Nothing to Say [Minnesota Vikings]

I'm sure that most readers expect me to once again mash the panic button this week. After all, the Vikings got waxed on national TV yet again, for the second time in three weeks, this time by a bad team playing its backup quarterback.

Really, though, I don't think there's anything to say. We learned weeks ago that which we needed to know about the Vikings: they're talented but sometimes play badly for long stretches. They are not a dominant juggernaut. They are not unstoppable on offense; their defense is not impenetrable.

So we know what we already knew: a playoff run is possible, if they can manage to earn a first-round playoff bye. It's not guaranteed, and maybe not even likely. The Vikings are, as always, the same old Vikings - good enough to make the playoffs, but that might be it.

Weekend Links [RandBall]

It's time for more weekend links. This week's topics: television, junior hockey, and Canadian money (but not the loonie).

News You Can't Use [Twinkie Town]

Yesterday's post at Twinkie Town was heavily affected by the lack of real live Twins-specific news. Consequently, I fell back on my old standby: making up fake headlines so that I can re-use the same old Twins jokes as always.

Well, I'm sorry. They make me laugh.

Panic Canceled [Minnesota Vikings]

Okay, maybe it's not quite time to panic just yet.

Of course, beating Cincinnati is a pretty good win, particularly so when it's a 30-10 whupping that includes a pair of second-half, six-minute touchdown drives, and holding the Bengals passing offense to 91 yards on 28 attempts.

Looking ahead, the Vikings have a pair of road games in the next two weeks, but they're at Carolina and Chicago, two struggling 5-8 teams. A home game against the Giants in Week 17 is winnable, too. And we look ahead because there are still things to play for.

Minnesota needs one more win (or one more Packer loss) to clinch the NFC North for the second straight year. Two more wins (or some combination of one more win and losses from the Eagles, Cowboys, and Cardinals) clinch a first-round playoff bye. With New Orleans seemingly destined to clinch home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, those wins will could at least guarantee Minnesota an extra week of rest, and the chance to play inside throughout January.

Unless you're still panicking. (Personally, I'm ready to hit the panic button again at a moment's notice.)

Weekend Links and Birthdays! [RandBall]

Two RandBall posts for your reading pleasure, this week. First, Friday was the third birthday of the RandBall blog, and as usual, I commemorated the occasion. And today, of course, we have weekend links, which are chock full of hockey, NBA television, and billionaire goodness.

Audio TNABACG! [Twins Podcast]

Last night, Seth Stohs of SethSpeaks.net hosted his regular Minnesota Twins podcast, and his co-host canceled late - leading me to help out by pinch-hitting as a guest. Michael Rand of RandBall fame was also a guest, including a period when we were both on at the same time, arguing with each other.

If you care to listen, here's the link. If it's only my segment or Rand's segment you're after, he's on starting about the 25:00 mark, and I start at about 31:00.

Panic Time! [Minnesota Vikings]

Pessimists of the world, unite!

Weekend Links [RandBall]

Kind of an empty week, content-wise, wasn't it? As always, though, you can count on the Saturday delivery of the weekend links. This week's subjects: Carlos Gomez, the Vikings stadium, and fun things to yell at rock concerts - plus more!

December Important Dates [Twinkie Town]

It's a bit late, now, but on Monday I did a short roundup of some important December dates for the Twins.

Weekend Links (on a Tuesday!) [RandBall]

Forgot to post the link to Saturday's RandBall column. Topics this week: pitching independent of fielding, international soccer, bearded guys, and Ed Hightower.

Is Being a "Real" Fan a Good Idea?

I have always come down on the side the intense, partisan sports fan. This is, in part, because I am one. The teams of my youth have been a part of my life for so long that they feel like family members. I take them seriously enough that their failures feel like my failures, and their successes mine as well.

Yes, I do realize how silly this sounds, to allow my life to be affected by the fortunes of a group of highly-paid gladiators or by a bunch of college students. Yet I've always been an advocate for this, for one reason: if you don't let a team matter so much, then how can the successes feel so sweet?

Take one of the highest highs I've felt as a sports fan: the Golden Gopher football team's 23-20 win over Michigan in 2005. I'm sure I would have felt elated in any case, but would the feeling have been so striking had I not suffered through painful Minnesota losses to the Wolverines in 2003 and 2004? If I didn't know that it was the first Gopher win over Michigan in 19 years? That my first memory as a sports fan was that 1986 Gopher win, and of my dad explaining just why that win was such a big deal?

I'm not sure, but I've always acted that way. I've even made efforts to supplement the teams of my youth with other teams in other leagues, all based on one principle: "Unless you care maybe a little too much, it's just not fun."

I just don't know if this is a good idea any more.

I've constructed a large set of teams that are important to me, but I'm starting to think that this just gives me a larger number of reasons to be pessimistic and angry. If you've read this blog at all over the past five and a half years, you know these to be my default settings.

And yet, even when success comes, I'm on my guard. I've told several people this fall that I "don't want to get my hopes up" about the 9-1 Vikings. They're clearly as good as they've been in a decade, but I'm not even getting that excited, just waiting for the pain that feels inevitable.

I am starting to wonder if I might not be happier as more of a sports atheist, someone who watches sports for entertainment, not for personal validation.

There are problems with this, too. I take my work seriously, but like most people I have a limited capacity for it. I love reading and I enjoy music and movies the same as anyone else, but these are more diversions than passions. When I read or watch a movie or listen to an album, I don't do it to feel success or failure, only to be entertained, and I can't imagine otherwise.

