All About Minnesota [Twinkie Town]

I don't often write about my writing process, because I assume it must be boring in the extreme. That said: over the weekend, I read that MLB.com was getting a new Twins beat writer, named Rhett Bollinger, who publicly admitted that he'd never been to Minnesota before.

I thought it'd be fun to write a "Welcome to Minnesota" post for Twinkie Town. I thought of one good joke (telling him to change his name to fit in better, and suggesting that Star Tribune beat writer Joe Christensen had done the same.) And then I padded the whole thing out with what I thought were gentle jokes about Minnesota, my home state.

I thought the post might draw a few smiles, maybe even a few knowing guffaws. But it would seem that the resulting post may be one of the two or three most popular things I've ever written.

I'm flattered by the reaction, but also a bit nervous. I thought this one was good but not great. Is it possible I just have no idea what's funny?

Weekend Links

It's Saturday. This is the way that the public-address announcer always starts off his pre-halftime marching-band introduction at Gopher football games, and so every week when I sit down to write the weekend links, the invisible PA broadcaster in my mind booms, "IT'S SATURDAY," and then shambles off into some speech about the music of Earth, Wind, and Fire. I have tried drowning this speech out with music but it's yet to work. Anyway, as they always do, this column appeared on StarTribune.com's RandBall blog, your source for breakfast place recommendations on the internet.

Happy NCAA Tournament Saturday to one and all! I have to say, when CBS and Turner Sports announced that they were teaming up to broadcast this year's tournament, I didn't quite realize that it meant that every single game would be on basic cable and in high definition. In past years, I've spent much of my tournament viewing time fooling about with laptops and looking up broadcast maps to see which game CBS would be showing in my area. This year, it's been nothing but a chance to display my skills with the remote. I don't think I've seen a commercial in two days. Truly, we live in the best of all possible times.

Perhaps you're not watching the tournament, though. Or perhaps you're mystified about why only two of eight games today start before 4:00. Either way, here's a few links to get you through:

*We begin - where else? - with a New York Times profile of Gus Johnson, who's one of the best reasons to watch the tournament. (For proof, Deadspin has some video.)

*I linked to parts one and two of this last week, but here's part three of Tim Allen of Canis Hoopus at the MIT Sports Analytics Conference. Highlights of this installment include Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban making fun of Bill Simmons, and Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob making fun of Bill Simmons.

*Apparently Jose Mijares is developing a two-seam fastball to help him out against right-handed batters. Parker Hageman looks at a few other lefties who've attempted the same thing, and comes to the conclusion that this could be a helpful move. (Though he uses Jon Lester and David Price as comparables, which is a little bit like saying, "He should throw the high fastball more - it worked for Randy Johnson, and like Mijares, Johnson was left-handed.")

*And finally: here's some shots of people at shopping malls in 1990. If you were alive in 1990, you are in there somewhere, along with all of your family members. I don't mean specifically you, but you are there. Trust me. It'll all come flooding back. The jean jackets. The mullets. The Zubaz. Men wearing tank tops in public. It's all there. I myself was one Hypercolor shirt from going into a full-blown flashback and trying to jam cassette tapes into my car stereo.

On that note: that's enough for this Saturday. I'd say get outside and enjoy spring, but let's be honest with ourselves. Just keep stretching that remote control finger, and feel free to ice it down (five minutes on, ten minutes off) if you experience any soreness.

Twins On TV: What to Watch For

Today's the first televised Twins spring training game of the year, an event that I always get overly excited for and then get disappointed when the Double-A team is in the game by the fourth inning. Over at Twinkie Town, I've listed a few things to watch for on the broadcast - along with some associated point values. It's a visual scavenger hunt!

A Week's Worth Of Made-Up News

Last Monday at Twinkie Town, I took a look at the stories I thought might happen over the past seven days. With the benefit of hindsight, I see now that I was wrong about everything, which is not surprising since the whole thing was ludicrous anyway.

The beauty, of course, is that in spring training, these stories can be transplanted to any other week and make an equal amount of sense (or in this case, silliness), and so I present them again this week. Pretend they're new! Nobody will know!

A Timberwolves Game Wrap From Someone Who Was There (But Only Half Paying Attention)

Last Wednesday, I went downtown to watch the Timberwolves play the Pacers. The Wolves didn't play well. The Pacers played as badly as I think I'll ever see an NBA team play. And when I got home, Canis Hoopus needed a game wrap, so I dug in and typed out my thoughts.

Weekend Links

This is the freshest version of the weekend links, not like yesterday's stale week-old version. They were first published at RandBall, your source for half-baked insults about the game of hockey for the better part of a decade.

