two dolla

i’m wearing the visor right now

I was really excited to go to the Twins game tonight for several reasons. I hadn’t been to a game since last month. Joe Mauer’s back from his stint on the DL. I snagged an awesome single ticket. And I dug out the ol’ 10x optical zoom camera.

The Twins won, the nachos were good, I got a free Twins visor, and I only winced once from tooth pain, so it was a great, great night. Then I got home and started to go through my pictures. As it turns out, about 80 of them are corrupt. NEAT.

Here’s the entire set of the ones that did turn out, but there are a couple of my favorites in the extended entry:

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chris heintz on the field!

My baseball obsession has kind of taken a backseat this summer, mainly because of the other stuff I have going on, but it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a good scruffy-faced injured-catcher from time to time.

Big Joe Mauer, you should lose the razor every once in a while. I’m just sayin’.

I’m a little scared the Twins might find themselves short on catchers, if they’re not careful. One of the Douche Sox pitchers clocked Mike Redmond with a pitch last night, rendering him unable to run the bases.

When I saw Chris Heintz trembling with nerves as he took off his catcher equipment, I had to run outside of Tony Jaro’s and let Bill and Matt know what was going on. Chris Heintz! You’re a ball player, son!

whoolio?

You know how I can tell it’s a rough start to my Twins’ baseball season? I look to see what the score is, and is and find out some homeboy named Julio DePaula is starting against Cleveland tomorrow night. I mean, a lump of shit gives me more hope than Sidney Ponson, so I can see why they sent him far, far away from the starting rotation.

DePaula is 2-3 with a 3.15 ERA and two saves in 15 appearances for the Red Wings this season, according to the Red Wings website… Hey, that’s a better ERA than any one of the Twins’ starters and his record fits right into the middle of them all, so why not?

Make us proud, Julio, and earn that starting spot, son. It’s probably yours to lose at this point.

Edited to add: Looks like Santana has the starting nod today, but that’s not what twinsbaseball.com said last night. Liars.

wisconsin means drinking in latin

I realized this weekend that I’d been neglecting my weekend wrap-ups that I enjoy so much.

Friday: There were five us in the office for most of the afternoon. The other 25ish people in our department were nowhere to be found. It made for a long afternoon. On the drive home, I started stressing about the buckets of rain that were coming down, because I had half a dozen people coming over to my place at 7 and hadn’t really done enough cleaning to entertain the masses in casa de Wendy. I was kind of counting on a dry night and planning on using the picnic tables outside my apartment.

It ended up cleaning up for the night and we had a good time eating meat products filled with cheese, beating a piñata, and grilling inappropriate things on the community grill. Also, we met some of my neighbors that live in the other building. One does amateur wrestling and proclaimed loudly that you could probably “grill poop and then a faggot would eat it”. Hey, that makes perfect sense to me. And it also explains why I will be avoiding the amateur version of Andre the Giant as much as possible. And I do love it that Riley loves my friends so much.

I also mentioned my plans for the best fundraising schtick ever. Stay tuned for that.

Saturday: Man, I slept a lot and man, it was nice. In the afternoon-tide, I ventured over to Matt’s, where our caravan would depart en route to Finals Fest, held in River Falls, WI. Luckily, the rain dried up while we ventured less than 10 miles into Wisconsin. By the time we were cowboy hat shopping at the gas station, it was shaping up to be a great night to be outside. There were seven of us, all over the age of 25. When we arrived at the University of Wisconsin – River Falls campus, we were at least 5 years older than the majority of the crowd. It was concern, yet entertaining.

I’d heard talk about Mike Doughty from both Jenni and Jodi, but never really listened to anything of his. How I regret that decision now. Dude was awesome! His voice was jacked up, so he stopped in the middle of a couple songs and apologized, but it didn’t matter. Now I know that anytime he’s around, I’m there. Live music is the best way to discover someone new to add to your music collection – I guarantee that.

