go" Gomez, "Tricky Nicky" Punto, Joe "the wild & crazy" Mauer, and our young "gritty" pitching staff. Touch 'em all!

Q: A quote from the Star Tribune about last night's cycle by Gomez (the first by a Twin since Puck in ‘86 by the way):

Gomez said he’s keeping as many mementos from the game as he can: a ball, bat, etc. I told him the Hall of Fame might be calling, asking him to send something to Cooperstown.

“No, not Cooperstown, my home,” he said, flashing a big smile. “I don’t know. It’s mine. I work hard for this.”
Asked him about that lightning fast home run trot, and he said, “The game today started too late. I say, ‘Let me run the bases quick so the game goes fast.’ ”

He sounds like a 3 year old when he talks, but I get a laugh out of it every time. He did sprint around the bases too. That was awesome.

Fuzz: Gomez is the most exciting player to watch on our whole team and it's not even close. In the dugout after he hit for the cycle, he looked like a kid on Christmas morning. He was beaming and I loved it. You forget sometimes that these players are playing a game they love. The millions of dollars hide the fact that this is still a game and they got into baseball because it was their passion. I found that scene with him sitting in the dugout really refreshing because you don't see that much anymore.

Marx: C'mon, Gomez is exciting but Morneau is still the must watch at-bat if you had to choose one. We were seriously talking about how overmatched he looked less than a month ago and how he was killing us at the top of the lineup. He is going to go through ridiculous swings all season, but he is fun to watch when he is running well and anytime he gets on first base.

Q: Gomez is definitely the most exciting player on the team. He's the most exciting player the Twins have had since Puckett was first starting out--maybe more. I think my favorite part of the cycle was his reaction at first base. He knew he beat the throw and immediately was checking the scoreboard to see if the scorer was going to call it a hit. You could see him talking to Jerry White about it and waiting for the official determination. Once it was official, he was grinning ear to ear. Normally I'm against players going for stats. I don't like it when they know exactly what they are hitting because I feel like it negatively affects their play and their approach to the game. But this was a different, acceptable scenario for me. I have no problem with a guy knowing he's one hit away from a cycle and going for it, especially in a lopsided game like last night. It's like the Mets game earlier in the week when Jose Reyes was an HR away from the cycle, ripped a ball off the wall, and tried to make it all the way home. He was out by a mile, but they were up big at the time and it was worth a shot. That's just fun baseball.

Fuzz: You could even put Mauer in that conversation. Mauer and exciting don't often go together but he's on fire right now. He's easily the toughest out we have and seems to have found his rhythm from two years ago. However, I'd still take Gomez under the most exciting player to watch category. You never know what this guy will do. He sprints around the bases on a bomb last night, which you never see. He has amazing head first dives that carry him farther than anyone I've ever seen. That obviously has to do with his speed, but he jumps 15 feet out and has a hard time holding on to the base on the far end. He's a show every time he plays.

Q: Please do not call Joe Mauer "exciting". He's an extremely talented baseball player and is hitting the ball very well right now, but nothing he does is exciting. If bloop singles and 4-3 groundouts get you going, then I'm sorry you lead such a boring life.

Fuzz: What's your deal with Mauer, Q? You one of those haters? You probably get sick of the kid glove treatment he gets but take that away for a second and look at his stats and look what he's done for us.

He's first on our team in average (.337), first in doubles (did you know that?), third in RBI's (did you think he was that high?), first in OBP (by a long shot), hardly strike's out and walks a ton. Is that not exciting for you? Are you not entertained!?!?!?! (That’s my inner Maximus right there).

Yeah, maybe he doesn't make you soil your pants but the way he plays so soundly and so easily is exciting to me. He also has a pistol behind the plate, which IS exciting as hell. He's not a great interview but his play speaks for itself. He doesn't need to hit homeruns and triples for me--I'm cool with him doing what he does. Should he be hitting in the 2-hole? Probably. But, that's Gardy's deal...

Dogg: Mauer is a great baseball player. You can call him whatever name you want to call him, describe his play however you want but the kid knows how to play baseball. He does everything right on the field and keeps to himself but competes hard every day. I hate when MN fans treat him like JC because he’s not. He’s going to hit for good average but he doesn’t deserve a hand job each time he comes up to the plate like Bonds would. Take him for what it is and that is somebody who will show up and do their job well each day. All-star? Maybe, but lets just take his good for what it is and that is being a solid defensive catcher and a very good hitter.

Q: "He's an extremely talented baseball player and is hitting the ball very well right now"--word for word what I said. I'm definitely not a hater, and those stats are great Aaron, but none of that makes him an EXCITING player. You can be good, hell very good, at what you do and not be exciting. It's not a knock on him as a player, that's just who he is (or isn't in this case). I'm definitely not one of those guys who thinks he's overrated or wants to move him to 3B (worst idea that get tossed around much more often than it should), I just don't find his style of play exciting, and that's what we were talking about.

Fuzz: I read what you wrote, but thanks for mentioning it again in case the readers are retards and didn't pick that up the first time. I understand your assessment, but getting hits all the time, throwing guys out regularly and making the pitchers work every at bat is exciting baseball. Gomez is still the guy in this category but I think Mauer still deserves a mention. You obviously don't.

Dogg: Back to Gomez's night last night, the cycle is so meaningless and the most overrated achievement in the history of baseball. It is a cool thing to shoot for though as a player especially when the score is out of hand like last night. It’s one of those “fun” aspects of the game that every player kind of wishes for in their careers. Most fans will remember which game you hit for the cycle because everybody makes a huge deal out of it. It’s kind of absurd to me that it’s such a big deal but whatever, Gomez accomplished it and looked as happy as I was the first time I saw porn.

I believe Gomez has also shut his critics up for the most part in the past 2-3 weeks. Many critics were begging for him to get demoted to the minors but we here at TK were telling you fans to wait, be patient. He’s just a kid and taking some lumps will help most athletes out. This kid is confident as it comes at all times and those type of players usually find ways out of slumps, which he has. He is atop the leaders in steals and has pushed his average to the .280 mark. When he goes, the Twins go. I have completely forgotten about Johan Santana already!

Q: Why do you think the cycle is overrated? I feel like it is kind of underrated. It shows a true balance in your hitting. To have the speed to leg out a triple plus the power to poke one out is not an easy feat to accomplish in one game. When you add in the fact that you also need two more hits, one of which being a double, that seems like kind of a big deal to me. And I know we don't haven't had the most prolific lineups over the years, but when your franchise goes 22 years in between this being accomplished, I'd say it's a big deal.

Dogg: Well, Q, I thought you were a great baseball mind but not after those “hitting for the cycle” comments. You really think that is a huge accomplishment? Did you really see how Gomez got some of those hits? His bomb and triple were the only legit hits he had all night. Hitting for the cycle usually takes complete luck which makes it irrelevant for me and I believe most baseball fans. Yeah it’s a fun thing to accomplish but that is about all it is to me. Quit getting hard over the frickin cycle.

