Today's T-Wolves Practice Schedule? [T-Wolves Blog]

Today is the beginning of Timberwolves training camp in Mankato. Over at the T-Wolves Blog, I take some uneducated guesses at what today's schedule might look like.

It's everything we wanted [Twinkie Town]

Today's regular Monday column at Twinkie Town is a stream-of-consciousness piece about the Twins being in the pennant race. Isn't this everything we wanted, Twins fans?

As for the rest of the day: at 1pm, another poll about the team's chances will go up, and at 4pm, the game thread will be live. And of course, the game's at 6:00, and a recap will be live shortly afterwards.

UPDATE: The game got postponed. Here's the poll, anyway (with nearly two-thirds of participants thinking the Twins will win the Central.)

Maybe it's all different now! [Minnesota Vikings]

Is it possible that the Vikings' decision to bring in Brett Favre has, somehow, weirdly flipped the team's karma?

Now, I suppose we shouldn't get too excited about one improbable win. After all, we've seen them before. Ahmad Rashad in Cleveland. Jim McMahon finding Eric Guilford wide open and all alone behind the Green Bay defense. That crazy comeback against the Bears, culminating in Todd Lynch returning an interception for a score and Jim Harbaugh and Mike Ditka screaming at each other on the sidelines.

Still, it's hard not to get at least a little excited. The Purple overcame adversity - from Percy Harvin's kick return for a touchdown that canceled out San Fran's FG block and return, all the way down to an unbelievable catch by waiver-wire pickup Greg Lewis to win the game with two seconds to play. Didn't you kind of expect the Vikes to fold? Didn't you give up when they turned the ball over on downs with less than two minutes to go?

All I'm saying is, maybe things are different now. Maybe we don't have to expect the worst this year.

(Yes, I still hate Favre. Unless he really has used his Mississippi witchcraft to flip almost fifty years' worth of expecting the worst, and getting it.)

Weekend Links [RandBall]

In this post: weekend links.

We're gearing up for Minnesota at Northwestern, in a few minutes here, but until then - why not enjoy another edition of the weekend links?

Arsenal thinks we're idiots [Arsenal USA]

Arsenal, the English soccer team of choice on this blog, has launched an "Arsenal USA" website, which is more or less the same as the regular Arsenal.com, except for a section of helpful, USA-specific features. As a longtime member of Arsenal America, I was excited to see the club starting an official site with a USA flavor. As the site itself put it:

In addition to the news, interviews, and match-day coverage fans have come to expect from Arsenal.com, The USA site will also be home to timely features and backgrounders to help explain what makes Arsenal and the English Premier League unique.

What we got was, shall we say, a little underwhelming. I'm sure I expected a different style of coverage, but I didn't expect the USA-specific features to be written for eight-year-olds.

For example, just weeks after the team started in with the USA site, they posted an article, titled "Football Jargon." Among other things, this article explains such tricky terms as "center spot," "corner flags," and "cross-field pass," to pick three random examples from among a whole host of self-explanatory terms. (For example: "Substitutes – Players not selected to start the match but available if required later in the game. " OH!)

Since then, we've been treated to an explanation of international football, an explanation of the League Cup , and other such basics. All of them are peppered with helpful definitions, in case you're the forgetful type.

The articles are written by Kevin Mooney, an American Arsenal fan, but he's clearly working with a mandate to make the articles as simple to understand as possible. This bothers me. It makes me think that the club assumes that, because we live across the pond, we must obviously not be as plugged in to the English game as UK fans.

In my experience, this is quite simply not true. The type of fan who's going to visit an official USA Arsenal website is the type of fan who's spent years getting up at 6am to watch early kickoffs, who's spent years taking afternoons off work to watch midweek European games that begin at 1:45 Central time. We've already found websites to read and blogs to follow, along with cable packages that include soccer and bars and restaurants that will indulge our passion.

We don't need it explained to us that "Arsenal Reserves are similar to a Triple-A team in baseball." We don't need to be treated like idiots just because we're Americans, Arsenal. Instead, try thinking of us just as fans.

How are they doing this? [Minnesota Twins]

Take a good look at the Twins right now.

Their cleanup hitter is out for the year. They're playing their right fielder at first base, a position he's never played regularly at any level. They're playing another right fielder in left field, even though he's a disaster defensively and has a .291 on-base percentage. Meanwhile, they're playing their designated hitter in right field, even though he's playing on two bad knees and moves around at the speed of smell.