It's been a week for turnarounds on the local sports scene. The Wild, so recently looking like a solid playoff team, got waxed in the South two games in a row. The Timberwolves, so recently appearing to be a D-League team, won two games by more than 20 points. And the Gopher hockey team, on a mini-roll for three weeks, lost at home in the playoffs to Anchorage. It's a confusing time. (If only the turnaround bug had infected the Gopher hoopsters.)

Let's try to make sense of it all with the help of a few weekend links:

*Let's start with the Wolves, since they're the team going in the right direction this week. Canis Hoopus writer Tim Allen has been everywhere lately. First, he made a visit to Wolves practice as a fan, and then, he jetted cross-country to attend the MIT Sports Analytics conference (part one is here; part two is here.) For the opposite viewpoint - one that was published before the Wolves' current two-game hot "streak" - we turn to NBA genius Steve Aschburner, and his short study of the dystopia the Wolves have built in Minneapolis.

*Moving on to the Twins, Parker Hageman thinks you should be keeping an eye on Kyle Gibson, who'll begin the year as a Triple-A starter but could be close to ready for a big-league callup. Hageman's also got an analysis of Gibson's two-seam fastball and his changeup, complete with animated GIFs to stand in for video, that you won't want to miss.

*I also enjoyed Patrick Reusse's musings on the mysteries of hitting. It's a nice look at what even the very top prospects have to go through to reach the big leagues - and how much of a gulf there is between hitting .300 in high school or college, and hitting .300 in the majors.

*And finally, I've got two links that fall into the "and finally" category this week: first, the story of a baseball coach from Chicago that ended up being a coach for the Australian national cricket team. And second, you might remember the Batting Stance Guy; well, now he's imitating the baseball literati who appear on Ken Burns-style documentaries. It's a must-click for anyone who's ever lost the remote while the TV was stuck on an "ESPN SportsCentury" marathon.

That's good enough for this week, I think. Enjoy your weekend - and let's see where all of these teams are at in a week's time.

Weekend Links

I fear these are a week old, but even so, here's another edition of the weekend links. As always, these appeared at RandBall, your home for the word "redacted" on the internet.

Happy Saturday! I'm not totally sure of anything this morning - for example, it turns out that WCHA referees don't mind rewriting the rulebook as they go - so let's just get straight on with the links.

*We start with the NFL labor situation, in which both sides keep extending talks beyond when they said they would end them. I'd like to make a witty and cutting Brett Favre joke here, but frankly, they've all been done already. Anyway, if you're wondering whose side to be on, I suggest you read Bill Simmons on the subject (though he does sort of swat a fly with a sheet of plywood), or even better, read Spencer Hall's take (with helpful pictures, too.)

*In soccer news, FIFA made a ton of money on the World Cup, which Sepp Blatter thinks is proof that putting the event in South Africa was the right decision. Never mind that South Africa incurred all the expenses, while FIFA got all of the profits. Frankly, if the NFL owners want to win the public relations battle, they should point to Blatter and the rest of the FIFA kleptocrats and say, "See, we could be worse."

*Twinkie Town interviewed Tsuyoshi Nishioka, and either Nishioka is boring or his translator is. Key quote: "I am looking forward to becoming friends with all my teammates." I don't think I could stand it if Nishioka turns out to be Mauer-level boring, but that's where we're headed.

*Derek Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch caught up with baseball guru Bill James. For someone like me who grew up reading James's Baseball Abstracts, this is pretty great. The thing I think that gets lost about James, and is still lost today in all of the statistical discussions that take place regarding baseball, is that James might not be the king of stats - many others have probably made more important "discoveries" - but he may be the best writer that this loose community has ever produced. There are great ideas out there that (for me) get lost in a haze of painful writing, but James could make an encyclopedia into summer beach reading.

*And finally, because the Cricket World Cup is going on right now: the Diamondbacks' Chris Young and Justin Upton got padded up and took on USA cricketers Aditya Thyagarajan and Abhimanyu Rajp. It looks to me like Young and Upton picked things up pretty quickly, and given how the USA cricket team struggled this winter and given how bad the Diamondbacks have been lately, I think the best thing for everyone would be for USA Cricket to sign up Young and Upton.

That's enough for me. You may return to your regularly scheduled Saturday, which for me will involve reading Paul Douglas's weather updates, and alternately rejoicing or weeping about this week's coming snowstorm, which may drop anywhere from 2 to 22 inches on the Twin Cities. (Mostly, I'm weeping.)

Twins 8, Red Sox 4: Making Up The Game Notes

Sunday night was the first Twins spring training game, in which they beat the Red Sox 8-4. Monday, therefore, was sort of my first Twinkie Town column of the year - so, since the game wasn't on TV, I made up some game notes to go along with the box score.

It's going to be hard to keep me from doing this all year, especially for those Mondays the Twins play the Royals, and I have to try to find some way to spin "the Royals are terrible" for the game recap.