The All-Time “Played For Both the Twins and Angels” Team – The Calisota Twingels

If you are an old geezer like me, you know that during World War II, the NFL ran so short of players because of the war that for three years between 1942 and 1945, the league merged the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles into one team, the Phil-Pitt Steagles. With baseball season fast approaching, I thought to myself, why not take a similar approach with my two favorite baseball teams, the California/Los Angeles Angels and the Minnesota Twins.

The idea was to build an all-time team out of players who played for both teams. I have such a split loyalty since for various reasons the days of my youth were split between living in either Twins and Angels territory, and I chose the Angels as my Southern California team as I had an intense hatred of the Tommy Lasorda Dodgers.

With that, allow me to introduce the Calisota Twingels:

Manager:

• Bill Rigney (don’t anybody dare ask why Gene Mauch didn’t get the nod here…)

Catchers:

• Greg Myers
• Butch Wynegar

Infield:

• 1B Don Mincher
• 1B-2B Rod Carew
• 2B-SS Rob Wilfong
• SS Leo Cardenas
• 3B Gary Gaetti
• 1B-3B Dave Hollins

Outfield:

• Lyman Bostock
• Ken Landreaux
• Don Baylor
• Dave Winfield
• Dan Ford
• Torii Hunter
• Chili Davis

Utility:

• Vic Power
• Ron Jackson
• Pat Borders

Pitchers:

• SP Bert Blyleven
• SP Dean Chance
• SP Geoff Zahn
• SP John Candelaria
• SP Dave Goltz
• RP Dave LaRoche
• RP LaTroy Hawkins
• RP Brain Fuentes
• RP John Verhoeven
• RP Paul Hartzell
• RP Ramon Ortiz

My Own Greatest Year In Sports

Let’s be honest, 2011 was a lousy year in sports. Just look at all the stories which happened in that twelve-month span which completely  took away the usual uplifting nature of sports. So, as part of moving forward, I thought it was time to take a look back to a year which for me was the opposite of this one most recently and thankfully past.

That year was 1987.

Ironically, as 2011 brought the low point in the history of Penn State football, 1987 brought one of the highs.  The Nittany Lions came into the Fiesta Bowl in 1987 as a prohibitive underdog against the brash, trash-talking Miami Hurricanes. Joe Paterno’s traditional style of football served as the classic antithesis to the wide-open style of Jiimmy Johnson, but the Hurricanes flat-out got beat.  If you were watching college football in 1987, there is no way you can forget Pete Giftopoulous’ game-sealing interception in the 4th quarter; the one that cemented Penn State’s second National Championship.

Later that year came the culmination of the 1986–87 season in NCAA men’s ice hockey.  To most people, that isn’t such a big deal, but when your alma mater prints its diplomas on hockey pucks, North Dakota’s defeat of Michigan State  to capture it’s 6th National Championship was a big deal on that campus.

The end of March means spring is most places, but Grand Forks, North Dakota is not one of them. The average temperature in Grand Forks in March is about 20 degrees Fahrenheit; average of course meaning a great deal of the time it is significantly colder than that. In short, living in Grand Forks in March means nearing the end of a winter where you’ve been trapped indoors, left to three main forms of entertainment: eating, drinking, and fornicating.  Naturally, after a while, you become a fat, drunken hump-meister that needs no reason to party.

The Fighting Sioux were such fun to watch that winter; their dominance of the indoor ice was an antidote to the ever-present outdoor variety; in January in Grand Forks, even the air freezes.  But thanks to a complement of talent such as Ed Belfour, Tony Hrkac, Bob Joyce, and Ian Kidd, the atmosphere around North Dakota Fighting Sioux games on Friday and Saturday nights warmed to a simply sub-arctic Bacchanalian orgy filled with the aforementioned three surrounding activities.  That is why to this day, there is a hockey puck on my desk to remind me of the the hockey season in which I drank more beer, ate more pizza and after-bar food (for those of you who know…who else misses The Red Pepper?), and had more sex than in any other six-month period in my life.

As long as we are on the subject of things that forever combined the concepts of ice rinks and sex, when is there a better time to mention East German figure skating gold medalist Katarina Witt?

After all, when’s the last time you remembered a figure skater for her serious upper-body pride rather than her triple axle?

If a figure skater who doesn’t look like a hockey stick wearing toe-pick blades is rare, then the phenomenon known as Mike Tyson must have been the sporting world’s version of Haley’s Comet.

The boxing world hadn’t seen anything quite like Mike Tyson before, and it certainly hasn’t seen anything quite like him since. The year before, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion at just 19 years old. In  March 1987, Tyson nearly (and ironically) crushes several James “Bonecrusher” Smith’s internal organs; a victory which unified the WBA and WBC heavyweight titles. Already the the year before, Tyson became the youngest undisputed heavyweight champion in boxing history.

Over the course of the next year, Tyson left a trail of corpses formerly known as challengers (four in all) to retain his title. Early in 1988, he added the last of the great “old-school” heavyweight champs to his body-count when he separated Larry Holmes from his consciousness; the only time Holmes ended up looking up during a ten-count in 76 career bouts.

1987 marks the apogee in the meteoric orbit of  Tyson’s career; this the last year before the tumult takes over.  The following years will bring his divorce from  actress Robin Givens, after being accused of domestic violence, the firing and subsequent suing of his manager, breaking his hand in an early morning street brawl, two car accidents  (one of which was reportedly a suicide attempt), a rape conviction and related prison sentence, a drug conviction with another stint behind bars, and the Evander Holyfield “ear biting” incident.”  Somewhere in that freight train of fouls, Tyson lost the title to a club fighter named Buster Douglas, never to regain it.

At least Tyson always has being a hip-hop and video-game icon.

Now, let’s go from the rare to the unbelievable.  Those of you under 30 may never swallow this, but there was a time in this country when people were all jacked up over yachting, specifically the America’s Cup.  Remember that in the 1980′s, thanks to the “Miracle On Ice” and two Olympic boycotts in that same decade, international competitions became more of an issue of national pride than they had ever been previously. This was magnified when it came to the America’s Cup, which not only is the pinnacle of the yachting world, but had never been outside the possession of the Americans in it’s entire history, which dates back to just after the Civil War.

That all changed in 1983 when Kookaburra III, a tub from the Royal Perth Yacht Club wrested the Cup from the Newport Yacht Club. Seriously, people went crazy over this loss. Stories came out about how there was talk replacing the Cup’s place in the club’s trophy case with the head of the skipper who lost it.  ESPN got the rights to broadcast the races when the American challenger went to Australia. People stopped in their tracks to watch two hours of boats. Water cooler sports-talk included terms like “jibs” and “tacking.” It was like the Olympics with flat-soled shoes, life jackets, and that white sun-block stuff on your nose.

When skipper Dennis Conner led challenger Stars & Stripes ’87 of the San Diego Yacht Club to a four races to none Cup win over the Australian defender, he literally became a national hero.

Believe it or not, for two weeks in 1987, America went boat-shit crazy.

As far as more conventional sports are concerned, 1987 offered two of the great championship series in sports.

First, there was the NBA Finals. It would be easy to simply say the “Showtime” Los Angeles Lakers which I grew up on (my dad had season tickets) beat the hated Boston Celtics 4 games to 2.  While I loved the outcome, just focusing on that would ignore so many great points of this series.

For example, this series was such a perfect contrast in styles. There is no better word to describe the Lakers than “dominant.” They were a beautiful blend of speed and power, of flash and fundamentals that when they were firing on all cylinders it mattered little who they faced.

Despite that, the Celtics offered the effective foil; not only were they the defending champs, they did it in a way that was a complete opposite of Los Angeles.  The Celtics played high-school half-court basketball, but they played it better than anybody ever did.

