Weekend Links

Editor's note: Here's another edition of the weekend links - this one for Memorial Day weekend, meaning that it was written right before vacation and thus was a bit hurried. As always, these links appeared first at RandBall, your home for AMERICA!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! It's always nice when we get to kick off summer with rain and temperatures in the 40s, isn't it? [Editor's note: Rand inserted a comment here about it being 70 and sunny. It was cold and rainy on Friday night, though, which is what I meant.]. I've got a few links for your holiday weekend pleasure, and in the interest of not keeping you long, let's get right to them:

*Via Inside MN Soccer: Local company Brave New Media has partnered with the NSC Minnesota Stars to produce some behind-the-scenes videos. The first one for the year - covering the pre-season - is up. Admittedly, I'm even more of a soccer kisser-upper than Rand, but I still think it's fascinating - especially the story of defender Kyle Altman, who's deferred admission to med school twice so that he can keep playing.

*Over at Twinkie Town, Stu's got the news of yet another thing Kevin Slowey's responsible for. And if you're tired of watching the Twins blow leads, here's a list of other ways to spend your hard-earned money than going to the ballpark.

*The Gopher baseball team is attempting to work its way through the loser's bracket at the Big Ten tournament; they've won three in a row there, and now just needs to win three more in a row to take the tourney title. Never fear, though - they've got Luke Rasmussen and his over-the-top Minnesota accent, so I think they'll be okay. (If for nothing else, watch that video for what he calls the team's starting shortstop.)

*And finally: Nerd-hero web comic XKCD took on sports last week. Speaking on behalf of all of us: ow.

That's enough for a holiday weekend like this. Enjoy it and stay dry.

Twins Bullpen Callup Form Letter

The Twins have been calling up about two relievers a week yet, to the point that they should start having a quiz at the front gates: name all seven people in today's bullpen, get a free hot dog. With all of these callups, then, I imagine over at Twinkie Town what the Twins must be doing to keep their new recruits in the loop - and I think it might be a form letter.

Weekend Links

Editor's note: These are the links from May 21. They're being posted June 4. I can't necessarily say I'm proud of this. As always, these links appeared first at RandBall, your home for the best free posts on the internet.

Happy Saturday! Let's dispense with the pleasantries, shall we, and get straight on with the links:

*Canis Hoopus is into full off-season mode, and this week, they have an interview with arena host Mike Rylander, who's better known by his unofficial name amongst all people who've attended a Timberwolves game: "Holy smokes, is that Wally Szczerbiak?" Rylander's leaving to pursue better things, but it's still a good look at somebody who's been part of the game experience night in and night out at Target Center. (This is more than you can say about, say, Sebastian Telfair.)

*I don't know why this post - a 20-years-later look at a Belle Plaine HS baseball scandal that made the front page of the Star Tribune Metro section - is so fascinating to me. Maybe it's just nostalgia for 1991. Or maybe because this seems like such a quintessential small-town story - a non-issue that the whole town got caught up in and that ended up being a much, much bigger deal than it had any right to be. Whatever it is, I really enjoyed it.

*It turns out that skateboarder Tony Hawk is now 43 years old. This may make you feel old. It also turns out that he can still do a 900, 12 years after he did one for the first time. This may now make you feel lazy.

*Oh, those tricky St. Cloud State Huskies - you can't turn your back on them for even a minute.

*And finally: if you think that you'd enjoy a video of Alec Baldwin punching John Krasinski in the face over a baseball game, then have I got the video for you!

That's enough for this week; try to get out there and enjoy the weekend. Also try to forget that it was cold and rainy last weekend and is muggy and rainy this weekend, and in between when you were stuck in the office, it was gorgeous and sunny out. You won't be able to forget. But try.

Twins Math Problems

Last week, it was set theory and Venn diagrams; this week, it's math-related word problems. My Twinkie Town columns seem to have taken a mathematical turn. Possibly because only mathematics can explain how bad the Twins are. Next week, we prove that we need only four colors to mark each worthless Twins catcher, such that no two adjacent catchers have the same color!

Weekend Links

The following edition of the weekend links was written while staring at a lake. This explains why it's so fishing-centric. I was also watching the Twins lose, which probably explains the rest of the links. As always, this appeared first at RandBall, your home for current events.

Happy fishing opener! I hope that somewhere out there, there's someone reading this after having been out on the lake at 12:01 am last night. To that person: I hope you caught your limit. And I hope you brought something warm to drink, because it was wintry out there.