I could throw myself into the pursuit of knowledge or skill - learn cabinetry or three languages or to play the banjo, but why? Learning just to learn is fun but ultimately pointless, even if I can learn to serenade crowds with German-language bluegrass music while standing atop a wardrobe.

So if not sports, then where should I place my passion?

I'm not sure what to do. All I know for sure is this: the occasional feeling of elation might not be enough to balance out the consistent disappointment and anger of being a "real" fan.

"How the Vikings moved to Los Angeles," Chapter 2 [Minnesota Vikings]

When the history of the Minnesota Vikings' impending move to Los Angeles is written, rest assured that yesterday's events will constitute the beginning of Chapter 2, which will be named "Tensions Escalate" or "Relationships Strain" or (depending on who writes the book) "The Wilfs Set Their Evil Plan in Motion."

From the Star Tribune:

In the clearest sign that the Minnesota Vikings are drawing a line in the sand over a new stadium, the team abruptly broke off relations Wednesday with the Metrodome's owners over plans to play there after the next two years.

The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission floated a plan to extend incentives to the Vikings, in exchange for a two-year lease extension - with included penalties if the team didn't agree. Hardball, for sure; the MSFC will vote on that plan today.

The Wilfs, team owners, were incensed by this, and "broke off relations" with the committee, at least as much as owners of a team that's playing in a committee-owned building rent-free can break off said relations.

The owners also trotted out the usual "we're last in the league in revenue" chestnuts. Never mind that being last in the league in revenue in the NFL is like being first in the league in revenue in the NBA or NHL; dang it, those Wilfs aren't making as much money as they could from this team! Quick, get them hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars! We must help!

I love the Vikings, and I really hope they stay. But every bit of news makes it seem less and less likely. I'm pretty sure the book on the move is already being written.

The Most Minnesotan Event of All

I've recently finished reading Fry in America: Fifty States and the Man Who Set Out to See Them All, by the great English actor, writer, raconteur, web expert, television host, documentarist - let us just say "entertainer" - Stephen Fry. Fry set out, in a London cab, to drive around America and visit all fifty states in turn. Not every state got its fair shake - some get merely a page, and a picture of the author near a sign post - but Minnesota got a moderate if not prolonged visit.

Fry stopped by in midwinter, just in the middle of a cold snap, and so got to experience the cold that Minnesota is so justly famous for. The people he visited, sensibly, took him out on Lake Minnetonka to ride snowmobiles and go ice fishing.

Now, as Minnesota activities go, this is a pretty good one; you can get a good slice of the local flavor by bundling up in your warmest clothes and sitting on a giant block of ice for hours at a time, the more so if it's dark, as well. But it got me thinking - for a visitor, if you were going to take them to one activity or event that is more Minnesotan than any other, what would it be?

Here's some suggestions that I've come up with:

• Playing a round of golf while there is snow on the ground. I'm shocked every year, but every year in April and November, you'll see local golfers trudging the links, even if they're delayed by the occasional still-melting snowpile.
• A nice game of pickup pond hockey. Though it might be hard to get a 52-year-old man out on the ice in -30 temperatures. Maybe a nice broomball game instead? (It's like hockey, for people who can't stickhandle or skate!)
  
• A "feed" of any kind. Fish, pancake, turkey, sausage, corn - if somebody's serving it in giant quantities, people will come. (Note that this suggestion also encompasses all potlucks, especially if they are held in a church basement or gymnasium.) Or the ultimate:
• A lutefisk dinner. No, I've never been to one. Yes, I'm afraid.
  
• The state boys' hockey tournament. The classic suggestion, of course. Having been there, I can say that it's not that big a deal... until you remember that it's high school hockey and yet there's 17,000 people there and there are people scalping tickets outside the arena.
• An outstate high school basketball rivalry game. I've met a lot of people who went to metro-area schools with good basketball teams. Most of them never went to a school basketball game. Some even made a special effort to stay away. They just don't understand what it's like to watch, say, Ortonville vs. Milbank (SD) on a cold January night. Maybe you have to be from the prairie to understand (or at least have watched Roseau play Warroad in hockey on TV.)
  
• The summertime parade at any "-Fest" or "- Days". Not just outstate, either - do they still have Raspberry Days in Hopkins?
• Driving north on Highways 35, 169, 10, or 94 on a Friday in the summer. Our state dream may be owning a cabin up north, but it's prefaced with our state summer activity: sitting in traffic for miles and miles.
• Town-team baseball. Maybe a visit to Miesville or Jordan... or Rosen, home of the concessions stand that doubles as the world's largest beer cooler.
  

I'm sure there's others that I'm forgetting. Set me straight, if you like.

If it's a sporting event you're after, to define Minnesota over a couple of pages in a book, it should probably involve winter and ice. It is, for better or for worse, what we're known for. And so ice fishing wasn't a bad choice, Mr. Fry - though a turn on a set of skates, stick in hand, might have worked too.

On Productive Outs [Twinkie Town]

Over at Twinkie Town today, I've got a post going up about productive outs. I figured it would end with the following sentence: "Making an out ALWAYS reduces the number of runs your team is expected to score." What I found, surprised me.

Weekend Links [RandBall]

This week's batch of weekend links is here. Subjects this week: the fall of the Minnesota Thunder, hockey suspensions, JJ Hardy, and sportswriters.