At designated hitter, they have a rookie third-string catcher. At third base, they have a .210 hitter who literally is a one-tool player, as long as you count "running hard on infield groundouts" as a tool. At second base, they have a .240 hitter whose skill set is similar to the third baseman's.

Shortstop is a guy who came over in a mid-season trade, who's hitting .244 since his arrival and who's below-average in the field. The backup infielders are a pair of mediocre-hitting third basemen, neither of whom you'd trust to pinch-hit. The fourth outfielder is a speedy guy who's great in the field but useless at the plate, and has trouble remembering to hit the cutoff man. When you see the backup catcher hit, field, or run, you're strongly reminded of the Tin Man.

The starting rotation consists of a guy who went to hell at the All-Star break and has shown only flashes since, a guy who got traded for spare parts by the Indians, and two rookies who couldn't hack it in the bullpen. Oh, and there's the #1 starter, who tends to give up four runs in the fifth or sixth inning every time he pitches.

In the bullpen, you've got a closer who may or may not have a dead arm, a lefty who the Royals gave up on, a righty whose stuff is less impressive than his height and neck tattoo, and another young lefty who ate his way off the team in spring training. There's also about four guys who have been back and forth between the minors and the majors this year and a failed starter or two.

Yet the Twins have won seven of eight, their best streak of the year. They're two and a half games back of Detroit, and are - yes - in a pennant race.

I don't know if it's just the weak schedule, or if Ron Gardenhire is a witch, or what's going on here, but the lineup card reads like the cast of Major League, and yet the Twins are - honestly, legitimately, wonderfully - making a charge.

How are they doing this?

Twinkie Town: Monday posts

In this post: what to watch for.

Three planned for today at Twinkie Town: one, a poll, on whether fans believe this whole AL Central thing will happen for the Twins, or not. At 5:00, the game discussion thread will go up, and sometime after the final out, I'll have a recap up.

Join me over there, won't you?

(LATER)

Updating with specific links:
The poll (hint: 46% of Twins fans think the Twins will win the AL Central, which seems high)
The game preview
The game recap: Twins 7, White Sox 0

RandBall: Weekend Links

In this post: the usual.

Missed it this morning, as I was on my way to campus for Minnesota vs. Cal, but here's this week's edition of the weekend links, at RandBall.

TNABACG Book Club: Gophers Illustrated

In this post: a review of Gophers Illustrated: The Incredible Complete History of Minnesota Football, by Al Papas, Jr.

(Editor's Note / Full Disclosure: Gophers Illustrated is published by the University of Minnesota Press, which is run by the University of Minnesota, my employer. Not only that, the subject matter of the book, the University of Minnesota football program, does relate to my job.

That said, once again, all opinions and reviews offered are mine alone. They don't reflect the opinions of the U of M, nor those of U of M Intercollegiate Athletics, nor have my opinions been altered or influenced by the 'U'. But if you can't believe that I'm offering an unbiased opinion, and you think that I'm here to pull the wool over your eyes, then go read Friend of TNABACG Michael Rand's article about this book and skip this post.)

If you'll allow me, I'd like to get straight to the point: if you're a Gopher football fan, you will want this book. You won't want to settle just for reading it; you'll want it to have around, to page through, to open at random at some odd time of the year so that you can steal a few precious moments, reminiscing about autumn Saturdays past.

The tagline on the front cover says "Meticulously researched and drawn," and that's about the simplest way of describing this book. "Chock-full of goodness" would be another way. Every page in this book - and there are over 200 - contains a sketch, chart, graph, page of facts, selection of stories, or something relating to the near-125-year history of Gopher football. Every famed player in Gopher history is sketched, and his story is told, from John William Adams (who played in the first Gopher intercollegiate game, in 1882) all the way through Matt Spaeth, a Mackey Award winner and All-American in 2006.

But that's not all. Coaches. Broadcasters. An illustrated guide to pretty much every Gopher that's ever won national or conference recognition. Details of the Big Ten standings for every year, up through 2008.