Fuzz: Ok, gentleman calm down like Mike Tice says. How about our friend Nick Punto this year? He's baaaacckkk! Kidding, but I do love his new role.

Q: Punto...where do I begin. Ok, let me first say that he had a huge double to drive in a couple runs last night. I'll give him credit for that. Now (you knew this was happening), I have two issues with Nicky from last night's game. First is the triple he hit in the 9th. A) it was a meaningless hit because we were already ahead by so much, and B) anyone else on the team (except Gomez) would have stopped at second because we were playing station-to-station baseball at that point, trying to not show up the White Sox. Not Captain Hustle, though. The other MAJOR issue I have is his botched sacrifice bunt attempt. Anyone who follows the Twins should know by now that Little Nicky isn't a great bunter (which is ridiculous for a slap-hitting utility player), but he reached new territory in his futility last night. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Punto managed to bunt into a 2-5-3 double play. Outstanding. What's even better is that Crede got taken out by the slide at 3 and had no intentions on throwing to 1. But then he saw our hero still standing at the plate bitching, and made the nice, easy throw over to get the second out. Punto will be starting soon, I promise you that. But that doesn't mean he doesn't suck anymore, as he proved last night.

Dogg: About Punto, he’s been a nice role player for us this year. The sad part is that he might become our everyday SS, which I don’t like at all. Yeah, he’s great on defense but he’s not an everyday player. I don’t know if Tolbert is an everyday player yet either and Everett sure hasn’t shown us shit besides his noodle arm. If “Tricky Nicky” can hover around .250 and actually get his sac bunts down, then yes, he can be an everyday player but that is yet to be determined. He’s playing well enough now to warrant an everyday position and has the Twins in 1st place once again.

Marx: I agree on Everett. He was supposed to be a gold glove caliber SS, but he looks like Rondell White when he throws. It very well could be because of the injury, but if he can't play defense he's worthless. He also hits like Rondell did for the Twins so that’s not a good combo.

Q: Good call Nic. I think I read today that Lamb is hitting around .205 and Everett at roughly .170--so much for reshaping the left side of our infield this off-season. That's going to mean a lot of Tolbert (a good thing) and Punto (a terrible thing).

Fuzz: Question- Are you guys nervous about our rotation? It's still full of a bunch of young guys that haven't proved shit yet they are hanging right now. Is this going to last?

Q: I think our pitching staff will be just fine. We've already dealt with injuries to 3 different starters and we haven't flinched. Sure, they'll get touched up occasionally, but most pitchers do. We were spoiled by having Santana here for as long as we did. Most MLB clubs not from Boston or New York have staffs that are very similar to ours. When you pitch well for the first couple weeks, you could call it a fluke. As we approach the middle and end of May, I think it becomes something that you can rely on and expect. As long as our bats don't go cold for long stretches, we'll stay in contention thanks to our pitching staff, starters and relievers.

Fuzz: On the pitching front, I am nervous. Will Livan hold this up? I've been dead wrong about him so far, so I hope he keeps proving me wrong, because he's been a pleasure at the top of the rotation. We have dealt with injuries by announcing that we brought guys up but they haven't pitched yet. I don't think that's been dealt with at all. We have no idea how Slowey and Perkins are going to pitch. They have both proved in the league so far that they both need work. What if they suck? That's two spots we will need to worry about. Not to mention that Bonser gave up 6 runs in the first inning the other day showing he's not all there yet either. I'm not resting comfortably with these guys. Not yet.

Q: As far as the pitching goes, I think we have dealt with our injuries well. Guys have pitched on shorter rest, our bullpen has stepped up, etc. That's what I meant at least. True, we don't know what Perkins and Slowey will do in the rotation, but having 3 starters (including the guy who was supposed to be our front-line man in Liriano) go down and not completely falling off the map is a good sign to me. And I know Boof's first inning wasn't great the other day, but he follwed that up with 5 innings of nearly flawless pitching to keep us in the game and allowed us to make that nice comeback. Remember, Livan got touched up for 7 runs a little while ago and then came back with two stellar starts, including last night's complete game. Blackburn gave up a number of runs the other night, but only 3 were earned. If I had to describe our rotation in one word, it would be gritty. They aren't going to have dominant stuff or flashy strikeout numbers, but they get the job done well.

Dogg: I’ve liked our pitching staff since day 1 no matter who is in it because it’s young for the most part. Young kids always seem to compete harder against one another when they are all on one staff. The friends all want to be good but each one of them wants to be better than the next one which makes for great competitiveness. We’ve had some injuries but as long as Livan can stay healthy and eat innings, I like this staff a lot. They all throw strikes and challenge each and every hitter no matter what your name is. Make teams hit the ball to score runs. Our defense is solid enough to make almost every play so our pitchers are doing the right thing in challenging hitters every game. Our bullpen is ridix good and doesn’t need to be talked about even though some of the relievers are struggling a little bit early.

Fuzz: After all that we heard in spring training about this being an off year, you have to be surprised/happy about the first place spot right now. I called this a straight rebuilding year on this site about a three weeks ago, so this is a pleasant surprise for me. The longer they can hold onto this good play the happier I will be. The stats don't prove it, but our lineup does seem better. I think this years team will be a better hitting team than last years team. Again, the stats don't prove this yet, but I think they get there. Another aspect that hasn't been talked about is our bench. It's 20 times what it was last year. We were bringing up Luis Rodriguez for crucial pinch hitting situations. That's absrudly bad. Out of Kubel, Lamb, Tolbert, Punto, Monroe, whoever isn't playing that day is a better options than Rodriguez, Tyner and Lew Ford. Anyways, are you guys satisfied so far?

Q: Am I satisfied? This team was picked by a ton of "experts" to finish either 4th or 5th in the Central, we lost 3 major contributors in Santana, Hunter, and Silva, we decided to give all of our young pitching prospects spots in the rotation at the same time, and we've had a pretty decent amount of injuries. Yet despite all of that we are sitting in first place (albeit in an average division right now) at the end of the first week of May. Yeah, I'd say I'm satisfied.

Dogg: I pinned us as division champs before the season started and I’m sticking with this call. These other teams are full of high-priced talent but really, who are they? They have no identity and it’s showing early in the season. Things better change quickly in this division otherwise all of them will be looking up at your very own Minnesota Twins once again. It’s like back to the year 2000 again. Everybody writes us off and we just win baseball games.

Will we see this again in September? TK is warming up to the idea...

Picture of the Day

2008-05-07T10:06:00.002-05:00

Q: What's the most uncomfortable thing about this picture: a) Sammy C's face, b) the trainer's face, c) the placement of the trainer's hand, or d) the fact that you keep staring at a picture of one man "stretching" another man in what seems to be an inappropriate manner?

