Ok, enough about food, photos, and all that other jazz. Apparently, Joe Mauer just agreed to a 10 year contract extension with the Minnesota Twins. I’m currently doing a pretty ridiculous dance in my cube.
I love that team.
Yes, I know it’s just sports, but I really don’t care right now.
Edit: Getting conflicting reports about the signing now, which bites, but hopefully the first report is true.
This past weekend was what me friend’s and I call cabin weekend. We generally get together the beginning of October and catch up, have a few drinks, and cause a ruckus at a friend’s cabin. This year was no exception and we had a blast even though it rained the majority of the time. 
I took the day off on Friday and went to Duluth. I had planned on this a few weeks ago, hoping that I could get some photos of fall leaves and the lake. Instead it was rainy with 40+ mph gusts. At first I was disappointed, but it didn’t take long after hitting up Fitgers before I had struck up a few conversations with other bar goers. During one conversation a couple who was also on vacation told me three fun Twins related stories.
This couple was from Woodbury and had lived in the Twin Cities for most of their lives. The husband, said that back in ‘91 his friends went to Vegas and asked if he wanted to place any bets. He asked his friend to bet on the Twins to win the ALCS, but apparently this wasn’t possible so his friend placed the bet on the Twins winning the World Series. The story gets even better, because not only did the Twins win the World Series that season, but he managed to get tickets to see the 7th game of that series and sat in center field.
The wife told me a story about the time when she was very young and her and her family went to the game at the Metropolitan stadium. She somehow got separated from her family and some strangers took her to a local hotel and dropped her off with the management. Apparently this was the hotel that the Twins players stayed at and she ended up hanging out in a room with the team. Her parents managed to find her but she said she wasn’t really that excited to leave with all the attention they team was giving her.
Finally the husband told me about attending a game at the ‘65 World Series. His father’s friend had an auto parts store who got a bunch of tickets to one of the games. He took the bus to the stadium and when he arrived he discovered he had left his ticket in a book at his school. Instead of turning around and heading back, and missing a good chunk of the game, he went to the gate and somehow was let in because he knew the name of the auto parts store that had purchased the tickets. Somehow I don’t think this would be possible in today’s world.
Of course I didn’t do any of these stories justice, but they are still fun.
Well maybe bonus isn’t the right word, maybe it’s a teaser post. Anyway, in honor of the Vikings last pre-season game I present my favorite sighting from the state fair.
Who wants to bet the $80 he saved on a new jersey went toward fair food?
Apologies to those who fervently follow me over on Twitter and saw this on Friday.
Well it’s looking more and more like it will be official. I’m once again going to be a nomadic NFL fan. For my regular readers you may know that during the past year I became a Vikings fan. This may not seem like much to most people but it was for me. I grew up in Montana; a state that not only doesn’t have a major professional team but doesn’t have one in a neighboring state, choosing a team to be a fan of was not easy. Most people from my hometown were Viking, Packer, or Bronco fans. I personally never latched onto any one pro football team, and until I moved to Minneapolis, I planned to keep it that way. That changed last year. I started listening to KFAN, reading more local sports writers, and slowly came around to the Vikings. They had rid themselves of the players I disliked while I was a neutral fan, and drafted one of my favorite rising stars, Adrian Peterson.
So I gave them my support last year and had a great time watching them even though they had too many warts to make a legitimate run as a Super bowl. Then I followed them throughout the off-season and watched as they took our newfound relationship and drove it to the edge of a cliff repeatedly.
It started with the first headline I saw about Favre and the Vikings talking. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the NFL is a business and by signing Favre they are no longer going to have trouble selling tickets. He is also potentially a major upgrade at quarterback and anyone who watched the Vikings last year knows that this is a major selling point. I can see where management is drooling at the prospect of putting him in uniform. However, as a fan of the game of football I can’t stand seeing Brett Favre allowed to play this game of chicken. He strung the Vikings along for months while he “decided” whether he could play, then announced that he was done, claiming it was the hardest decision he had made. Well he made another decision apparently, because today it looks as though Brett Favre is going to change his mind yet again and sign with the Vikings.
I have no problem with Brett Favre coming out of retirement. I can’t imagine having to quit doing something that I love at such a young age. What I can’t forgive Brett Favre for is stringing along both the franchise and the fans for an entire off-season.
If they sign Favre, the Vikings should be ashamed of themselves. They are allowing a look-at-me player choose the course for their franchise. This isn’t what I thought this organization was about anymore. They seemed intent on putting players in uniform who were team players. They have the two incredible players in their backfield who happily share snaps, they had a quarterback dual that seemed nearly resolved but didn’t appear to create any undue tension, and they have an deep wide receiver corps that looked poised to willingly share catches. It was a franchise I wanted to support. But, if they sign Brett Favre after everything he’s done this off-season, I won’t be able to support them.