I'm even yet to mention what's perhaps my favorite feature of the book: meticulously charted games from Gopher history. Want a play-by-play account of the climax of the 6-6 tie with Michigan in 1903, better known as the game that gave us the Little Brown Jug? It's on page 19, surrounded by six pages of stories about the build-up to the game. The 1940 Michigan game, as the Gophers beat the Wolverines 7-6, highlighted by Bruce Smith scampering 80 yards for a touchdown? Page 85. The 1962 Rose Bowl, page 112. The 1999 upset of Penn State, page 144-145.

Incredible. Simply incredible.

For Gopher fans, I really can't recommend this book highly enough. It's like holding the 'M' Football Hall of Fame in your hands. It's like someone dumped the entire contents of the football archives into your lap. Combine it with the U Libraries Memorial Stadium site, and you need virtually nothing else Gopher football-related in your personal library.

With glowing quotes from Tony Dungy, Dave Mona, and Darrell Thompson on the back cover, Papas hardly needs another blurb from me. If he did, though, here's what I'd write: "Al Papas Jr. has not only written, but drawn by hand, the best Gopher book I've ever seen."

TCF Bank Stadium: Things are entirely different

In this post: a link to a guest post at RandBall.

Mr. Rand asked me to do a quick guest post, on the opening of the University of Minnesota's new football stadium. It's safe to say I was pretty excited.

Twins beat Cleveland 6-3 with bombastic eighth

In this post: a link to a game recap.

Minnesota 6, Cleveland 3: Here's my "gamer" for an exciting Twins win.

Twinkie Town: A few numbers

In this post: links to Monday Twinkie Town posts.

First up, a few numbers on the Twins' stretch drive. With 19 games to go, if they don't end up going either 10-9 or 9-10, I'll be shocked.

Tonight at 5:00, the game preview will be up at Twinkie Town, and I'll have a game recap up sometime after the game, you know, ends.

RandBall: Weekend Links

It's time for football! And, of course, weekend links.

TNABACG Book Club: The Vikings Reader

In this post: A review of The Vikings Reader, edited by Armand Peterson.

(Editor's Note / Full Disclosure: The Vikings Reader is published by the University of Minnesota Press, which is run by the University of Minnesota, my employer. All opinions and reviews offered are mine alone. They don't reflect the opinions of the U of M, nor have my opinions been altered or influenced by the 'U'. And if you still believe that I'm a corporate shill, out to brainwash you, then go read Friend of TNABACG Michael Rand's article about this book and skip this post.)

Any history of the Vikings is always going to be incomplete. Too many of the principals are gone; Norm Van Brocklin died in 1983, for example, and a book about the Vikings without the Dutchman as a character would be a poor book indeed.

Armand Peterson, who also helped write Town Ball: The Glory Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball, seems to have understood this better than most. Rather than attempting to author the definitive history of the Vikings, he instead has turned to those who were there, and to the words they wrote at the time. He's gathered stories about the Vikings, from the birth pains in the late 1950s all the way through Jared Allen in 2008, and has simply written enough to fill in the gaps in the story of our intrepid Purple heroes.

Consequently, the bylines of the newspaper and magazine articles read like a "Who's Who" of Vikings writing. He's got a Sid Hartman column from 1960 in there. Halsey Hall makes an appearance. And no collection of Vikings writing could possibly be complete without heavy doses of Jim Klobuchar; happily, Peterson includes an excerpt from Tarkenton, the quarterback's semi-autobiography (Tarkenton and Klobuchar alternated chapters), my copy of which has been read so heavily that the cover is long gone.

Even better, the selections he's made tell the story of a Vikings past that I wasn't particularly aware of. There are pieces that cover the genesis of Minnesota as an NFL team, instead of an AFL one; stories that detail the legendary Met Stadium tailgate scene; and a long article about wideout Ahmad Rashad, who I remember better as the host of "NBA Inside Stuff" on Saturday mornings, not the ladies' man Lakeville bachelor of the late 1970s.

I do have to say that I enjoyed the first five chapters, covering the years up to about 1997, more than I did the final two chapters. The sixth chapter covers what, for better or for worse, could be described as the Red McCombs years, and frankly I'd rather forget much of those years (1998 or 2000 NFC Championship stories, anyone? The seventh covers about the last 5-7 years, and maybe it's just me, but the subject feels too fresh to deserve much coverage. Ask me in 15 years; perhaps those two chapters will seem better then.

