two dolla

$12,000,000 for torii hunter.

And I happen to think he’s worth it.

MINNEAPOLIS — Torii Hunter will be back with the Minnesota Twins for at least one more year. The Twins said Tuesday they picked up Hunter’s $12 million option. [link]

He’s spent his entire career with the Twins organization and, even though he’s ran into a few walls causing injury, he’s been a permanent fixture in centerfield. He’s so fun to watch.

Swiping Barry Bonds’ homerun during the All-Star game, robbing homerun after homerun at the Metrodome, he’s completely denied runs by rifling the ball from centerfield all the way to homeplate and made it all look easy.

I’m excited to have him back. Even if it’s only temporarily. He apparently wants a longer contract and I can’t say I blame him.

I’m completely speculating since this obviously just happened today. However, with a $12,000,000 highly-desired centerfielder on the team, it could be plenty of room for some trade action.

A couple of years ago (with Lew Ford in his prime season, Jacques Jones, and a healthy Shannon Stewart), there was room to rotate outfielders around. Now? Not so much.

Michael Cuddyer’s a mainstay in rightfield. We need him somewhere and the 2005 season proved 3rd base wasn’t the place to have him on a regular basis. Left field, which was left to Rondell White, Josh Rabe, an only average Lew Ford, and Jason Kubel this year, is up in the air completely. Bringing in a new player to replace Torii in center wouldn’t really be advisable, in my opinion.

With him averaging $74,000 per game, though, I’m going to expect diving and wall-climbing catches a little more frequently.

employee of the month & my love for dane cook

I went to go see Employee of the Month this past weekend and immediately following it, I went to apply at Sam’s Club.

Dane Cook plays a total slacker who has everyone do his own work. See why I always love him? Dax Shepard is really funny as the Employee of the Month winner for the past 17 months and the fastet checker in the southwest region. And Jessica Simpson plays a stupid whore. Or maybe not, but that’s all I can think of her as, so that’ll have to do.

If you know anything about Dane Cook, I’m sure the first thing that comes to your mind is the fact that he can be, you know, COMPLETELY OVER THE TOP at times. But the thing that makes me laugh the most about him? He tells stories the same way I tell stories. Seriously. I mean, my hombres and I could easily hang out with him and it would just be like nothing’s any different. He’s just my kind of people.
Aside from the fact that Dane Cook can do no wrong in my shiny blue eyes, the movie was still really funny. Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite is in it and hialrious. So are Andy Dick and Harland Williams. And the XXL security guard named Semi, who I wanted to hug after the movie was over.

I wish I could have made perfectly clear at the box office that my $4.00 (it was a super secret matinee) was to all be applied towards Dane Cook and absolutely none of it should be give to Jessica or Joe Simpson and their greedy, grimy, untalented paws. But I digress.

It’s a really funny movie, especially if you’ve ever worked in retail (hello, K-Mart shoe department employee here!) or even more especially if you like Dane Cook. Because did I mention he is my favorite?