Dogg: I know you can get “rub and tugs” in Vegas for about $150 but I didn’t know NBA trainers gave them out during games free of charge.

Fuzz: One of the funnier pictures I've seen in a long time. The trainers expression is priceless. The word on the street is that Sammy C is from the Dirk Diggler ilk so I'm sure the shit grin on his face is because he can't wait to tell his other little fruity trainer guys about this. This picture kills me.

Quirky Living

2008-05-05T21:14:00.006-05:00

Fellas, and to the few women that read this blog, this post is a little out of left field, so I need to explain a little before I go on. My cousin’s wife (I call her my cousin because it’s easier) also has her own blog but blogs mainly on her family. It’s a regular stop for me personally because it’s family and it’s fun looking at pictures of their kids and seeing what the Lewis family is up to. Saying that, she got involved in this little blog tagging deal where you are “required” to write six quirky things about yourself on your blog. Her friend wrote a list of quirky things and tagged her blog to do it, so she wrote hers, and then tagged this blog to do the same. Extremely girly, I know. This is what the tag line said:

I'm tagging Fuzz from TK on Toast. Even though his blog is a sports blog, I know he has some fun quirks and the boys over at TK like to add personal posts every now and again.

I think she’s talking about Cougar City with the personal post comment, which we will bring back very soon--I promise. Anyways, she’s family so I have to do this no matter how girly this is coming off. However, I thought I’d change it a little to tailor to the audience. Instead of writing just about myself, I’m going to write six quirky things about our house. If you didn’t know, the three of us clowns live together. This will give you a little better feeling of who we are and maybe understand our writing more with a few of these quirks. So as the title says, here are six “Quirky Living” things that happen at the TKOT house.

1) Dogg walks around naked. That’s a good start, right? For those that know him, this isn’t a shocker. He’s been doing it forever. He’s the Mike Redmond of the TKOT house. Probably a good time to mention that he’s the only guy with a girlfriend. The whole walking around stark naked hasn’t been as frequent as it once was, but he still catches you off guard every now and again.

For example: I was on the computer (I was sitting down, which is a big factor in this story) and I was talking to a friend about weekend plans or something. I was completely distracted from playing around on the computer and talking on the phone at the same time that I didn’t hear Dogg walk up. Bad move. Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone’s silhouette so I glance over and there is Dogg butt ass naked standing three feet from me. Three feet! With his “business” at eye level. I think I dropped the phone and washed my eyes out with gasoline for the next hour. It’s never a good day when you see another man’s twig & berries at a close range. Never.

2) The three of us sit in the exact same spots in the living room. Q on the big sofa. Dogg on the love seat and I’m on the sofa chair. This is not once in a while--this is every time. It’s like the teacher put us in a seating chart and hasn’t changed it yet. In this same living room is where we obviously watch TV. We have a few shows that we have to watch together and we stay pretty loyal to this. No matter the schedules, we need to watch them together. This is where Tivo is a godsend.

3) Q has Narcolepsy. Ok, he doesn’t really, but he “conks” as we call it, on cue. You’ll be in the middle of an active conversation and then leave for a minute and come back and he’s out. Dogg & I will continue the conversation and 15 minutes later he’ll jump in with a comment like he’s awakening from the dead. He acts like nothing happened. I’m used to it now but it freaked the shit out of me the first couple times. I didn’t know what to do when he’s talking to me one second and the next second his eyes are shut and I’m talking to a dude in a coma. To his defense, Q gets up waaaay earlier than we do.

4) I pay too much for a haircut. I’ll admit this. Q always asks me how my salon day and Mani’s & Pedi’s went when I walk in from a haircut. To set the record straight, this is completely false. No Mani’s and Pedi’s for this fella, but the blond locks do get some extra care and I’m not apologizing for this. I’m just not.

5) For most of the winter, Dogg sleeps on the floor in the upstairs living room. His room is downstairs. I think it has to do that it’s like a meat locker downstairs during the winter months, but we have a ton of extra blankets. Doesn’t matter. He sleeps on the living room floor like a bum on the street. I don’t think this is normal.

6) A few random stuff: The three of us have never gone out to eat together or made the same dinner for the three of us but we’ve gone out for drinks together plenty of times...Dogg makes up his own nicknames and tries to make them stick. They don’t...I’m obsessed with my laptop. I’m always on it and it’s a little sickening...Q & Dogg love convenience store runs...I run with a bandana on (it’s the Crips colors. You wanted to know this)...In the summer, we make a Dairy Queen run once a week...At least once a week I drive down the street only to turn around and make sure I shut the garage door…we all workout pretty regularly but never together...I’m a weak beer drinker (Q & Dogg are not), Dogg is a weak whiskey drinker (Q & I are not) and Q doesn’t take Goldschlager shots (Dogg & I do)…I have to eat breakfast...Dogg’s a nightowl...Q will try any new drink...and finally, we watch a lot of sports (this isn’t a quirk, but we do watch a lot. Hence the sports blog).

Alright, that’s it. I don’t know a ton of people that blog, but my cousin Nick has a personal website/blog and told me he reads TKOT once in a while. So, if you’re out there Nick, I guess this is my tag to you and the end of my “requirement.” Kidding, it was actually kind of fun...

Voices from a Stranger--Derby Recap

2008-05-04T20:51:00.006-05:00

Hill is back for a Kentucky Derby recap. It was an eventful & festive day out at Cantebury and Hill discusses all the action. Krebs also comes late with his thoughts. Rrrrrrrrracing.

After hours and hours of tireless research on the horses racing in the derby, the favorite, BIG BROWN, came out on top. The 5-2 favorite took care of business and showed the world what he is made of and left no questions. He got out to a great start from the questionable number 20 gate position to claim to the prize on Saturday and set up the possibility for the Triple Crown to be won in 2008 by Big Brown and Trainer Rick Dutrow. With the win, Big Brown has now earned over 2 million dollars in 4 wins, not too bad and puts him far and away above the rest of the competition. I, for one can not wait until the 17th when the Preakness (2nd of 3 races in the Triple Crown) from Pimlico Park is held to watch Big Brown dominate again.

Big Brown

While the excitement from the win was still fresh on eveyone's mind there was a tragic event that unfolded. Eight Belles, the lone filly in the race, who had race a strong showing finishing in second to Big Brown had to be euthenized after a freak injury occurred. Eight Belles in the final home stretch of the race, broke both of her front ankles, which for a horse is a life threating injury. Instead of putting her through the suffering and agony it was decided that she should be put to rest. REST IN PEACE Eight Belles you gave the boys a run for their money.

Rounding out the top three this weekend was Dennis of Cork racing out of the 16th position. I will be the first to admit that I put this horse on my "not a chance" list, boy was that a bad idea. After researching and reading, the general consensus was that DOC was a bit edgy and that the huge crowds and atmosphere at Churchill downs could put this horse over the top and he would be too stimulated to run a good race. To me it looked trainer Calvin Borel was able to channel the excitement into a perfectly run race for Dennis of Cork who did not get ahead of himself or out of control at any time during the Derby.