As are most sports books, this one's prone to the usual small mistakes (Vikings great John Randle's name is misspelled in a caption, and the newest Viking is called "Bret" Favre at least twice), but this criticism is mostly a function of the sports obsessive (me) finding small errors. In his guise as editor, Peterson's picked interesting and well-balanced articles to include in the book, spanning the gamut from local papers to famed national magazines; as a writer, his joining together of the articles is well-executed.

This, then, is a very recommended read, especially for those Vikings fans who realize that the Purple existed before Denny Green was the coach. (And don't worry; Denny and Roger Headrick are well represented. Chaos, anyone?)

For those interested, Peterson will be at the Roseville HarMar Barnes & Noble tonight at 7:00pm, and will be appearing around the metro area throughout the football season. For all the details, visit the book's website.

Fight of the Year: O'Neal vs. De La Hoya

In this post: the little guy fights the big guy.

Longtime readers know that I'm not much of a boxing fan. Indeed, I've only watched - really watched - one fight in my life, the bout between Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya in May 2007. That matchup was hyped beyond recognition, which made it all the more disappointing when it turned into a technical dance-fest. Or, as I put it at the time:

"For the casual fan, this was like watching a 1-0 baseball game. If it took eighteen hours. And went nineteen innings. And the run scored on a balk. And you hate baseball."

There hasn't been a fight since that I felt the need to see, and unless Mike Tyson got into the ring against a kangaroo, that wasn't too likely to change. Tuesday night, though, we saw what is probably the closest thing we'll get to that matchup, and I uttered words I never thought I'd use:

"I need you to tape ABC for me right now. Shaq is about to fight Oscar De La Hoya. This, I gotta see."

This was the latest installment in Shaq's summer television show, "Shaq Vs.," in which Shaq good-naturedly gets his butt kicked at pretty much every sport he tries. I've caught a few soundless episodes at the gym, and in general, they've been boring. The big guy's lost a touch football game, a home run derby, and a beach volleyball match so far.

All of that said, this competition had the potential to be interesting. De La Hoya hadn't fought since December, and even if he'd been in game shape, he's a 5'11" middleweight. He was 147 pounds when he lost to Manny Pacquiao, his last fight before retirement. Though he's the pro fighter, he gave up fourteen inches (!) and about two hundred pounds to O'Neal.

More or less, it was like watching De La Hoya fight a chained bear. Obviously, the smaller fighter had the speed advantage, but Shaq had a gigantic right hand that weighed about seventy-five pounds - and trainer Freddie Roach, in limited training sessions, helped O'Neal develop a decent left-handed jab. Combine that with O'Neal's huge reach, and the outside chance that the big man might rear back and knock De La Hoya's head clean off his shoulders, and the potential for entertainment was there.

In the event, the two men fought five rounds, the first four two-minute rounds and the final one for 60 seconds. And frankly, as far as I'm concerned, it was just about as exciting as boxing can possibly be.

O'Neal tired in the later rounds, but for the first few minutes, did a convincing impersonation of a combination of Clubber Lang and the big Russian dude from "Rocky IV." Remember how Little Mac (pictured at right) of "Nintendo Punch-Out" fame had to more or less leap off the canvas to punch opponents in the face? That was De La Hoya; he actually left his feet a couple of times to attempt overhand rights.

Meanwhile, Shaq was wandering around the ring, taking whatever Oscar could dish out and actually waving him on, asking for more. I was ready for De La Hoya's cornerman, Bernard Hopkins, to hand his fighter a steel chair and then distract the referee.

Luckily for the "Golden Boy," Shaq never really could land his big right hand. O'Neal had some success with the jab, and managed to bull-rush De La Hoya into the corner a couple of times, but couldn't find the space to loose the big haymaker. Of course, he wasn't in fight shape, either, and eventually got so tired that most of his "combinations" were simply wild attempts to punch De La Hoya with both hands at the same time.

The truth, then, was that it was always De La Hoya's fight to lose; the little guy put together a flurry in every round, which may not have hurt Shaq but did damage on the scorecards. O'Neal's only chance (and what I was hoping for, of course) was a huge right that somehow permeated his opponent's headgear, possibly caving in his opponent's face in the process. It never came, and Oscar took a deserved unanimous decision.

Maybe it wasn't the fight of the year, then - but I'd rather watch this than another twelve rounds of Floyd Mayweather dancing around the ring. It would have been a great barstool argument - who'd win in a fight, Shaq or some middleweight? - and we got to see it.