So I’ll spend next season watching the Vikings of course but I won’t be a true fan, and I’ll admit I probably never will be. If I was a true fan this would not an end to our fan ship, I would just shake if off and continue supporting the team. Maybe this turn of events is as much an indictment of my poor support as it is of a team willing to ignore their culture for a chance at a Super bowl.
I know most of my readers could care less about the Timberwolves, I have traffic stats that back this up. On the other hand I know my readers are awesome, so I”m asking for your help. Our lowly basketball franchise may be irrelevant and not much fun, but we have a savior in our midsts. Bill Simmons, aka “The Sports Guy” on ESPN, has offered to take over General Management duties.
Now I know the chances of this happening are pretty much nill, but if I can get the weight of the Minneapolis bloggers association behind it, at least I’ll feel like I accomplished something. Many of you may be wondering why the heck we would want this. So here are my reasons.
All I’m asking for is an email to Chris Wright wright@timberwolves.com, or a quick bit of linkage on Twitter or your blog. He couldn’t get the Bucks to even interview him, and I know we can do better than the Milwaukee fans.
I’m sorry to disappoint everyone, but there isn’t a Where? this week. What happened? Well I moved, drank to much on Monday, and felt like crap all day Tuesday. On top of that I don’t have an Internet connection at home yet so I can’t dig through my archives from work. This means no Where? this week, but I promise a return next week, and it will be better than ever(maybe).
Even though I didn’t get a Where? up I’m still sharing a few things with everyone. First, I’m trying to cook once again. After hardly touching a frying pan in months, I am attempting to cook myself meals on a daily basis. Last night I made tacos. Nothing too exciting, I did try out Doniree’s tortilla recipe, which was good but not great. This wasn’t because of the recipe but due to the fact I used whole wheat flour. I made beef taco meat and fresh guacamole. The tacos were good and definitely worth the effort.
Of course the best news is that Thursday is tomorrow The next four days are some of the best times of the year for a sports fan. Of course everyone knows March Madness starts tomorrow which is the one of the best sporting events of the year every year. I love the first two rounds because you never know what to expect. Too make things even better, there are two local angles. First the Gophers made the tournament. Second the NDSU Bison made it and are playing at the Metrodome. Now, I am a UND grad so I have a bit of a bias against these two teams, but I still wish them well.
On top of the NCAA basketball tournament kicking off, the best hockey tournament also comes to St. Paul this weekend. It’s the WCHA Final Five, and the Fighting Sioux are scheduled to play on Friday night. They will be playing either the Golden Gophers or Duluth, depending on who wins the game on Thursday night. I’ll be honest, I despise the Gophers, but I almost want them to win so I can see the Sioux beat them on Friday night. I won’t be cheering for them out loud, but a little piece of me will be secretly happy if they score. I’ll be at the game on Friday night and know the Sioux are not going to disappoint me like they did last year.
On Sunday, I tweeted about an article on ESPN about a high school basketball game in which a student missed two free throws intentionally so a player from the other team could check into the game without penalizing his team. The player that wanted to check in had just lost his mother and hadn’t planned on playing. After he changed his mind the referees had to give out a technical foul to his team.
I noted in my tweet that I considered this an example of the reasons we need to keep sports in school. I did make sure I made it clear I didn’t think it had to be the school system that had the sports team. But I do think sports are very important for many reasons. Later that night @brojohost commented that he disagreed with my position. He gave an example where his school cut his Russian language program while funding the sports program. While I respected his opinion, I had to respond and Twitter was not the medium to do that.
Before I get into my reasons for saving sports, I want to make a few things clear. First, I understand many of the arguments for eliminating school sports. It creates superstars who everyone loves and leaves those not athletically inclined outside this group. Parents take it way to seriously, injuries occur, and yes it’s expensive. I know many people can give a thousand different reasons sports should go. But here are my arguments for keeping sports.
First, sports teach life lessons. When properly coached, players on sports team learn a ton of lessons. Team work is just the beginning. Players learn to respect their opponent while trying to defeat them. They learn competition occurs not just against other teams but also within their team. They also learn the unfortunate fact that no matter how hard you work, sometimes you just don’t have enough natural ability to be the best. Anyone who hasn’t participated in sports who says that’s a problem with sports forgets that this fact occurs in every walk in life. Great cooks generally have unbelievable taste sensitivity, being able to pick out individual flavors where the rest of us just taste the dish. Great musicians usually have a innate since for tone. The list continues, but sports also show that with hard work, you can overcome your natural deficiencies and though you may not be able to be the best, you can compete at their level.
Second, sports get our children active. We consistently decry the obesity epidemic in this country, and if we expanded our sports programs this would help solve the crisis. Kids used to go sit in a classroom and then go home and help dad and mom run the farm, clean the house, or other tasks. As we automated our lives kids stopped working at home. Getting kids out on the playing surface whether it is ice, grass, or hardwood is an important first step in keeping them fit.