Final results
Win- Big Brown (paid $6.80 (win bet), $5.00 (place bet), $4.00 (show bet))
Place- Eight Belles (paid $10.60 (place bet), $6.40 (show bet))
Show- Dennis of Cork (paid $11.60 (show bet))

Others (in order of finish):
Tale of Ekati
Recapturetheglory
Colonel John
Anak Nakal
Pyro
Cowboy Cal
Z Fortune
Smooth Air
Visionaire
Court Vision
Z Humor
Cool Coal Man
Bob Black Jack
Gayego
Big Truck
Adriano
Monba

My personal results from TKOT predictions

Win bet was spot on for Big Brown (but as I mentioned in the earlier post, I do not usually place win only bets) Congratulations to those of you who did (Bargs). Tri Box bet Big Brown, Gayego, Colonel John (wow was I off with this one, not even close). Tri Box bet Big Brown, Eight Belles, Smooth Air (much closer here, just goes to show that I need to stick with the Exacta bet)

My prediction for the top finisher outside of the top three favorites was for Gayego, even though I did mention that I liked Eight Belles, my thoughts on Gayego needed a bit of work.

Finally, I also went on a limb and thought that Smooth Air would perform well. I will admit that this was more of a follower pick listening to track handicapper and fellow Secret Force investing partner Kevin Gorg. Maybe the sickness that this horse had prior to the Derby was still lingering and not completely taken care of. Although, I did not leave Canterbury a rich man, I still loved every minute of the Derby. As we stated, this was a race that could have been won by any horse and the place and show horse showed just that.

At the days end a total of $114,557,364 in on-track and off-track wagers were placed on the Derby. I personally only made a bit of change thanks to the last minute win-place-show bet that I placed on Eight Belles, all other bets including Exactas and Trifectas came up a bit short.

There were over 150,000 people in attendance at Churchill Downs to witness the Derby and on NBC it looked as if the infield was crazier than ever, just another reason why the Derby is so great.

Closer to home, Canterbury Park attendance was at an all time high, thanks to the Derby and a very welcome, beautiful morning. 18,000 fans packed into Canterbury a welcome sight for those of us who were anxiously anticipating the 2008 racing season. There was a bit of everything happening at the track yesterday with all the different people you just never know what you are going to see or hear. I highly recommend coming out to the park on a weekend and experience it all for yourself. Remember the Preakness is only two weeks away and will be just as exciting as the Derby, well almost...........

*Side Notes
-Final Miller Lite count for the table was 31!! (this was for all of us at the table, our waitress put us all together).
-Kentucky Derby day is the most crowded day at Canterbury, get there early and get ready to stand in lines.
-My new favorite bet is the Exacta (first two horses to finish) with the favorite over the field and the field over the favorite.
-Krebs and I saw into our future with a group of 4 older guys that sat next to us, I can not wait to get old so I can be loud, complain about everything, and get social security checks to use them at the track
-Canterbury Park does not have a breakfast, so if you show up by 10am do not expect to eat until lunch time.
-A Mint Julip is not the best thing in the world, but it is also not the worst, I will stick with the Miller's.
-I love teaching people new ways to wager at the track, and if anyone ever wants some advice, just ask, even though I might not be right.
-I can not wait to see Secret Force race, but I am both nervous and excited, I just hope that he can perform to the standards that we are all expecting.

Krebs' Thoughts:

I ended up contributing about $78 to the derby pool (more on that later), but I'm glad to have helped Hill win some money, even if it meant that a horse had to die to do so. Hope you can sleep at night, maybe drop some change at McDonald's so you don't mess up your karma. In addition to my contribution to the money pool, I'm pretty sure that between our table, we put our waitress through another semester of college. Beer wise, I think I tallied 6 tall Miller Lites by post time but hammered one more that I didn't need before the day was over. I did manage to make some decent money on a Canterbury race, which I promptly used to make additional derby bets. My main bets were on COLONEL JOHN and PYRO to win with a host of other horses including Z FORTUNE, BOB BLACK JACK, GAYEGO (finished dead last...no pun intended EIGHT BELLES, R.I.P.). I did make some additional trifectas with BIG BROWN boxed but I didn't include EIGHT BELLES or DENIS OF CORK in any of my bets.

Even though I didn't get lucky on my derby bets, all-in-all, it was a very successful day in terms of fun to be had. Highlights for me were the conversations of about four 80 year old men at the table next to us, seeing the horses in person for the first time since Labor Day, taking in the ladies that get all dressed up for the day, and the dance party ride to Bumpers after the races. BIG BROWN proved to me that he will win the Triple Crown and I will be back in two weeks to watch the Preakness and hopefully SECRET FORCE very soon.

Voices from a Stranger

2008-05-01T20:35:00.020-05:00

As promised, here is another installment of "Voices from a Stranger." As you know, this is written by a reader and not the three TKOT writers. If you'd like to write a piece for the blog, shoot us an email at tkontoast@gmail.com. Anyways, here is a Kentucky Derby preview by two dear friends of TKOT. We've seen these guys do everything from passing out in closets, move things five feet and smoke a lot of cigarettes. Let's roll!

Kentucky Derby

For some of us, this Saturday is the biggest day of the year. Now that we are getting older and it’s no longer considered appropriate to grab a twelve pack and heckle the girls on Freshman Move-in day (well, nobody should speak on Dogg’s behalf I guess), we might as well dust off the seersucker suit, spin up a mint julep (recipe to follow) and take in the scenery of gorgeous babes in crazy hats. That’s right, it’s Kentucky Derby Day. You don’t have to be a degenerate gambler or make a road trip to Louisville to enjoy this great day. Our friends at TKOT have invited the namesake founders of HK Stables to provide exclusive pre and post-race coverage of the 134th Run for the Roses at Churchill Downs. Enjoy, because this research took a lot longer than the 2 minutes it takes to run the race.

Breakdown:

BIG BROWN - His name may sound like a porno movie you watched last weekend but this beast is going off as the morning line favorite at 3-1 thanks to an injury to the early favorite, War Pass. Big Brown’s track record is short but impressive, going undefeated in 3 races and routing the competition at every step of the way. BIG BROWN is trained by Richard Dutrow, Jr. who has had an impressive year, fielding two winners in Dubai the same day BIG BROWN won the Grade I Florida Derby.

Big Brown

COLONEL JOHN - This is another horse that will be taking a lot of money come post time with morning line odds of 4-1. Jack has never finished out of the top two in his 6 races and came back from a bad start to eek out the win in the Santa Anita Derby (Grade I) beating fellow derby horse Bob Black Jack (20-1) and a month earlier won a another close one at Santa Anita in the Sham. Churchill Downs is a lot different than the synthetic surface he’s used to running on but word from the barn is that he’s taking to the dirt well.