This fight probably won't save boxing. That said, if the two wanted to train for six months, then have a real fight - no headgear, twelve rounds, and all that - I'd be first in line to pay $50 to watch.

Twinkie Town: Game Recap

In this post: one quick link.

Though I forgot about the game until well after the first pitch, I did write a quick recap of the 6-3 Twins win at Twinkie Town.

Hiatus Over

In this post: The TNABACG summer hiatus is over.

Greetings, readers. It's past Labor Day, which means it's autumn now. I feel like this change of calendar is a good time to get back to writing.

Taking the summer off from this space, if not from other outlets, was a good idea. The Twins went in the tank, the Timberwolves made more trades than a commodities broker on a sales commission, the Vikings got yanked around by Brett Favre... and I got to stay quiet. It felt nice, to not get angry at the keyboard every night. I have written most of the words on this blog with negative thoughts in mind. I have been sarcastic, venomous, and critical, and it was nice to let those feelings fade away for awhile.

It was also rather pleasant to feel ill-informed with no consequences, too. If I wanted, I could go days at a time without turning on a Twins game. I could read a different section of the paper on the way to work, not just the sports section. I could skip the 10pm sportscast. I didn't need - or want - to be on top of everything, and this, readers, was quite freeing.

Even so, I missed writing. I miss the jokes. I miss writing wildly and urgently about some arcane subject of limited importance - Australian rules football, say, or about some unknown Wild prospect who'd scored four goals in a QMJHL game. I like learning about a sport I didn't understand, or hearing the story of a player I knew nothing about, and that's what I'd sort of like to get back to.

I think it's fair to expect a different type of writing from me. Until fairly recently, what I really wanted to be was a sportswriter, and I suppose my blogging - I still don't like that word - reflected that.

A bit of history: When I started doing this thing online, and later when I started doing it every day, the idea of real sportswriters doing blogs was still somewhat distant. Back in 2004, sports news was published on the website at the end of the game and in the paper the next day, and if you wanted to discuss it, then off to the rough, untamed wilderness of message boards with you.

In the past, then, I could be an online sportswriter. It was new and different and novel, and I spent years diligently trying to report and react as best I could. I was never important enough - or hardworking enough - to get news from sources and become a real reporter, but it was simple to become a columnist of sorts. A dash of Sid Hartman (news collected from other sources and "reported"), a pinch of Jim Souhan (lame jokes and unrepentant puns), and a whole potful of Dan Barreiro and Patrick Reusse (thinly veiled distaste and anger), and the stew was complete. I grew up dreaming of writing for the Star Tribune, and thanks to the internet, I could fake it, if not make it.

Well, all of that's over now. Every newspaper sports guy has his own blog and Twitter feed - even internet-hating Reusse has both - not to mention his own weekly column, daily page of the sports section, and radio show. The world does not need more sportswriters, and the world sure as heck doesn't need more online hacks like me.

This would have depressed me, before, but it's oddly liberating now. Knowing that nobody cares about what I write also means that I don't have to worry about anybody caring, and can instead set about writing on whatever subject I happen to like, if one should take my fancy.

For example, I've spent some of my summer following the biennial Ashes cricket series - at least as closely as someone with no television broadcast options, nor the gigantic gobs of unfilled free time that test cricket requires, can follow it. The two biggest, must-see sporting events of the summer, for me, have been USA soccer matches. The fact that the American team lost both the Confederations Cup final and their World Cup qualifier in Mexico only confirms their big-game status, as the teams I like always do seem to lose the big game.

Though I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do, I'm resolute in my desire to not follow a format. I'd like each day to be different, and I'd like to do something other than the old rewarming of the day's Strib sports pages. I'll still be following the same teams - my weekly gigs at Twinkie Town and the T-Wolves Blog and RandBall will see to that - but otherwise, I'd like to stop being a sportswriter, and start being just a plain old writer.

I make no promises. Expect nothing, and you may be pleasantly surprised. And anyway, it's good to be back.

Saturday: RandBall and Twinkie Town

In this post: two links.

First, I unexpectedly ended up writing the recap of last night's Twins loss at Twinkie Town, which is here.

Second, at some point today, there will be weekend links at RandBall, which I hope you'll check out.