Even though they were already a championship caliber club, The Lakers were a team on the way up. Michael Cooper emerged as a guard who offered match-up problems of anybody else in the league,  A.C. Green, James Worthy, Mychal Thompson, and Kurt Rambis offered a mix-and-match option for a front-court that could beat you ant any game you wanted to play. This was augmented guy named Magic Johnson who was a point guard in a power forward’s body, and was better than anybody at either position. Even the grand old man, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar still brought his unstoppable “Skyhook” to the mix.

Meanwhile, even though they were the defending champions, the Celtics were a ship taking on water. The fact they made it to the finals was a major accomplishment, considering the death of Len Bias, the ongoing infirmity of an aging Bill Walton,  and nagging injuries to Kevin McHale and Robert Parish. Boiled down to basics, this meant the Celtics did not the horses to run with the Lakers.

This is why the Lakers were such a prohibitive favorite. It’s also why just zipping ahead to a Laker 4-2 win is a mistake.  Had this series gone seven games, it would be regarded as one of the great NBA Finals of all time.

The Celtics were, for all practical purposes, playing with five players. The Celtics had to play perfectly to win; they did it twice and nearly pulled it off a third time, which is really the only reason this series only went six.  It all started in Game 1, when at one point Larry Bird hit 11 shots in a row.  This showed the younger, faster Lakers that the Celtics were so resilient that if they lapsed even the smallest bit, Boston could capitalize on that slip.

Secondly amongst the “big” sports came the “boys of summer.” In a year packed with basketball, boxing, and bimbos, baseball belted the prize-winning punch.

For openers, there were so many guys who had great “pre-steroid” seasons.  A look at the league leaders in the “Triple Crown Categories” will lead you to that conclusion.

Batting Average:

• American League: Wade Boggs, Boston, .363
• National League: Tony Gwynn, San Diego, .370

RBIs:

• American League: George Bell, 134
• National League: Andre Dawson, 137

Home Runs:

• American League:  Mark McGwire, Oakland, 47
• National League: Andre Dawson, Chicago, 49.

1987 also had a story one might think impossible; a player being traded for himself. Granted, it wasn’t the first time it happened. Thanks to he provision in baseball trades known as the “Player to be named later” (PTBNL),  there have been two times when a player has been named on both sides of a trade.

In April 1962, the expansion New York Mets traded catcher Harry Chiti to the Cleveland Indians for the aforementioned PTBNL.  By June, the Indians discovered why Chiti was on the trading block to begin with; the Indians gave Chiti back to the Mets as the PTBNL.

The same situation arose in 1987 with career bullpen jockey Dickie Noles.  Noles had been ping-ponging around the league as a “have fastball, will travel” type, but in 1987 the last place Cubs offered Noles to the first-place Tigers as one of those trade deadline “bolster the playoff run” moves to which we’ve become so accustomed.  The trouble is that Noles sucked so bad the Tigers didn’t want him either, so he was shipped back to the Windy City as…you guessed it…the dreaded PTBNL was also traded for himself in 1987, in a deal between the Cubs and Tigers.

But the real story of baseball in 1987 is the Minnesota Twins. The magic started in June, when the Twins went 18-9 to capture first place in the American League West. They would never be worse than tied for the lead again that season.  But it was August when the stars really seem to align for the nine of the North Star state

August 3 – In a moment that brings this  team to national attention, Twins pitcher Joe Niekro is suspended for 10 days for possessing a nail file on the pitcher’s mound against the defending division champion California Angels. Niekro claimed he had been filing his nails in the dugout and put the file in his back pocket when the inning started.  He later makes an appearance on the David Letterman show in which he makes light of the incident by showing Letterman exactly how to “doctor” a ball.

August 6 – Later in the same West Coast road trip comes the moment where the Twins never look back.  The Twins are opening a four-game set with another contender, the Oakland A’s. In Bottom of the 4th inning, the Twins have a 3-1 lead and a one-out, bases-loaded chance to blow the game open thanks to an error by A’s shortstop Alfredo Griffin.  The Twins do just that when Kirby Puckett ropes a bases-clearing double off 20-game winner Dave Stewart to put Minnesota ahead for good. The Twins win the game 9-4 to capture sole possession of first place, a lead they would retain until Friday, August 28th…or as I will always call it “The Weekend in Milwaukee.”

August 20 – Even though they’ve just been swept by the Tigers, it dawns on me that the Twins can’t win on the road, but can’t lose at home.  This becomes CRUCIAL as this is in the days when the home-field advantage for playoff series were scheduled in advance; in 1987 the American League West Champion would have home field in the championship series, and the American League would enjoy that same advantage in the World Series. This is when I become a firm believer that all the Twins needed to do in win the AL West, and a World Series title would be coming to Minnesota for the first time.

August 29 – The Saturday of ”The Weekend in Milwaukee. ” The Twins had lost to the Brewers the night before to find themselves again tied for the AL West lead. The Twins have Bert Blyleven pitching, and the feel in the air is this game is a “must-win” for the Twins playoff hopes.

In the top of the first, Gary Gaetti belts a two-run shot to put the Twins ahead early.  Puckett adds a solo shot in the top of the third. By the top of the fifth, the Brewers crept back to 3-2, until Puckett added his second home run of the day. Puckett’s bomb opened the flood gates to a Twin 7-2 lead as it was followed by an RBI single by Tom Brunansky and a 2-RBI single my Steve Lombardozzi. Later, Kent Hrbek blasted a three-run dinger to seal the deal. The Twins capture sole possession of first place and never relinquish it.

"The Weekend in Milwaukee:" The first step in getting a street named after you.

August 30 – The Sunday of “The Weekend in Milwaukee,” otherwise known as the day I accepted Kirby Puckett as my Lord and personal Savior.  Puckett leads the Twins to a 10-6 victory by going 6-for-6, including two more homers, two doubles, and 6 RBIs. This made for a two-day total in a critical series of 10 hits in 11 at-bats, 4 home runs, 8 runs batted in, 7 runs scored, and  24 total bases.  Oh, and somewhere amongst that offense-gasm, Puckett also robbed future Hall-of-Famer Robin Yount of a home run.

There were so many more moments along the way to the Twins World Series Title…the game against the Royals when the Twins rode three first-inning home runs to clinch the division title, or Game 4 of the ALCS where the Tigers’ Darrell Evans became the goat to end all goat, or hometown hero Kent Hrbek’s game-sealing grand slam in Game 6 of the World Series.

There were also many firsts. The Twins were the first team with only 85 regular-season wins. Game 1 of the 1987 World Series was the first World Series game played indoors. It was also the first World Series in which the home team won every game. Most importantly, it was the Twins first Championship since the franchise moved to Minnesota.

The Minnesota Twins: The Post-Mortem

When you are the fan of a 100-loss team, you expect your team to make changes; after all, you just lost 100 games. This is a feat which has only been dubiously achieved by 28 teams in the last 30 years, the Houston Astros becoming the latest to do so. If the Twins don’t win both of their remaining games, they will become #29.

Having said that, if you are a fan of a 100-loss team, the last thing you want to see is a headline like this, courtesy of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Twins owner Jim Pohlad: ‘We’re not a knee-jerk organization’

Yeah, that’s just what I want to see; the owner of a 100-loss club talking about limiting the discussion on making changes. This is precisely why this article was pointed out to me by Dick Marple, the Chairman of the Dubsism Advisory Board.  I know what I saw in the article had me wrapping duct tape around my head to keep my skull from exploding.  I shudder to think what Mr. Marple’s reaction could have been.

It's a good thing the Irish aren't prone to violence.

This is exactly why we cannot waste anymore time before we dissect this article as the esteemed Mr. Marple may be on his way up a bell tower as we speak.

After one of the worst seasons in Twins history, club owner Jim Pohlad knows change is needed.

“I am really all about trying to get better,” he said Monday.

But his idea of change doesn’t appear to include changes at the top.

Pohlad, speaking from his Minneapolis business office — with Target Field in clear view through the window –said the key men running the Twins will remain in place. That means manager Ron Gardenhire, who has led the team since 2002, and General Manager Bill Smith will be back for another season. If there are changes to his coaching staff, it’s up to Gardenhire to make those decisions.