PYRO – The smart money is hoping that this horse’s fire didn’t go out after an awful 10th place finish in the Toyota Blue Grass stakes at Keeneland. If you’re ready to call it a mulligan, make the wager at 6-1. One connection not to count out is trainer Steve Asmussen who trained last year’s Preakness and Breeder’s Cup Classic winner, CURLIN. CURLIN made the trip with PYRO and is not doubt giving his stable mate a few words of advice...if that’s possible for a horse.

GAYEGO – It’s pronounced ga.ye'go, not gay ego, but don’t stop your buddy who is still in the closest from betting this out of pride because he might buy a couple rounds of appletinis for “the guys” if the 15-1 odds hold on race day. GAYEGO is another horse that is used to the polytrack but proved he can run on the real dirt by managing to fend off a hard charging Z FORTUNE (15-1) in the Arkansas Derby. He may have to dig deep to cross the line first in this 1 ¼ mile race since he’s used to the shorter distance.

GayBoy...I mean Gayego

MONBA – While his history may be slightly checkered with a 12th place finish in the Fountain of Youth (Grade III), he bounced back masterfully by winning the Toyota Blue Grass. His past is certainly checkered but a win at Churchill late last year proves he can be a solid contender. He’s trained by Todd Pletcher, who trained nearly a third of the field in last year’s derby, but out of his six horses, the best finisher came in 6th. MONBA is Pletcher’s best chance to pull a rabbit out the hat in the 134th. MONBA goes off at 15-1.

Z FORTUNE – This pony might not have what it takes to win but you might consider using him in your exactas or trifectas with his 15-1 morning line. Z Money made a hard charge towards the end of the Arkansas Derby but simply ran out of track. Also trained by Steve Asmussen, Z FORTUNE might be looking to show up his more favored stable mate, PYRO.

EIGHT BELLES – As the only Philly in a field of boys, she may have tough ride ahead of her. There have only been three females to win this event in its prestigious history. The history may be imposing but EIGHT BELLES is looking to silence the critics. If your feminist, liberal friends need some money to save the world, tell them to place $20 to win on this 15-1 starter.

Our feminist friends

TALE OF EKATI – This colt beat the early derby favorite WAR PASS in the Wood Memorial but it is widely rumored that WAR PASS was injured during the race. The smart money was unimpressed with the final time of the Wood, and unfortunately for TALE OF EKATI, recent history isn’t much more impressive, evidenced in the 15-1 price.

BIG TRUCK – If you are looking to piss into the wind, place a few bucks on this beast and ask God’s forgiveness. At 50-1, you’d better put a little in the collection plate if BIG TRUCK pulls off a miracle mile and a quarter; then head to Vegas and put the rest on the Washington Nationals to win the World Series (150-1 current odds).

Other Entries

COURT VISION 20-1

COOL COAL MAN 20-1

VISIONAIRE 20-1

SMOOTH AIR 20-1

BOB BLACK JACK 20-1

DENIS OF CORK 20-1

COWBOY CAL 20-1

RECAPTURETHEGLORY 20-1

ANAK NAKAL 30-1

Z HUMOR 30-1

ADRIANO 30-1

Mint Julep Recipe**

4 fresh mint sprigs

2 ½ oz Kentucky bourbon whiskey

1 tsp powdered sugar

2 tsp water

Muddle mint leaves, powdered sugar, and water in a collins glass. Fill the glass with shaved or crushed ice and add bourbon. Top with more ice and garnish with a mint sprig. Serve with a straw.

**serious drinkers might want to make a triple batch

Q&A with the fellas from HK Stables:

Who is your winner?

Editors note: The name Secret Force will be used often in this Q&A. Secret Force is a racehorse that is partially owned by the two gentleman who wrote this article. And you thought we were rolling out some amateurs for this piece. Please. We roll with the experts here friends.

Hill: Well, since I can not choose SECRET FORCE because a) he is too old and b) still in Tampa Bay with our new Tampa Bay Downs Trainer of the year Jamie Ness (congratulations are in order); I am going to go with BIG BROWN.

I know that this is the favorite and that is might be an easy answer, but I really believe from everything that I have seen and read, that this horse may win by at least a length and a half. All early indications are pointing that BIG BROWN has been toying with the track and that the workouts he has posted this week are just effortless gallops for him. Today (Thursday) will be the workouts to keep your eyes on; these will be the final indicators as to who may have any sort of chance against BIG BROWN.

Krebs: I agree. If it weren’t for that damn age limit, SECRET FORCE would take these ponies to the house and a big Sparks toast to Jaime and the staff at Ness Racing Stables.

I have been debating between BIG BROWN and COLONEL JOHN all week and I admit I’m still not certain. I like BIG BROWN’s trainer, Dutrow, Jr., and the fact he has eaten up the competition in his only three starts. However, we haven’t seen how he handles a pack of the best horses in the sport. I’m going with COLONEL JOHN for his longer track record and superior blood line. He was bred for endurance and siblings have had success. Plus, I have to cheer against Hill on this one, even though we do table bet from time to time.

Colonel John

Which horse outside of the top 3 do you think could win?

Hill: I personally feel that starting position is huge in the race, especially here at the Derby, when you have up to 20 horses that will be at the gates at the same time. The runners on the inside will have to get off to a quick start so as not get trapped, so I think you can not take COURT VISION or EIGHT BELLES (I do like the Filly though, more on this later). Also, the horse in the middle positions may come out hot, but will fade fast as the pack tightens and heads around the first turn; say goodbye to PYRO and SMOOTH AIR. Finally, you have the outside horses, which I really like in a race this large. These horse will need to get out quick, there is no doubt about that but I feel have more of an advantage of not getting caught up in the pack. You also, have to love that the favorite is coming from the far lane, so anyone close to him will have a mate to set a strong pace. For these reasons I am taking GAYEGO (15-1) as your long shot winner.

Krebs: I’m going to go with MONBA, Todd Pletcher’s pony in this category. He did have a bad trip in the Fountain of Youth but he came back and beat a field of 5 other Derby horses (COWBOY CAL, VISIONAIRE, COOL COAL MAN, PYRO, and BIG TRUCK) to win the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes. That proves to me that he can compete with the favorites having already beat a quarter of the field, mostly mid-pack contenders. Pletcher didn’t have any luck last year but maybe he figured a couple things out.

Which of the dark horses (20-1 - 50-1) has the best chance to show?

Hill: I am going to take the same horse as Kevin Gorg and Paul Allen have been talking about on KFAN all this week; SMOOTH AIR (20-1). This horse has been dealing with a bit of sickness and had limited workouts this week. However, he now looks to be back in racing form and galloping the track well. There is just an aura around this horse, with the ups-and-downs of this whole week and everything that it has gone through, not to put him is as a contender. On another side note for this horse, if you are a big believer in Karma as I am, the owners/trainers for SMOOTH AIR supported the Make-a-Wish foundation this week, bringing two sick children out to Churchill Downs this week to spend some time with the horse......that's enough for me to put some money on this pony.