On with the links:

*We'll start this week with an essay by Brian Phillips titled "Your Stupid Rage". It's an essay on insane fandom, or "hyper-partisanship," and it's the kind of thing that we sports fans should read once every three months, at least those of us like me that have the tendency to explore the far side and outer edges of fandom. Key quote: "And here's where I save your life. Because the truth about hyperpartisanship is that it is an absolutely miserable and unpleasant way to be a sports fan." I admit: I've been there. And it's a regular battle to not spend all my time there.

*This week's edition of Parker Hageman's regular analysis covers Michael Cuddyer. Take a look at the video footage, and explore why Cuddyer's power has dropped down to almost nothing.

*If it's not an analytical Twins post you're after, then may I offer you a few screenshots from the Twins version of the Oregon Trail? (That's good stuff from the That's Twins Baseball blog.)

*And finally: remember Bryce Harper? You know, the teenage catcher in the Nationals organization that was reputed to be a combination of Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Man O' War, and a full-grown grizzly bear? He was hitting .231 earlier this season in Class A, before the team discovered that his vision was so bad that he could barely see. Now he has contacts, and he's leading his league in every conceivable hitting category. I mention this, of course, in the hopes that the Nationals will bring him up to the big leagues, and are willing to trade Wilson Ramos back to the Twins. We'll even give them Matt Capps back. (Hey, they gave 31-year-old Jayson Werth a seven-year contract for $126 million. You have to admit, there's a chance they'd go for it.)

That'll do it for me. Now, get out on that lake. Those fish aren't going to jump into the boat and fillet themselves.

Set Theory And The Twins

Today at Twinkie Town, I use Venn Diagrams to try to explain why the Twins are so bad. (On a side note, the Venn Diagram is a comic form ripe with possibility.)

Weekend Links

This week's weekend links contain a story about my friend Dan and Liriano's no-hitter. Reading it back, I may have made him sound a little more fanatical than he is. A better angle may have been, "How my idiotic fanaticism made an exhausted friend waste his time on a baseball game in May." Sorry, Dan. Anyway, these links appeared first at RandBall, my favorite sports blog with somebody's name in the title.

Let me tell you a story about sports. Tuesday evening, my friend Dan got up at the end of the sixth inning to go home. Home is in Rochester, he was in the Cities; he had 90 minutes of driving in front of him. The rest of us said, "You can't leave now! Liriano's throwing a no-hitter and you'll jinx it!"

Dan had spent most of the previous week in the car. He'd driven to Chicago from Rochester for a multi-day class, driven back home for one night there, then wheeled up to Brainerd for three days. He was on his way home, finally, and had stopped for dinner with three of us Twin Cities dwellers. Dan has a wife and an almost-five-month-old at home. He is finishing up his residency in orthotics and prosthetics. He has his final certifications in a month. I have known Dan almost literally my entire life, and I don't think I've ever seen him look as exhausted as he did Tuesday night at dinner. When we told him he couldn't leave, implying that the actions of four guys in Roseville could possibly affect in any way a baseball game in Chicago, logic would have dictated that he punch each of us in the face.

But sports aren't about logic. Dan sat down and stayed through the end. Of course he did. And that - that, somehow, is what fandom is about.

On with a few Saturday links:

*We start this week with a Will Leitch-penned column on Bud Selig that I just thought was wonderful. Short version: for as goofy as Bud is, he's still probably the best commissioner in the major sports.

*In hockey news, a guy called Bernie McBain is apparently trying to ruin the community-based fabric of Minnesota youth hockey. Goodness knows that there are issues with the way youth hockey is run, here in Minnesota or anywhere, but I really don't think that making youth hockey into AAU basketball is going to help anything.

*Eleven days ago, MLS side Real Salt Lake had a great chance to win the CONCACAF Champions League, the continent-wide club soccer championship. Despite a 34-game unbeaten streak at home, RSL lost, 1-0 to Mexican champions Monterrey. Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl thinks it's a trend - USA soccer just can't take its best opportunities.

*And finally: the Twins have dumped their music director. Local favorites, like the Hold Steady, are off the playlist, and have been replaced with what I believe is usually known as "crap." I mention this because I suspect that Rand and possibly commenters Stu and Brandon will likely be arrested at Target Field at some point this year for trying to break into the booth and strangle the new music director. If the blog suddenly goes dark, you'll know why.

That'll do it for this week; enjoy your Saturday. And to Dan: thanks for not jinxing that no-hitter. We appreciate it.

Twins Game Recap (Fill-in-the-blanks Version)

This week's Twinkie Town effort is a sort of Mad Libs for game recaps. Seeing as how the Twins kept getting beat the same way and offering the same quotes about it, I figured - why not save some time when it came to recap the games?