“We are not a knee-jerk organization,” Pohald said.

Remember this…Pohlad says he knows changes are needed, but he then couches that by limiting what those changes might be. In other words, this is the old Nixonian “non-denial denial.” This theme is crucial to understand the load of bovine scatology about to be laid out here.

In a lengthy interview with the Star Tribune on Monday, Pohlad discussed the season, Joe Mauer, injuries, payroll and attendance and how the Twins will go about improving on a season he called “sickening.”

Here are highlights of the interview:

Q Entering the season the popularity of the Twins had never been higher. Now we’re looking at the possibility of being the second team ever to lose 100 games with a nine-figure payroll ($115 million). How do you plan on holding people accountable for some of the things that have happened this season?

A Well, I mean first of all, let’s talk about what’s happened. I mean, in my view, the two main things that have happened have been a ton of injuries — the perfect storm of injuries — and there have been players that we counted on that, when they’ve played, they’ve played not up to the levels that they played in 2010, for sure. So in my view that’s the synopsis of the season.

This is the classic beginning of a non-denial denial. When faced with an inexcusable situation, create a cover story that is both plausible, true,  and yet incomplete enough for the addition of extra falsehoods later. After all, the Bible says the truth shall set you free, but it was Spiro Agnew who said a good lie will keep you out of jail in the first place.

Q When the team loses as many games as the Twins have this year, and the manager expresses concern about fundamentals and young players being prepared, don’t you feel that you have to change something? Something has to be adjusted here?

A I think, yes, we need to change, but we need to have the players healthy, and we need to have our core group of players playing to their capabilities, that’s for sure. Now beyond that, how do you cope with the perfect storm of injuries and players not performing? You have to bring up players from the minor leagues, obviously. When they did come up, it did appear that fundamentally there were some issues. We have not gone into great detail at this point — the season is not even over yet –about the underlying causes of those issues. But it certainly would appear that there are issues.

I love how Pohlad sticks to the “perfect storm” concept; as if everything that happened to the Twins was some sort of  ”Act of God” which could neither be predicted nor prevented. Of course, this completely ignores such facts as the complete inc0mpetency of Nishioka, and the over-dependence on guys named Hughesy and Plouffey.

Q So you feel like there will be some things you need to address during the offseason?

A Oh clearly … we need to address how can we keep the players healthy. We need to address how can we encourage the players during the offseason to get to a point where they’re going to play up to their capabilities. Then we need to address the issues that are maybe down in the farm system.

How can “we” keep the players healthy? First of all, it took “we” six weeks to find out what the hell was wrong with Joe Mauer, and even then “we” didn’t know what to do about it.  Then there’s the not-so-subtle shifting of blame to the players.  Guess what? It ain’t the fault of the Hughesies of the world that you thought they were All-Stars in the making, and it’s not their fault you simply increased your expectations of the kids when it was clear your “big-money” guys were going to be non-factors.  In other words, the farm system is not the problem, and the young players are not the problem.

Q I think you’ve used the injury list 27 times this year and some of these injuries have been rather unique. But it sounds like you’re concerned a little bit from the medical staff or the training staff, that things may need to be adjusted there?

A I’m not saying that the medical staff or the training staff has done anything wrong. I’m just saying let’s look at the injuries and see how they can be prevented in the future.

Idiot Management 101 – Once you’ve identified a problem that you are using as your scapegoat, always say Idiot Management things like “We’re going to look at ways of preventing that.” How the hell do you prevent injuries? Wrap all the players in bubble-wrap? Play only with Nerf balls?

Q All right, how do you feel about the job Ron Gardenhire has done this year? What do you think about how the coaching staff has performed?

A I think they had very difficult conditions. It’s got to be frustrating, on any given day you don’t know who’s going to be ready to play and who is not going to be ready to play. In order to try to adjust to that, it’s been very demanding. We’re very pleased with the job that Ron has done.

Q So you definitely are bringing him back next year. What about the coaching staff?

A That’s not my decision. That’s Gardy’s. … We’re going to sit down at the end of the season with Gardy and Billy [Smith, general manager] and everybody and they’re all going to talk through all this. But it’s not happening now because the season is not over.

That was back-to-back punts, but the best one is that it is Gardenhire’s decision to come back. You’re the owner, you have the ultimate authority. Don’t be such a pussy by saying it isn’t your decision; as the owner you can make any decision yours. George Steinbrenner is vomiting in his grave hearing an owner de-ball himself like that.

Q How do you feel about the job Bill Smith has done as general manager?

A He also has had a very tough situation, but we’re going to sit with him and we’re going to ask him what he can do to make the organization better next year.

Q Do you plan on bringing him back next year as GM, then?

A Yes. … He’s been involved with this organization for a long time. Do we throw out the last, what’s the number, 15 years and forget all that over one season? I mean it’s been, really, an unusual season. … Our organization isn’t a knee-jerk- reaction organization.

OK, fine, but let’s look at the Bill Smith era as a whole, shall we? Since assuming the role of general manager in 2007, he got lucky by dumping the future money-bomb known as Johan Santana, but he got nothing for him – Carlos Gómez, Deolis Guerra, Kevin Mulvey, and Philip Humber.  He also traded pitcher Matt Garza and shortstop Jason Bartlett for Delmon Young and Brendan Harris (now both gone).

Yet, these moves returned the Twins to the playoffs in 2009. This marked the team’s fifth playoff appearance of the decade. It also marked the fourth consecutive time the team failed to advance beyond the first round.

Q Billy has been quoted as saying that he’s more of an administrator than a talent evaluator. I’m curious to know why you think Billy is the right man to turn things around? What’s Billy’s title?

A General manager, so he’s in charge of managing the baseball operation. I mean those are his words, like you said. I don’t remember reading that, but if those are his words that’s really his job, to manage the baseball department. We don’t look to Billy solely — I don’t know if any organization does, maybe they do at some place — we don’t look solely at him as the premier judge of talent. He has a whole bunch of people that he gets input from on the judgment of talent.

The general manager is not a talent evaluator.  Now the Nishioka signing makes sense.

Q Your season-ticket base, I believe, is around 25,000. Are you bracing for that number to decrease next year?

A No, I mean we’ve said all along that as Target Field matures — you can look at every single other new ballpark and there is a period of honeymoon — and sometimes after that honeymoon period, be that three, five years, whatever that number is, there is a leveling off. But we believe that we can keep the Target Field experience at the top and be a winning team. And those two elements, together, should guarantee that we’ll have strong ticket sales. If it’s in single-game tickets or season tickets, I mean in the end it’s all counted as your attendance in total.

That may very well be, but who was the last team with a new ballpark to lose 100 games? See, Minnesota fans are “fair weather” fans, and if the team sucks, they will spend the summer at their lake cabins.

Q I did some rough addition, I’m a journalist not a mathematician here, but between [pending free agents] Joe Nathan, Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, Matt Capps and the trades of Delmon Young and Jim Thome, you have about $40-$42 million coming off of your payroll after this season. How much flexibility will that give you as far as being able to improve this roster for next year?

A Well if what you just said, if that’s true, that gives us tons of flexibility. That money is not just going to go back into our pockets. We want to win. We care about winning and we’re going to try to win. In a lot of cases payroll dollars tend to reflect that.

In other words, that money is going right back into their pockets. Get ready for the days of Scott Stahoviak, Pedro Munoz, and Rich Becker.

Q In recent years you guys have not been known to make the big-time, flashy, free-agent singing. I think Thome was an impact signing based on his résumé, but you haven’t signed that top-notch, free-agent type of player. With so much money coming off the books, will you look to the free-agent market to sign a impact player this offseason? Do you think we need just one player?

A No, I do not. [general laughter] No, we’re going to have to look at that, but it’s probably not just that. It all depends upon the health of the people going forward. But my guess is we’re probably going to have to do more than one impact player. We’re going to have to bring in more than one.

Q But you foresee going after that?