The midget Smooth Air on the left

Krebs: I like BOB BLACK JACK (20-1). I’m sticking with horses that have proven against competition and this colt nearly beat COLONEL JOHN, my favorite, in the Santa Anita Derby. If I believe that COLONEL JOHN is the one to beat, the one who nearly beat him has a legitimate shot as well. His experience has been mainly out West, this horse must be loving the Kentucky country air after breathing that smog and dealing with hippies.

How are you planning on wagering (just a few of the 50 or so bets you'll probably make)?

Hill: This is a tough question for me, as many of you loyal readers know, I like to cover many different options during a race. There is something about putting everything on one hose that I just do not like to do, there are just too many variables.

With that said, here is what I am thinking as of today, but I guarantee this will change by Saturday, I do not make any final decision until I see the horses in the paddock:

Win bet: BIG BROWN

Trifecta box: BIG BROWN, GAYEGO, COLONEL JOHN

Trifecta box: BIG BROWN, EIGHT BELLES, SMOOTH AIR (This is a pipe dream, but it would mean that I am taking A LOT of time off this summer to be at Canterbury)

Krebs: I’m a fan of the exotic bets as well but like to put a little more on one horse in big races to give me something to cheer about. I won’t guarantee I’ll bet this way either, I’ll be searching out value but here is what I’m thinking at the moment.

Win bet: COLONEL JOHN

Exacta Box: PYRO, BIG BROWN

Trifecta: COLONEL JOHN, PYRO with PYRO, BIG BROWN with Z FORTUNE, BOB BLACK JACK

For those of you who don’t understand my logic, I’m making multiple trifecta bets in one bet. I am betting either COLONEL JOHN or PYRO to win, PYRO or BIG BROWN to place, and Z FORTUNE or BOB BLACK JACK to show. If any of these combinations happens, I win. Hill and I can give a betting tutorial in another TKOT installment.

How many Miller Lites do you think you'll drink by post time?

Miller, Miller, Miller...

Hill: By post time of the Kentucky Derby (which is 5:04pm our time) I plan to have consumed the following:

-1 Canterbury Brunch Buffet

-1 Order of Nachos (or some other type of app)

-2 Cups of Coffee

-1 Mint Julep

-6 Miller Lites

Overall this is one of the best days of the year to me, I look forward to it and the anticipation build up is so much fun. Do not be afraid to go out on a limb for the Derby, this is the one time of the year that I feel that almost any horse has a shot, you just never know how they will react in front of 16,000 fans. Good luck, Have fun and as always MAY THE (secret) FORCE BE WITH YOU.

See you at the Track!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Krebs: The odds are better for BIG TRUCK to win the Derby than for Hill to have only 6 tall Miller Lites by post time. Over/under is set at eight. Myself, I’ll probably have about 5 but that will entirely depend on how much I am losing, the two go hand in hand for some reason.

This is my favorite day of the year and attending the Kentucky Derby is officially on my bucket list. Hill and I will be holding down the fort at table 116 on the glass in the restaurant. Everybody is welcome to stop by, but you probably won’t be able to sit with us, seats were hard to come by so unfortunately, we have to limit seats to SECRET FORCE owners for this day. Not to worry, you’ll have many other opportunities to join us at our summer mecca.

Secret Force. Come out this summer and see this guy...

Picture of the Day

2008-05-01T11:43:00.002-05:00

Lenghty picture of the day comments here and "Voices from a Stranger" Kentucky Derby preview tomorrow. I've seen a glimpse of it and it looks real good.

Dogg: You usually want to get a glove on the ball at the very minimum when diving for a ball in the outfield. I’m not about to get on Carlos Gomez though like every other critic out there. He’s in his rookie season and is still a kid so can we please let him develop? He’s hitting .260 something right now and that is good for a rookie hitting leadoff and playing an above average CF. He’s got 11 SB’s and will probably end up with close to 50 swipes. The only problem I have is that he only has 2 walks compared to 26 K’s I believe which is brutal for a leadoff hitter but the guy is supposed to have some flaws in his game. If they bump him down to Triple-A at any time this season I will be very disappointed and think the organization would be making a huge mistake. If he was hitting under .200 and didn’t look like he had any confidence at the plate then maybe. But he is still strutting around the field like his shit don’t stink which tells me that he is very confident. Let him take his bumps and bruises in the bigs. Before we know it, he’ll be the starting CF in the all-star game. Mark it down “Gomez will start in the all-star game by 2010”.

Q: Has there been a more frustratring player in recent Twins history than Carlos Gomez? He looked spectacular during the first few games of the year. Then couldn't do anything right, in the field or at the plate, for a long enough stretch that there were calls for his demotion to AAA. So Gardy benches him for one game, and ever since he's been absolutely on fire (a bunch of multi-hit games and even a couple outifled assissts). I definitely don't want to send him down because of this potential that we are seeing right now. He'll be A-B all year, but hopefully this experience will pay off down the road when we get back to contention in the next couple years.

Fuzz: Gomez is a character. He probably had no right diving for this ball but did anyway. He also stole third yesterday when no sign was given. Gardy was pissed off in the papers this morning. But, he said that you can’t bottle this kid up, you have to let him just go. I love him, by the way. Anyways, the Twins are ‘hanging around’ after month number one. Detroit and Cleveland are coming on but don’t look dominant as everyone said they were going to be. The Twins and Cleveland are 6-4 in their last 10 games and Detroit is 7-3. I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t see this coming. Even if it is only the first month, and if the Twins can hang in there, they just might have a shot. Might being the key word. You know, maybe a high 80’s or low 90’s win total takes this division. If that’s the case, the Twins could be in the race in September, which would be a nice surprise. I thought at the beginning of the season that they looked like a .500 ball club and they still look like that. However, I saw Detroit and Cleveland being a ton better. If those two teams fall down from that prediction and the Twins steal a few games late in the season, we might just shock everyone this fall!!! See what happens when the sun shines for a few days? Good Ole’ optimism comes creeping back out...

Idol Chatter

2008-04-30T15:54:00.006-05:00

Here's a little talk for all of you Idol fans. Maybe you admit your a fan, maybe you don't. Either way, here are thoughts on last nights performances and on where we think the show is headed.

Dogg: Who is getting booted tonight and why?

Fuzz: Simon thinks Cans (Syesha) is in trouble but I think Brooke White goes tonight. Syesha has been in the bottom three for the past month but I think she hangs on. Brooke hasn't impressed me at all in 2-3 weeks. It's time for her to go. She messed up her lyrics two weeks ago and should have been booted. Then this week, she was average. Simon called her first performance a nightmare. Plus, she's annoying as hell, so I'm sick of her.