Closing the show? Reel Big Fish. Holy awesome, why has nobody told me about these guys before? This is my kind of music! Needless to say after Saturday, I spent a lot of money on music. I guess it averages out, considering the concert was free.

After the concert, we headed into downtown River Falls and drank a lot. I wish I could tell you more, but quite frankly, I only remember bits and pieces that would make me look like an alcoholic college student. And I’m not in college, so, well, you get the picture.

Sunday: More sleeping. Watching the Twins screw around badly and lose to the Red Sox. Dinner with my Work BFFâ„¢ and her roommate. More sleeping. Desperate Housewives action – best last scene with Susan ever. And again with the sleeping.

I’m tired today, but have a ton of work to do. Riley’s at the vet for his comprehensive exam and I pick him up after work. He’s gained 5 pounds since being on his new dog food, which puts him up to 75 fat pounds. I call him Fatty, but in reality, he’s not fat at all.

I’m slowly uploading the weekend’s pictures to Flickr. I knew you were going to ask.

i do good things

“I do good things. If you want to make a good thing into a bad thing, then so be it.” – Torii Hunter

Not that there needs to be any other reason for me to love Torii Hunter, but his big Major League Baseball rule violation has quite possibly made me love him even more.

Hunter’s gift of four bottles of Dom Perignon, which he had delivered to the Royals clubhouse this past weekend, was meant as a reward for the Royals sweeping the Detroit Tigers last September, allowing the Twins to come from behind to win the American League Central. The gift fulfilled a promise Hunter made last fall.

An All-Star, Golden Glove winner, who never gets into any type of trouble around the league and throws his body on the line for every single play he makes tries to do something nice for a team that never gets recognizes for doing anything but losing, and look what happens.

So, hey, Terry Ryan! When you read this, please sign Torii to a Forever Contract worth whatever it is he wants. It’ll be worth it in the long run, I promise.

i’ve turned into one of those owners

Man, after Sidney Ponson threw like a douchebag off the mound against the Yankees last night, I knew I had to get a ticket for tonight’s game. Ahh, baseball during a winter weather advisory. I don’t see how it could get any better.

Speaking of baseball (okay, not really), I got home from work last night and took Riley out to do his potty thing. As we walked outside, someone else was outside with their puppy named Tucker. Tucker’s maybe six months old and his owner didn’t have him on a leash. So, what’s that mean? Mainly, they’re violating an apartment complex rule that we all get in trouble for all the time, and it bothers me a lot because I don’t want it to get to the point where we can’t have pets. Plus, we’re entirely too close to a road where nobody pays attention to the speed limit, there are usually kids running around all over the place, there are cars coming and going in the parking lot not paying attention to random dogs running through the lot, and there are other dogs out all the time. It’s not safe to have them not on their leash during busy times.

Tucker, the unruly puppy, followed Riley and I all the way out to the street. Riley needed to pee and he’s not much for peeing with an audience. I can’t say I blame him.
Tucker’s stupid owner comes chasing him, but of course she’s chasing him with no shoes on, because, you know, it’s 34 degrees and it’s warm here. She asks if my dog bites, and even though he’s never bitten anything that moves in his life, I say, “I dunno. He might. But that’s why we have a leash rule, so we don’t have to worry about it.”

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i’m mad at the twins

I know. It’s December. What could a baseball team possibly have done to make me mad during the off-season? Try wasting money ($1.25 million plus incentives) on a 37-year old backup utility infielder/designated hitter. Because that’s where we struggled during the playoffs? No, it’s not.

Sure, he batted .319 with the Brewers last year, and I can appreciate that. But last year’s big deal of the wire (Tony Batista) hit 32 home runs the year prior to signing with the Twins and he ended up with his ass kicked to the curb after only three months into the season.

I would like to encourage the front office of the Twins to follow the same strategy I do while in the checkout line in Target ogling the impulse items:  Just because it’s cheap and right there in front of you does not mean you need it.

Why I don’t work for a major league baseball team’s front office, I will never know.

$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.