A In my view, and I’m sure Bill [Smith] would echo this, they’re going to have to look at the free-agent market or trades. Surely that can’t be ruled out.

Pohlad and Smith have no idea why this team tanked, so asking them how to fix it is like asking the captain of the Titanic how to avoid ice.

Q Will you be able to bring back Cuddyer and Kubel next year?

A I don’t know. We want to win. That’s the goal. We’re going to bring back or sign players that are going to help us win.

You could almost make a drinking game out of this.  Everytime Pohlad says “we want to win,” take a pull.

Q What is wrong with Joe Mauer?

A Joe Mauer told me the day we signed his contract down in Florida that he would always give me his best. That’s what he told me then and I believed him then and I believe it now. As far as what’s wrong with him, he had a bad year health-wise, injury-wise, just like everybody else did.

Q Are you worried that Mauer has something wrong with him that hasn’t been detected yet?

A No, I’m not worried about that.

Q How much more have you expected out of him? You’ve invested a lot of money to lock him up and he, whether it’s fair or not, is the face of this franchise.

A I agree with that, and he is the face of the franchise and he’s signed for the next seven years. He will be the face of the franchise going forward.

Ahhh, we finally get to the whole Mauer problem, the $23 million singles hitter. Well, maybe that’s not fair…he did slug almost four homers in 300 at-bats.  Of course, there’s something wrong with him, and nobody knows what it is, and if nobody figures it out, Twins’ fans need to get ready for seven more years of high-dollar non-performance.

Q I know you’re still scouting Japan, I know Terry Ryan was recently in Japan. Does Tsuyoshi Nishioka’s disappointing season make you more cautious of signing players from that country? Or will you continue to look to Japanese players as a possible option?

A We’re going to look to any country that has players that we believe can help us win.

Q I think last season you put in a bid on Hasashi Iwakuma, who was a starting pitcher in Japan, and of course you weren’t awarded the bid. I think he’s a true free agent this offseason. Is that someone who could still be on your radar for this offseason?

A I think probably everybody is on our radar.

Seriously, I think Pohlad really wanted to answer that one a bit more truthfully; something more like “Are you f–king kidding me? I’ll take players from Mars if they can help this sorry-ass team.”

Q I know the continuity in this organization has been one of the strengths, being able to hire and promote from within and keep certain things in place. But how can you just wash this whole season off because of injuries and not think, ‘We may have to change some things here?’

A I never said anything like that. … I never said we don’t have to change things. Please don’t get that impression. … We want to know how things are going to be better next year. Like you said, if there’s no convincing argument or here’s the plan and the plan isn’t all convincing, then we’re going to react. We’re going to say, ‘Go back and do it again or something.’ I don’t even know. I don’t really anticipate that that’s going to be the case.

NON-DENIAL DENIAL ALERT!!! NON-DENIAL DENIAL ALERT!!! Anytime, and I mean anytime you hear a manager/leader/politician say “I never said that” and “Don’t get the wrong impression” within two sentences of each other, you are in the bowels of a non-denial denial. The problem is not that you got the wrong impression, you committed the cardinal sin of getting EXACTLY the correct impression. Don’t be surprised if there’s a house-cl;eaning coming, and one that will be completely unsuccessful; culture comes from the head down, and nobody gives that theory more “head” than this owner.

Q Just for the sake of being clear for the readers, do you foresee where your payroll may land next year? There’s been some whispers about it’s going to have to come down from $115 million.

A I mean it’s going to come down naturally, because it exceeded where we wanted it. But it was an unusual year contract-wise. But it’s not going to be slashed. It’s going to be right up there. But I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be.

I don’t want to say that sounds like a lie, but…go back to the question where Pohlad doesn’t even know the result of not re-signing the free-agents. He dodged then, and he dodged now. There’s a very real possibility that the Twins are worried they’ve over-extended, the bet on a contending team to fill the new ballpark is looking like a gutshot straight draw, and Pohlad might very well be considering a decade-long fold.

The Real Reason The Metrodome Roof Collapsed

In all honesty, one can make a bunch of jokes about how the roof of the “Humptydome” coming down is just a metaphor for all the terrible teams that have played under the Teflon Sky. Make a list and see the trail of sporting tears that have called the Metrodome home. The only resident still there is also the one most affected by this current disaster; the Minnesota Vikings have lost every NFC championship game they have ever been in under that horrible roof. The Minnesota Timberwolves (with the exception of the Kevin Garnett era) have settled into being a perennial NBA doormat; a franchise that began its days under the Teflon Sky. And even the entity whose new stadium may have to bail out the NFL come Monday (I may be accused of breaking out a big glass of “Haterade” for this) but the Minnesota Golden Gophers lived through some of the worst years ever seen by a terrible program while they got their mail at the Metrodome. The only team that ever won anything in the Baggy-Dome were my beloved Minnesota Twins, and even they were ghastly for half of their years in that atrocity.

The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich...er...Roof.

I could even point out that the Metrodome was the front-runner on our list of the worst sports venues in America.  That was months before this catastrophe; and a catastrophe that has happened before. The Baggy-Dome has has a failure event with its Teflon Sky at least five times, which is not a great track record for a structure that is hardly 30 years old.

I even could get in to the litany of why the place is so terrible for sports.  But the Dome is a monument to plastic with terrible sightlines, not enough bathrooms, horrid concessions, and a roof and turf combo that completely made a joke of baseball; those are just symptoms. The root cause is this atrocity was built on the cheap.

Seriously, the Metrodome is like if K-Mart built sports venues; everything in the building screams cost-cutting move.  But that is to be expected when you have a venue that was built for less than $60 million, which roughly equivalent to $235 million today.  The air-supported roof was a cheap answer to told-school domes that preceded the Metrodome, such as the Houston Astrodome or the Louisiana Superdome.  When you stop to consider that stadiums built today estimate construction at $650 million, and have ended up costing over $1 billion, it really shows how much the Metrodoome was intended to shave the dime.

On top of that, Minnesotans, being the progeny of good, phlegmatic Scandinavian stock (read that as “cheap”) have milked more out of their cheap dome than anybody else. Indianapolis got rid of the RCA Dome, Detroit no longer uses the Silverdome for major events, and even the largest stadium of this type, BC Place in Vancouver, is currently undergoing a conversion to a retractable-roof design, abandoning air-supported technology entirely.

Sadly, these tragedies have commonality.

Now for the really ugly truth.  Minnesota is a place with a sad combination of a brutal climate with harsh extremes and a government that combines cheap structures with cheap maintenance.  It’s no accident that the people who built a cheap cloth roof in a place where two-foot snowfalls are not uncommon are the same who went the cheap route on maintaining steel bridges in a place that has 120-degree seasonal temperature extremes. It’s no accident that the Metrodome and the 35W Bridge are both structures built and maintained by Minnesota government that are both now monuments to the importance of knowing where NOT to be cheap.

The Dubsism Baseball Power Rankings: The Post-Season “Why You Shouldn’t Cheer For” Edition

Here we are; another October full of post-season baseball. Let’s be honest, most of the crap I said about these teams six months ago was wrong, so why not go for month number seven proving I have no idea what I’m talking about.  Take the following for example (from April 22nd):

California in General: The Padres are leading the NL West based on a league-leading Team ERA of 2.82, the Giants are tight behind their statemates to the south in both the stat and the standings, and Oakland’s 3.16 means three of the top four staffs in terms of earned runs allowed get their mail in the Golden State. Toss in Dodger Matt Kemp’s pacing the NL with 7 homers and 20 RBI and the Angels not looking nearly as mediocre as one believed, and things are on the up. The question is how many of these things will still be true in August.