Dogg: Syesha has been in trouble for the past 6 weeks. I don’t even remember how many times she has been in the bottom 3 and/or 2 but has lasted to the final 5. I think the bottom 2 should be Syesha and Brooke but Castro had an off night with the judges as well. He’s been losing interest of the judges but apparently not with the fans. I enjoy his O.A.R stoner-type music a lot. Brooke hasn’t had a clue the past two weeks and I thought if you mess up lyrics you are automatically tossed? Apparently not with Brooke because she had to start over while on the piano a few weeks ago and then completely botched the lyrics last week. See ya Brooke!

Who is in your top 3 right now Fuzz?

Fuzz: My top three are the fellas. Cook, Archuleta, and Castro in that order. The guys have been significantly better than the philly's this season, so having an all dude top 3 is legit. Who knows though? I think Cook and Archuleta are shoe-in's for the top 2. They are by far the best and have been since about week three. What the hell is going on with Paula? Is she seriously on crack? She started judging Castro's 2nd song last night before she sang it and called Syesha Brooke last night. She is completely off her rocker and Simon loves it. He sits there and just laughs.

Dogg: I have Archuleta, Cook and Castro in that order. I know a 17-year-old American Idol would be awfully young but his voice is the best in my mind. Cook definitely has high power potential and will do well with his music career but I believe Archuleta has the most powerful voice. He has since day 1 and has been a favorite since this contest started.

Paula was terrible last night. How the F did she think somebody sang two songs when they only had sung one when they asked of her opinion? I’ve said she’s been on drugs since this show started and believe the producers enjoy it because it has become comical. I am surprised that Seacrest hasn’t said anything to her this season especially last night. Do they just rip her after the show? Simon and her are for sure going strong in the sack and gives the show reason to keep her on screen. The show has been a major hit series since it began. If Simon leaves does the show continue to do well?

Fuzz: Barring a Daughtry like early exit shocker, David Cook is your winner. He's 25, he's been the most consistent singer and I think he IS the best singer this year. Archuleta is the only other contender but he is too young. He's only 17 and is a little retarded. In the sense in the way he handles the attention, the judges, Seacrest, etc... He's not as polished as Cook is. The best singer doesn't always win this competition though, but in the end, Cook is the artist that's going to come out on top record sales wise. That must be nice, by the way. You're 25, you were working a normal job before this show, and now you'll be a millionaire within a year or two. It's bullshit...

Dogg: If you are in the top 10 on American Idol you have a face with millions of people and that is worth a shitload these days. You will make it big time if you really want to either with music, TV, radio, etc. I know some of these singers fall off with their singing careers but can always latch onto something else with the popularity factor from this show. I agree though Fuzz that it's BS because I can do things much better than half of these tools that end up making a career because they were on American Idol.

Cook vs. Archuletta is the matchup to look for from here on out. One of these two will be your champion. Either is good for me because they are the two guys I selected when the field was limited to 24 which gives me $10 each from Q and Fuzz!

Picture of the Day

2008-04-30T10:27:00.004-05:00

Q: Raise your hand if you shot better than 25% in a deciding game in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Not so fast Steve...

Dogg: I just puked because I cannot stand Tim Duncan. He is a clutch player and will probably go down as one of the top 5 PF’s of all-time but I can honestly say that he is my least favorite NBA player now and don’t see that changing for 25+ years. His mannerisms bother the shit out of me and he’s a complete nerd...The photo also shows Steve Nash’s last days in Phoenix. I think they ship him out and believe he’ll win a title in the next 3 years if he goes to the right team.

Fuzz: I'm with Dogg in the sense that this is the last time you'll see Nash with a Suns jersey on. He's walking with his head down probably thinking the same fucking thing. The lastest report is that head coach D'Antoni is all but gone and the Suns need to go in a different direction. The high flying offense but suspect on defense didn't work for the Suns. They also got unlucky matching up with the Spurs in the early rounds the last two years. That's one team they can't beat. Nash is getting older and Shaq needs to retire and join the TNT NBA crew. Can you imagine Ernie, Kenny "the jet" Smith, Chuck Barkley and Shaq? I thought that crew couldn't get better but the addition of Shaq would be unreal. Anyways, Amare is still young enough where you can blow this thing up for a few years and make a run after the turn of the decade.

Under Review--NFL Draft

2008-04-29T21:26:00.004-05:00

The 2008 NFL draft is completed and here are five questions about the event.

We had no first round pick because of the Jared Allen trade and we haven't touched on that trade. What do you guys think of the Jared Allen deal?

Dogg: The Jared Allen trade was phenomenal. We gave up our 17th overall pick, expecting to take a DE who probably shouldn't have been taken that early in Phillip Merling. Any DE that we took in the first round was going to be a 50/50 success but with Jared Allen we got a top 5 DE. 3rd round picks mean nothing to me so this deal was Jared Allen for the 17th overall pick which is an absolute steal. I believe we will have the top defensive line in the league this year.

Q: I wasn't entirely sure about it at first. A first rounder, two thirds, and $74 million? That's a lot no matter who you are. But the more I thought about it (and drank the Vikings Kool-Aid that Dogg is brewing), the more I liked the move. I'll take the NFL's sack leader over three questionable draft picks any day. He's going to make the entire defense better and especially help our pass defense, where we've struggled for the past few seasons. Plus, it's not very often that you get a chance to get an impact player entering the prime of his career. Especially not in Minnesota, where we're usually the ones shipping people out at about that time (see Santana, Johan). He instantly gives us a top 3 defense in the league and could be the difference maker in whether or not we make the playoffs.

Fuzz: I like it. Two things aren’t guaranteed: 1) Draft Picks 2) Jared Allen laying off the sauce. Have you seen this guy? He looks like the spokesperson for Natty Ice. Anyways, on one end you’re giving up draft picks that haven’t proved shit in the league to get a guy that led the league in sacks last year. Then on the other end, you’re getting a guy that’s a cocktail away from a year suspension (copyright my brother). Both are risks. However, I like it from the standpoint that we’re making a run. Whatever is sparking this new attitude is great to see. Whether it’s Childress on the hot seat, ownership getting antsy or an organization thinking they are close to the Superbowl--I love the “go for it now” thinking. Our sports organizations ALWAYS build, build, and build for the future. Like Q said, we give up all-stars for future building almost every year it seems like. It’s a good change seeing them say the hell with it, let’s roll. My thoughts on if this philosophy will work--- We’re Comin!!

Is John David Booty going to push T-Jack? Why? Why not?

Q: The only thing JDB will be pushing this year is a pencil to the clipboard he's holding (sorry, lame joke). I don't think there is any chance that he sees the field this year. We are going to sink or swim with Jackson. If he leads us to the promised land, awesome. If not, Chilly might be on his way out since this is his boy. Even if Tarvaris gets hurt, we signed Gus "Head Banger" Ferotte as a backup, and since he's played in the league for quite some time now, he'd easily get the nod over Booty. That said, if T Jack struggles again this year (as everyone expects that he will), there could and should be some serious Booty talk (that sounds dirty) heading into the 2009 season.