Indeed, how many of those things turned out true? Well, the Padres waited until August before they folded faster than Superman on laundry day, allowing themselves to get run down by a Giants team that is likely the weakest still standing. Honestly, after July, these were the only two California teams worth noting. So, instead of trying to make predictions, it is time to talk about why none of these teams are worthy of your support. With that, let’s get down to the rest of the remaining eight…

1) Philadelphia Phillies – (Pre-season Rank #1, 97-65, NL East Champs) – Odds of Winning World Series: 4-1

This team defines “mercurial.” They started the season as the favorites of the Dubsism staff, then they plummeted as low as #14 in the rankings, the low-water mark coming in that series at the Mets when they didn’t score a single run in four games. The are now again the hottest team in baseball, but as good as they are now, they won’t when. Why? Because it’s Philadelphia. No city has a bigger self-esteem problem than Philadelphia. Philadelphia spends hours staring in the mirror and laying awake nights wishing it were New York.  This is why Philadelphia fans hate everything; during the off-season they go down to the hospital and boo surgeries.

But it isn’t just the male Phillie fans who should be choked to death with a cheese-steak. I’ve got a belly full of these stupid female fans who spend hours blathering about how much they want to fuck Chase Utley. Behind the Red Sox, the Phillies have the highest percentage of obnoxious female pink-hat-wearing fans, you know the ones that get  sloppy drunk and wail about wanting to get on Cole Hamels’ cock. If you have a girlfriend who has a pink piece of sports apparel and won’t shut up about which player she wants to bone, punch her in the face immediately. Then punch yourself where your balls used to be for being involved with such a stupid bitch.

She just said she wants to suck off Shane Victorino, so its' OK to blast her.

2) Tampa Bay Rays (Pre-season Rank #4, 96-66, AL East Champs) – Odds of Winning World Series: 4-1

Tampa is such a non-interest generator that if the Rays were to win the World Series, you could probably hold the entire victory parade at a Shoney’s. Seriously, nobody gives a shit about Tampa or any of it’s teams. Do you remember when the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl. Of course you don’t, because you didn’t care then, and you don’t care now. The Rays are like are like local TV news. You watch to see weather and traffic, and once you see that you are that stream of fans heading to the car in the sixth inning.

EPSN’s Colin Cowherd made an interesting point about this team.  Apparently, Tampa was third on a list of potential cities to get one of two baseball expansion teams. While he was working for a news station in Tampa at the time, Cowherd says he was told by George Steinbrenner himself that he pushed the awarding of the franchise  to Tampa through, because his family lived in Tampa and he wanted to see his Yankees play down there during the season. In other words, there are TWO teams to hate because of that dead shitbag Steinbrenner.

3) Minnesota Twins (Pre-season Rank #10, 94-68, AL Central Champs) – Odds of Winning World Series: 5-1

I love the Twins, so it pains me to say this, but I have a serious dislike of Minnesota sports fans. The absolute worst sports fans in the world are Minnesota Viking fans, and too many Twins fans are just the retarded, in-bred cousins of those same Viking fans. I lived in the Twin Cities for 15 years, and I can tell you first hand that the Twins are a franchise that deserves a far better fan base than it has.  Minnesota fans worship at the alter of a Viking team that hasn’t won a fucking thing in forty years while they almost completely ignore the franchise that has won two World Championships in that time. Tune in a Minneapolis sports radio station in April and you will hear 24 hours of how the Vikings need to draft some other asshole who will undoubtedly under-perform.

Plus, Minnesota is where you grow fair-weather fans. At least the people in terrible sports cities like Tampa or Atlanta are honest, they don’t show up at all. But Twins “fans” filled the dreadful Metrodome when the Twins were winning; you could have fired a cannon in the place in the mid-90′s and not hit a soul. Now, since the arrival of Joe Mauer and the new ballpark, these “fans” can’t stop blowing themselves over shit we already know like the fact Mauer is a home town boy or that Target Field is gorgeous. It is just the residents of Minnesota collectively coping with the fact they got butt-fucked into building a stadium that is going to be half-empty in ten years. Not to mention, the Twins are no longer the payroll David to the Yankees’ Goliath anymore, so all you so-called “fans” need to get off that crap right now. Granted, the Yankee payroll is gargantuan, but the Twins are over $100 million themselves.

Oh, did I mention they are the world’s only passive-aggressive racists? They wouldn’t dream of using an epithet because that’s not “politically correct,” but they have no problem using the old “Would you want your daughter to marry one?” mentality when they run a black athlete out of town (I will never forget the Warren Moon incident, when Minnesota fans used a court case in which Moon was found not guilty because the case was unfounded to begin with, to call the local sports radio station to spew a lot of “that’s how THOSE people act” bullshit).

There’s about 50 real Twins fans in the world, and they are a great group of people. For the rest, there can’t be enough bridge collapses to get rid of all of you.

4) New York Yankees (Pre-season Rank #2, 95-67, AL Wild Card) – Odds of Winning World Series: 5-1

Are you now, or have you ever been a Yankees fan? Are you under the age of 45? Have you ever said “The Yankees sucked when I was a kid, so I’m not of one these new Yankee fans that came along when we started winning again”? If you answered “Yes” to these questions, you are pretentious douche-nozzle and you would be doing the world a favor if you stuck a shotgun in your mouth.

There’s soooooooooo many reasons to hate the Yankees. First, there’s the aforementioned loyalty-less fuckwads who think just because the Yankees sucked in the 80′s means they aren’t some dickhead who needs to be on the winning side. But least there is one less reason to hate them, since that piece of deep-fried monket shit known as George Steinbrenner is dead. At least he has a burn-in-hell worthy legacy, like sodomizing New York City out of a billion dollars to build a replica of a 90-year old shithole, then filling it with insufferable dickweeds who now are actually proud of their Ruthian assholery.

Oh, and I haven’t mentioned this yet, but you have no idea how much it pissed me off that after Steinbrenner assumed room temperature that I kept being told “You didn’t have to like him, but you had to respect him.”  Fuck you. The same people who said this are the same people responsible for the impending death of America. George Steinbrenner was a criminal who deserves the same respect a dog pays to a fire hydrant.

5) Atlanta Braves (Pre-Season Rank #8, 91-71, NL Wild Card) - Odds of Winning World Series: 8-1

Who better to be in the “Punched in the Face Edition” than that geriatric drunken wife-beater Bobby Cox? Lately, people have been fawning over the fact that he has been kicked out of an entire season worth of games. “That just means he’s fiery, competitive and sticks up for his players,” I hear all the time. Did you ever consider that he might just be a flaming asshole with an anger management issue? I would say that getting piss-drunk and punching your wife in the face suggests the latter.

According to the police report, the Coxes had been entertaining friends when Bobby spilled a drink on the carpet of their northwest Atlanta house and Pamela made a comment about it. The report said that after the guests left, Bobby, 53, “hit her in the face with his fist,” pulled her hair and called her “a bitch.” When they reached the house, the police reported, they heard arguing inside, where they found Bobby drunk and Pamela with the left side of her face swollen.

My favorite part of this story was the press conference a few days later when Pamela Cox tried to deny the domestic violence allegations all while wearing a knuckle-mark on her cheek that looked just like a National League Championship ring.

That’s just the recent reason to hate the Braves. There’s a really good old reason, that being when that idiotic windbag Ted Turner owned them. Thanks to the “Mouth of the South,” we all got to live through the infancy of cable television by watching the sorry-ass 1980′s Atlanta Braves.  If you are my age, you remember having this shitty team shoved down your throat as “America’s Team.” Worse yet, TBS grew into a cable network capable of winning a bid to carry Major League Baseball so they could prove that Fox didn’t completely fuck up televised baseball.

6) Texas Rangers (Pre-Season Rank #11, 90-72, AL West Champs) – Odds of Winning World Series: 12-1

If we were to compare American cities to body parts, Arlington would be the appendix; something that everybody has, yet it is completely useless. Arlington is like the anus of Texas, wedged in between the unwashed buttocks of Dallas and Fort Worth. It doesn’t take long to figure out why Texans build all the stuff that draws huge pain-in-the-ass crowds in Arlington; it sits on such a useless piece of land that it is surrounded on one side by a giant airport and on the other by a giant nothing.  Why is the Rangers ball park here? Let’s be honest, nobody in Texas gives a shit about baseball past August. In fact, baseball in Texas is just a way to kill time until football season starts. This is why nobody should give a shit about the Rangers now. Besides, Texas hasn’t had a guy who could hit the cut-off man since Lee Harvey Oswald.

7) Cincinnati Reds (Pre-Season Rank #18, 91-71, NL Central Champs) – Odds of Winning World Series: 15-1

Here’s where you can still use that shop-worn “big market/small market”  argument, except the comparative scale is in sheer assholery. Granted, the Yankees have produced more flaming assholes than anybody, but they have more money than anybody. But when you have a team from the largest city in Kentucky that has produced such legendary buttloafs like Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Rob Dibble. Really, how can a team produce a guy who bets on baseball, the worst play-by-play guy EVER, and a guy who just blazed the “Raging Dumbfuck” trail for a shithead like John Rocker. Worse yet, how can a small-market team do that and still produce a world-class fuckface like Johnny Cueto, who during that brawl with the Cardinals back in August kicked Jason LaRue in his head multiple times, effectively ending his 12-year career. If I get to see only one thing I really want during this post-season, please let it be a 95-mph fastball directly into Cueto’s face, his teeth bouncing off home plate like bloody Chiclets.

8 ) San Francisco Giants (Pre-Season Rank #18, 92-70, NL West Champs) – Odds of Winning World Series: 18-1

See the guy in the black trunks above? The Giants need to sign him now so they will have at least one guy who can hit.  It’s like ever since Barry Bonds left, the Giants are in some sort of self-imposed deprivation of offense, like anybody who hits 30 homers will have his balls cut off and fondued at some sort of granola and sissy-fruit party. It’s not like it matters because nobody cares about the Giants except for a few Dodger haters and the future funeral home clientele who from their pine boxes will still be pining for the days of Willie Mays.

The funny part is that in a weird sort of way, the Giants are the perfect team for San Francisco. At the same time, San Francisco is a beautiful city with the same sleazy underbelly as any other world-class seaport; within mere yards of each other you can find the whitest-glove haute cuisine and foreign sailors chuffing down whatever cheap fare that will satisfy while leaving a precious few drachma for a booze-up and a working girl. San Francisco can turn the breath-taking topography of Northern California and simultaneously compliment it while turning it into a piss-reeking urban nightmare. When fall hits the Midwest and all those meat-and-tater midwesterners get all fawny over California and its’ golden sun, they are picturing Southern California and its sun-kissed beaches. But since they are so eager to get out of East Tree Stump, Ohio, they don’t realize until they get there that San Francisco is not that California. Rather, it is a city that is shrouded in fog more often than not, is prone to 40 mph winds, and can sport highs in the 60s in July.  I once lived in North Dakota, and one of the coldest winters I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

The Giants are as much a collection of contradictions as their city.  The Giants are a team that boasts a tremendous pitching staff, and yet couldn’t hit water if they fell out of fucking boat. Even though they an old-school member of the National League with a large market, they can’t buy a better solution for their offense problem than Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff.  Somehow they have managed to play team baseball well enough to win their division, yet on an individual level they are the biggest collection suckasses out there. Did they all agree to wear their uniforms as baggy as possible so they all look like airport windsocks in those 40 mph winds? Tim Lincecum looks like a Make-A-Wish kid baked on medicinal marijuana in those things, but at least they hide the man-boobs on those elephant seals known as Pablo Sandoval and Juan Uribe.  I mean, who the fuck can have any respect for a major league baseball team that has at shortstop a manatee with frosted tips on his goatee?

The Baseball Trading Deadline – The Shark Week Edition

Whether it’s stocks, fantasy baseball, or the real thing, trading can be a dangerous proposition. There’s no guarantee that the deal will work; only time will tell whether your investment pays off or whether you get to sell you blood to make the rent this month.

But, one thing that is certain; where there’s trading there’s bleeding, and nothing draws the sharks like blood in the water. Since we here at Dubsism are at the same time not willing to wait for two years to see who the bleeders are and stuck in the middle of the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” we’ve decided to give the rating of winners and losers a bit of a  Swim With The Sharks twist.

Great White Shark: The Texas Rangers

The Los Angeles Angels, pictured here as a seal, seem destined to give up their grip on the AL West.

Clearly, The Texas Rangers are going to need a bigger boat. Rangers’ General manager Jon Daniels played the role of Chief Brody to a tee. Not only did Daniels figure out he’s got a team ready to reel in winning now, he set sail to bag the fish he needed to make this team complete. The Rangers have been playing fur seal to the Angels’ Great White for nearly a decade now, but the additions of of ace Cliff Lee, catcher Bengie Molina, infielder Cristian Guzman, and slugger Jorge Cantu make a frankly scary roster when mixed with the likes of Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, Elvis Andrus and ironically enough Vladimir Guerrero, who was acquired in the off-season from the Angels.

Not only does this make the Ranges likely to seal up the American League West sometime in August, barring an unforeseen collapse, the Rangers become an honest-to-goodness World Series contender. If that weren’t good enough, the Rangers, who are awash in bankruptcy even managed to get the Nationals and the Marlins to toss in cash in their respective deals. Could this finally be the year where a good-looking Ranger team doesn’t get grilled into oblivion in the broiling Texas summer?

Tiger Shark: San Diego Padres

The Padres have spent eons being the bottom feeder of the NL West, so much so they gained a reputation for eating anything that would come their way; they were so desperate a few years ago they were the only team that showed interest in a clearly-finished Mark Prior. However, even a creature that eats everything occasionally gets a gourmet meal. Gaining the services of both  infielder Miguel Tejada and outfielder Ryan Ludwick while not giving away anything useful cement the Padres as a legitimate force come October.

Ludwick’s big bat finally provides some protection for Adrian Gonzalez, while his glove complements a stellar pitching staff. As long as they manage Tejada correctly, meaning they play him at shortstop as long as David Eckstein is on the disabled list. Once Eckstein returns, it will be necessary to platoon him with Jerry Hairston Jr. at shortstop. Otherwise, the Padres run the risk of seeing Tejada’s age and lack of range cost them in the long run.

Bull Shark: New York Yankees

Bull sharks are notorious for conducting the most attacks on humans; the Yankees commit the most atrocities against humanity. The Bronx Bombers were likely the best team in baseball before the trade deadline, however, that didn’t stop them from adding Lance Berkman to shore up the DH slot, Austin Kearns to make them even better against left-handed pitching, and (if he stays healthy) Kerry Wood to add the consistency to the setup role Joba Chamberlain seems completely incapable of doing.

Hammerhead Shark: Philadelphia Phillies

Just looking at a hammerhead, one gets the idea they are completely bereft of the ability to see either forward or backward. With some foresight, they might have seen the combination of Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay could’ve dominated National League lineups. Instead, they must give up a good bullpen guy to get Roy Oswalt.

With some hindsight, they might have seen that Greg Dobbs alone isn’t a good enough insurance policy against injury. In the absence of Ryan Howard, imagine how that line-up would look now had they dealt Jayson Werth for the obligatory bag of magic beans. In other words, they easily could be the bottom-feeder that didn’t find the good meal.

Nurse Shark: Los Angeles Dodgers

Much like a nurse shark is a large fearsome looking creature that actually has the aggression level of Mickey Mouse on valium, the Dodgers looked like a contender until the calendar read August.  Honestly (and I can’t believe I’m saying this), it really isn’t general manager Ned Colletti’s fault for once. Coletti is suffering the Malachi Crunch of being pinned in between the ugly divorce of owing junta Frank and Jamie McCourt and the over-priced, under-performing Manny Ramirez who is rapidly becoming the millstone around the neck of this franchise.

In other words, Colletti is trying to do his job, but he is in a swimming race in a shark tank with a bleeding side of beef chained around his neck. Somehow, he has manged to make deals for effective B-list players like Ted Lilly, Scott Podsednik, Ryan Theriot, and Octavio Dotel; the trouble is this team needed a couple of A-listers to make the difference.