Dogg: JDB will not push T-Jack this year. I'm a firm believer that T-Jack will progress this season and lead us deep into the playoffs if not the Super Bowl. Stay consistent and take sacks if you have to without throwing ill-advised picks. Hand off right, hand off left, dink and dunk to the middle and play action deep will be the only plays he has to deal with. JDB
is from USC which I love but there is no defense in the Pac-10 so JDB hasn't seen crap on defense yet. I think he might be good one day but T-Jack will lead us this year.

Fuzz: First off, if you guys want some of that purple drink that Dogg is whipping up; he’ll be sitting at a corner this weekend in the south metro serving that stuff up next to the Lemonade stand occupied by the five year olds. T-Jack will lead us to the SuperBowl this year possibly? Wow. I really hope so, but I’m not convinced yet that jump thrower T-Jack is the answer. This is why I love the Booty pick. He did slip to the 5th round but late round quarterbacks in this league have panned out before. Why? Because they are in the right system. JDB is a system quarterback and he might have just walked into a perfect storm. An accurate and smart passer fits the West Coast O perfectly. He’s going to have a learning curve like any other young QB, but he has a chance to be our starter at some point. However, I don’t think it’s this year so have fun holding the clipboard like Q mentioned.

Which team had the best draft? Also, what was the best pick?

Q: For me (copyright Randy Jackson) there were two teams that stood out. The first, which you're probably going to read about in every draft analysis article out there, is the Kansas City Chiefs. I know it's pretty easy to say they had a good draft since they picked twice in the first 17 picks and had something like 13 picks overall, but I liked what they did. Dorsey and Albert are pretty much the highest rated D and O linemen, respectively, in the draft (other than Jake Long, of course). Adding those two will help that team out a lot immediately. It won't make them a good team, but it's a major step in the right direction.

The other team I liked was the Washington Redskins. Clearly they felt like their offense needed a boost, so they went out and got WR's Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly, TE Fred Davis, OG Chad Rinehart, and QB Colt Brennan. Maybe they won't be any good, but they are all names that I know, so that puts them high on my chart.

Fuzz: You have to like what the Dolphins did. I know they had the 1st overall pick, but I liked their first three picks a lot. Jake Long will be one of those dominant left tackles in this league. Tackles that are drafted that high always pan out. Then they went with DE Phillip Merling with their 2nd pick and he was projected in a lot of people’s first round, if that means anything. With their 3rd pick they drafted Chad Henne to compete for the starting quarterback this year. All three probably will be starters this year so I like their draft the best based on this. As for my best pick in the draft, I’ll go with receiver Devin Thomas with the 3rd pick (34th overall) in the 2nd round to the Skins. Todd McGay from ESPN had Thomas going 11th overall to the Bills so having slip in the second round has the Skins with the best pick in the draft.

Dogg: I was drinking beer and watching the NBA playoffs during the NFL draft so I don't have an accurate assessment. Vikings didn't have picks because of the Allen trade so I wasn't real intrigued with this year's draft. I do know Limas Sweed got taken by Pittsburgh in the 2nd round which was a great pick.

I know it's early, but give me your Defensive and Offensive rookie of the years?

Dogg: Offensive ROY will be Darren McFadden. He will step in immediately and run/catch the ball with great success. Defensive ROY will be Derrick Harvey. He steps into an already great defense (Jags) and will not draw a lot of attention giving him the edge often throughout the year.

Q: That's easy: Offensive Rookie of the Year will definitely be Darren McFadden since he's the only impact skill position player that should contribute right away. Defensive Rookie of the Year is a lot harder, and for now I'll go with Derrick Harvey since he's joining an already stellar D in Jacksonville and thus should have the most amount of opportunities to make plays.

Fuzz: I swear to you that those two fellas wrote their responses separately. Well, I’m obviously going to go a different route to save the question. Only three quarterbacks have won the award, but I’m still going to go with Matt Ryan with the Falcons for my offensive rookie of the year. He’s clearly going to be the guy there since Joey Harrington is awful. He’s going to get every opportunity to win the award and with a weak playmaker class, he has a legitimate shot. Seven of the last eight defensive rookie of the years have been linebackers and the streak continues here ladies with Jerod Mayo from the Patriots winning the award. He was the 10th overall player taken and is going to step in and replace Junior Seau immediately on an 18-1 team. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t win this award.

Give me a rant/analysis/thoughts about something that happened on draft day.

Fuzz: A couple ridiculous things happened during the draft. 1) I had a draft party. The draft is so big that we threw a frickin party for it and a bunch of people came over! Ridics. 2) A few of the fellas took bets on every pick of round 1 & 2. It was like a sportsbook in Vegas with the feel of Wallstreet at the house. It was one of the craziest scenes I’ve seen. Guys writing down their bets, taking 3-1, 4-1, even 10-1 odds on certain players going in a certain position, and taking offense/defense bets on the picks. There was even talk of betting if the next player was going to be black or white. It was truly insane but it made for a really fun/interesting day.

Q: This was the most boring draft I have ever been a part of. Normally I'm pretty fixated with most of the first round and even beyond that. This year, I couldn't have cared less. Maybe it was because the first few picks were pretty much dead set before it started. Maybe it's because the Vikes didn't have a pick. Maybe it's because I paid less attention to college football this past year than I have in previous years. Most likely, it was a combination of all of them, but the bottom line is that I was not into this draft at all, and had much more fun watching the NBA playoff games and the Twins game.

Dogg: Mel Kiper is ridiculous. He sits there all day knowing every player taken with strengths and weaknesses. I know it's his job but he does it with ease. He had half of the ESPN crew looking at their magazines when mentioning half the players because they didn't know who Mel was talking about. Mel knows half of the kids' parent's names, where they live, brothers, sisters, etc. It's gotten insane how much he knows about college football players.

Picture of the Day

2008-04-28T10:52:00.004-05:00

Q: "Hoffman, with the putter, for double bogey from the bottom of the lake..." Clearly Chuck didn't have a great tourney this weekend.

Dogg: What the hell is Charley Hoffman doing? Is that a pink stripe on his golf shoes? This guy is classic and a Jim Rome favorite. He told Jim earlier this year that Tiger Woods has a great shot a winning the slam. “You can give him the U.S Open and Masters and the other two will be toss ups”. He is definitely one of my favorite golfers on tour.

Fuzz: This is a version of a suicide attempt for golfers. Other people have weak moments and stand on top of buildings, hold knives to their wrists, or tie knots into ropes. Not golfers. They stand over a six foot deep pond with the stick that has done them so wrong. Don't do it man!