Mako Shark: Minnesota Twins

This is a case of a shark that is the fastest in the sea, and a seriously feared predator. Just look at that thing; I shit my pants just uploading that picture. But the problem is the Mako wastes that fearsome nature chasing Charlie the Tuna. This is the perfect analogy for the Twins; a franchise that can grow some seriously scary talent, yet has no idea how to get full value on a trade.

It was no secret that even though the Twins uber-catching prospect Wilson Ramos was never going to do more at Target Field than sell hot dogs to the “ya, you betcha” Minnesota crowd as long as God in a Mask Joe Mauer is a Twin uniform. Sure it was obvious Ramos was the chum to catalyze any deal, but with high-quality bait you expect a high-quality catch.

To be blunt, Ramos should have got the Twins Miss Universe, but Matt Capps is Miss Iowa. Now don’t misunderstand us here, while Iowa may be an acronym for “Individuals Out Watering Animals,” Miss Iowa is a hottie in her own right. But unless she becomes Miss Universe, she’s a decked-out Cadillac Seville in a world of Rolls-Royce Silver Shadows.  In other words, Capps is a fully-loaded, brand new Cadillac for which the Twins paid $750,000.

Blacktip Reef Shark: Arizona Diamondbacks

Timid and skittish, the blacktip reef shark seldom poses a danger in the National League West. However, teams wading through Arizona do occassionally run the risk of having their legs mistakenly bitten.  However, this timid nature leads some to believe that this shark may be an endangered species when in fact they may have put a screwing to a couple of larger sharks in the Baseball ocean.

Frankly, I’m amazed to hear people who think the Diamondbacks got screwed in the Dan Haren trade. Keep in mind this is a franchise in need of swimming into a gill net and hoping for a better lot in the next life. Just in the deal with Angels alone, they unloaded $30 million in salary while getting four pitchers in return, including Joe Saunders, a not-that-long-ago former All-Star. When you add how they fleeced the White Sux for the perenially shaky Edwin Jackson, the D-backs now boast a farm system stocked with nine of the top 80 picks from last year’s draft.

Remora: San Francisco Giants

Yeah, we know a remora isn’t a shark, but you can’t watch Shark Week without seeing one. If you  aren’t familiar, a remora is one of those little fish that just hangs around, cleaning up whatever bits the big sharks leave behind. Lots of other sharks had a major feeding, and the Giants got a few nice bits in relievers Ramon Ramirez and Javier Lopez. Plus, the bit of “addition by subtraction” that happened by shipping Bengie Molina to Texas, thus opening the way Buster Posey to look like a right-handed coming of God In a Mask Joe Mauer could easily move the Giants up the food chain.

The Chum Bucket:

"Yeah, I'd like to see you come down here and spoon out some of this slop..."

Just as you would expect, this would a a mish-mash of the assorted pieces left over from those who really didn’t figure out what the trade game is all about. For example, the Los Angeles Angels did net a nice catch in Dan Haren, but this team really needed a big bat at a corner infield position/designated hitter position (Adam Dunn, anyone?). When you combine that with the price of the Haren deal, it’s pretty hard to say  the Halos helped themselves for the long term. Another team that needed offensive firepower and didn’t get it were the White Sux. Not only they not get Adam Dunn, Lance Berkman shot down the Sux with his no-trade clause. They still can make this worse by engineering one of those Kenny Williams “waiver wire” specials by grabbing Manny Ramirez. Plus, Ken Griffey, Jr. is still out there – oh wait, Williams has already made that mistake before.

Then there’s the teams who added nothing. The Cincinnati Reds find themselves in a neck-in-neck race with the Cardinals, but just couldn’t get that extra horse they need. Roy Oswalt cost too much, Dan Haren pulled out the no-trade clause, and they came up empty looking for bullpen help. In the end, they are pinning their hopes on a couple of senior citizens they have stashed in Triple-A Louisville, Russ Springer and Jason Isringhausen (yeah, I can’t believe they are still alive either!)  But at least the Cardinals’ swim in the shark tank came out as a net zero. Sure, Jake Westbrook helps the rotation, but giving up Ryan Ludwick when the Cards were already offensively challenged… this team better plan on winning a lot of 2-1 games. The Mets literally did nothing, Jarrod Saltalamacchia likely can’t replace the injured Kevin Youkilis (except as a Scrabble word) for the Red Sox, much like Jhonny Peralta won’t come close to replacing Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen for the increasingly toothless Tigers.

The Idiot Who Gets Bitten Because He’s an Idiot:

Again, this is something that no Shark Week would be complete without. You’ve all seen this guy, usually a fisherman who while trying to retrieve a 40-cent hook somehow forgets that even small sharks have mouths full of razor-sharp teeth that make an exceptionally efficient finger-removal tool.  Welcome to the world of the Houston Astros, a team that actually gave the Yankees, a.k.a. the richest team in baseball $4 million to put Lance Berkman in pinstripes.

But worry not sports and shark fans; while Shark Week is just a week, there still the waiver wire deals for which August is notorious. In fact, I hear Adam Dunn may still be available…

The Dubsism Baseball Power Rankings: The “Race at the Far Turn” Edition

For me, the All-Star break has always represented the “far turn” in the horse race that is the Major League Baseball season. This is the point when general managers acting as jockeys must decide whether they are contenders or pretenders; whether to go to the whip (trade for talent to augment a “stretch run”) or “wait for next year” (have a fire sale).

This is why the rumor mills are always abuzz in the weeks around this time. Even before we can get to that buzz, the Blue Jays have decided they are selling, and the Rangers are clearly buying. The Braves grabbed a veteran shortstop while doing a bit “addition by subtraction” by sending perennial underacheiver Yuniel Escobar to Toronto in exchange for Alex Gonzalez.  On the other side of the coin, the Rangers finally discovered that pitching might be the key to a run through October by acquiring all-star caliber pitcher Cliff Lee from the Mariners, who were clearly over-rated to start the season.

Speaking of pre-season ratings, the far turn is also a good place to really look at how wrong your prognostications were. While the Blue Jays gave us a nice surprise for a while, ultimately they are showing they don’t have the ponies to run with the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox. Meanwhile teams that looked to be at the front of the pack are running like they shattered a collective leg.

For example, the Phillies entered this campaign as the defending National League champions; for 10 weeks they played as such. However, for the past six, they have forgotten how to score, and for large stretches of that time the ageless wonder Jamie Moyer has been a more effective pitcher than the bazillion-dollar ace Roy Halladay. The turning point came during that Mets series in June when the Phillies’ seemingly discovered how to score negative runs.

In contrast, the Minnesota Twins never really had such a clear-cut moment spelling doom. Instead, the Twins seem to be on a march toward “death by a thousand cuts;” every day brings a new seemingly small problem that while insignificant by itself, in total they become a blow to the system that can’t be overcome. The loss of uber-stud Justin Morneau to a concussion could have been that fatal blow if only the Twins weren’t 90% of the way to bleeding out by then.

Peruse the full rankings and draw your own conclusions. The numbers behind each team indicate change from the previous ranking. Teams with the biggest changes from the last ranking are in are in bold. The teams with the biggest difference between their preseason ranking and their current position are in italics.

1. New York Yankees ↑ 1 (Pre-season rank #2)
2. Tampa Bay Rays ↓ 1 (Pre-season rank #4)
3. Atlanta Braves ↑ 1 (Pre-season rank #8)
4. San Diego Padres ↑ 2 (Pre-season rank #25)
5. Boston Red Sox ↑ 8 (Pre-season rank #3)
6. Texas Rangers ↑ 11 (Pre-season rank #11)
7. Chicago White Sox ↑ 14 (Pre-season rank #9)
8. Colorado Rockies ↑ 10 (Pre-season rank #5)
9. Los Angeles Dodgers ↑ 2 (Pre-season rank # 13)
10. Cincinnati Reds ↓ 1 (Pre-season rank #18)
11. Detroit Tigers ↑ 1 (Pre-season rank #14)
12. New York Mets ↑ 7 (Pre-season rank #23)
13. San Francisco Giants ↑ 1 (Pre-season rank #17)
14. St. Louis Cardinals  ↓ 6 (Pre-season rank #6)
15. Los Angeles Angels ↓ 5 (Pre-season rank #15)
16. Philadelphia Phillies ↓ 11 (Pre-season rank #1)
17. Minnesota Twins ↓ 14 (Pre-season rank #10)
18. Toronto Blue Jays ↓ 11 (Pre-season rank #28)
19. Oakland Athletics  ↓ 3 (Pre-season rank #21)
20. Florida Marlins ↓ 5 (Pre-season rank #12)
21. Chicago Cubs ↑ 1 (Pre-season rank #22)
22. Milwaukee Brewers ↑ 1 (Pre-season rank#20)
23. Kansas City Royals  ↑ 1 (Pre-season rank #29)
24. Washington Nationals ↓ 4 (Pre-season rank #24)
25. Houston Astros ↑ 1 (Pre-season rank #26)
26. Seattle Mariners ↓ 1 (Pre-season rank #7)
27. Cleveland Indians ↑ 2 (Pre-season rank #30)
28. Arizona Diamondbacks ↓ 1 (Pre-season rank #16)
29. Pittsburgh Pirates ↓ 2 (Pre-season rank # 27)
30. Baltimore Orioles  ↔ (Pre-season rank #19)

Could We Be Ready For a Return To The “Soul Patrol?”

For those of you unfortunate enough not to be Minnesota Twins fans, you may not know that the “Soul Patrol” was the moniker giver to the fans of Twins’ left fielder Jacque Jones in the early part of the previous decade. Jones was a key cog in the machine that brought a baseball resurgence to the Twins in 2001 after nearly a decade of the hardball equivalent of sucking swamp water. I was a “Soul Patrol” member; my 2001 Jacque Jones jersey still has a place of honor in my closet.

I now no longer live in Minnesota; in fact, my current domicile falls in the home market of the rival Chicago White Sox. So, while I am watching the Chicago feed of Friday’s White Sux-Twins tilt, “Hawk” and Steve Stone trot out the night’s trivia question: Who holds the Twins’ record for lead-off home runs?

I am not sure if there is a true “Soul Patrol” member who doesn’t know the answer to that; I am sure I am one who does. Jones swacked 20 lead-off dingers in a Twins uniform; and I was under the teflon roof of the Metrodome for two of them.

But that isn’t the important part. The tidbit of note in all of this: Jacque Jones is currently on the roster of the Twins’ triple-A club, the Rochester (N.Y) Red Wings. Rumors are circulating that if the concussion situation with uber-stud Justin Morneau goes beyond the 15-day bucket of the disabled list, Jones may get a call-up to the big club in Minnesota.

How sweet would it be to have “Soul Patrol Redux” in the new ball park? Don’t get me wrong, if the choice is retro-cheese versus a Home Run Derby champ and American League MVP on the roster, I’m going with Morneau all the way. But if the circumstances dictate, why not get another blast of 11-proof Soul?

Guest Column: Joe McGrath on Target Field

 Editor’s Note: Mr. McGrath has long and storied history in the management of professional sports franchises, most notably as the general manager of the Charlestown Chiefs of the now-defunct Federal League.

Facilities are important for a sports franchise. You’ve got to have a good building in order to gets fans to buy tickets. Now, if there is anybody who understands the need to be wise with your pennies, it’s me. With all the stuff I had to deal with back in the Federal League, one thing that was a constant was we never had any money. That means you learn how to be cheap when you need to be. It also means you learn where not to shave the dime.

Up in Minnesota, the Twins finally got out of that god-awful Metrodome. While everybody so far seems to think the new ballpark is quite a step up, there is one crucial area where Minnesota may have dropped the ball…the bathrooms.

I’ll be honest. Now that players have unions and such so you can’t force them into modeling at fashion shows, you’ve got to sell beer to make any money anymore. And if you are selling beer, your bathrooms better not cause any problems. Nobody buys a lot of beer if they know they are going to have to stand in line to pee.

The problem is really simple. They got cute on the budget and didn’t build enough men’s rooms. Target Field contains 401 “fixtures” for women, and only 266 for men.  I understand that a common criticism of the Metrodome was a lack of female facilities. But building over 400 of them at the expense of the men’s rooms is insane. A urinal takes up half as space as a stall, so probably three-quarters of the floor space alloted to bathrooms is taken up by women’s rooms.

That’s just the first place the numbers don’t add up. Target Field seats 39,500 fans, and the vast majority of those are men. Men also drink more beer at the ballpark than do women. This is exactly why the men’s bathroom should be like the Express lane at the supermarket; You’re in, you’re out, you’re done. This is also exactly why you cater to the men in a sports venue. 

The bottom line is that despite all the efforts to make women like sports, Twins games are pretty much a sausage-fest. There are no lines for the women’s room because there are just not that many women at the ballpark.

The Dubsism Baseball Power Rankings: The First Look At How Wrong We Were

Now that we are solidly into the regular season, it is time to take a peek at how wrong my pre-season rankings were. As boring as it may be, most of the teams floated right around their original spots, but there certainly are a few surprises.

The Minnesota Twins: Granted this isn’t that big of a shock; that lineup is going to crush right-handed pitching. But this team’s stock is up because Francisco Liriano is throwing blurs at the plate and Jon Rauch has people not so worried about losing Joe Nathan.

Does the 1.29 ERA mean Liriano has returned to his blurry form? Twins fans certainly hope so.

California in General:  The Padres are leading the NL West based on a league-leading Team ERA of 2.82, the Giants are tight behind their statemates to the south in both the stat and the standings, and Oakland’s 3.16 means three of the top four staffs in terms of earned runs allowed get their mail in the Golden State. Toss in Dodger Matt Kemp’s pacing the NL with 7 homers and 20 RBI and the Angels not looking nearly as mediocre as one believed, and things are on the up. The question is how many of these things will still be true in August.

The Boston Red Sox: We can argue they may or may not really suck as bad as they look. But there is no debating how old and slow they are. It really stood out in that series against the Rays. The Rays are young, athletic, and on the way up, which provided an exact contrast to the Sawwwwx.  

The Current Red Sox Team Photo.

The Washington Nationals: They don’t hit particularly well and they can’t pitch at all. But they are over .500. Can they maintain this hot start, or are they going to end up like Teddy Roosevelt?

The full rankings are listed below. The numbers behind each team indicate change in ranking from the previous ranking. Teams with the biggest changes are in bold.

1. New York Yankees ↑ 1
2. Philadelphia Phillies ↓ 1
3. Minnesota Twins ↑ 7
4. Tampa Bay Rays ↑ 1
5. St. Louis Cardinals ↑ 1
6. San Francisco Giants ↑ 11
7. Florida Marlins ↑ 5
8. Oakland A’s ↑ 13
9. Colorado Rockies ↓ 4
10. Atlanta Braves ↓ 2
11. Detroit Tigers ↑ 3  
12. Seattle Mariners ↓ 5
13. Los Angeles Angels ↑ 2
14. Los Angeles Dodgers ↓ 1
15. Chicago White Sox ↓ 6
16. San Diego Padres ↑ 10
17. Washington Nationals ↑ 7
18. Boston Red Sox ↓ 15
19. Toronto Blue Jays ↑ 7
20. Milwaukee Brewers ↔
21. Texas Rangers ↓ 10
22. Arizona Diamondbacks ↓ 5
23. Cincinnati Reds ↓ 5
24. Chicago Cubs ↓ 2
25. Pittsburgh Pirates ↑ 2
26. Kansas City Royals ↑ 3
27. Cleveland Indians ↑ 3
28. New York Mets ↓ 5
29. Houston Astros ↓ 3
30. Baltimore Orioles ↓ 11

It’s early, you can fully expect these numbers to change as the next five and a half months play out. Unless you are the Mets; you’re right where you should be.