Third, sports bring people together. If you don’t believe me, go to a small town when the high school hockey/basketball/football team is playing. If it’s anything like my hometown, the majority of the town will be at the sporting venue, regardless of whether or not their children are playing.
Finally I am going to make an argument that I know will get some of you riled up. Sports are more important to a students development than many progressive education programs. Human civilization has always had competition between individuals. Throughout history this has occurred not through the burning of energy during a basketball game but in training for war. Sports teach many of the same lessons learned in military training and these lessons are useful in all walks of life. Of course the lessons sports teach can be learned elsewhere. In fact I think one of the most under appreciated disciplines we teach in school is music. Learning to play an instrument or sing with a group of your peers teach many of the lessons I feel sports teach.
Now I’m not saying that learning Russian or other training isn’t important. But many of the progressive programs that people think we should fund instead of sports are just that disciplines. Learning Russian will help you appreciate other cultures, probably help you if you want to learn another language, and may even help you in other ways. But you aren’t going to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, or competition.
In my opinion this boils down the argument that should be taking place about our education system. We should stop focusing so much on teaching facts and more on teaching life lessons and how to learn. Instead of telling our students to memorize formulas, facts, and figures, we should be teaching them problem solving skills so they can solve problems they haven’t encountered before. Sports do this, a coach can’t teach a player how to handle every situation that will occur in a game, so players have to learn how to think on their feet. If they don’t solve the problem they don’t just get a lesser score on a test, they disappoint their teammates which is going to make them try that much harder. By trying harder they are more likely to succeed and the more often they succeed in unexpected situations the better they will perform in these situations overall. This includes things like math, English, and even learning Russian.
Of course I could write a whole post about the problems sports have. Competition is great, but unfortunately we see too many instances where parents, coaches, and schools take things way to seriously. Yes, players should try to win, but we need to quit putting pressure on the players. Only the coach and teammates should be doing that. On the other hand we also need to stop worrying so much about making the losers feel good. It’s okay for players to be disappointed when they lose, this will only make them try harder next time and they learn from defeat.
So there is my argument for keeping sports in school. I understand there is a funding issue and if we can’t educate our students with the funds we have then sports should be considered as a possible candidate for reduced funding. Shouldn’t be building palaces for high school sports when we can’t purchase new books for the classrooms. Maybe we shouldn’t allow sponsors and donors to specify that their funds can go toward sporting events so we can use some of the money for other things. But getting rid of sports in their entirety isn’t the answer either. Education shouldn’t be only about math, science, and English. We need to make sure our kids are ready to succeed in a world where knowing how to calculate the area of a square or write a novel just isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. We need to focus on the basics and sports are a great way to get there.
What is the deal Minnesota, our sports teams have been taken over by aliens. At least that’s the only explanation I can come up with for the moves that have happened in 3 of the big 4 sports franchises. I’ve lived here for 2 years and nothing close to this has happened in that time. Maybe the front offices forgot to pay their heating bills, froze, and are just now thawing out.
The Timberwolves
The Wolves might not have made big headlines, but they made a move I wanted them to make before the season began. They traded away Rashad McCants and another dead weight contract. They didn’t get much back, though I think Sheldon Williams could turn into a solid contributer. McCants will always put up numbers if he gets minutes, but his teams will never be winners. I liked this move and consider it addition by subtraction.
The Vikings
Ok, this deal hasn’t officially been completed yet, but it looks like the Vikings are going to get Sage Rosenfels for a 4th round pick. This is a move that I really like. Not that the team is perfect, but a big part of the issues last year was because of inferior QB play. Gus Ferotte won some games, but he lost just as many. Tarvaris has occasional shown flashes of brilliance, but he definitely isn’t the answer for the leader of the football team. Getting a solid young quarterback who can grow alongside A.P. is huge. They don’t need to pay him top money for his position, which means they may be able to upgrade one of the offensive line positions.
The Twins
This is the move that I liked the most. Signing a player like Crede to a good contract is exciting. I was ok with them giving him a guaranteed 7 million for the year, but the Twins stuck to their guns and came back with a much better deal that won’t hurt them nearly as much if his isn’t healthy. Having a solid power hitter in both corners of the infield will be great, and his defense fits right in with the Twins program. Really the best thing about this deal is seeing the Twins front office defrost itself and actually make a move that might pay off. It’s been too many years since they did anything more than sign aging stars and trade away our best talent. Hopefully this move works and they continue to try and improve my favorite team.
The Wild
I’m just appalled by this team. Something has to happen, and hopefully seeing the other three teams make a move will force them to take action. They need a new head coach and probably a new GM. It doesn’t require a high hockey IQ to see something needs to change. For a team that hasn’t had to worry about selling out a game since they came into existence, they haven’t done much to repay the loyalty of their fans.
It’s been a while since I last wrote about the Timberwolves. After firing their head coach and placing Kevin McHale in that role I tried to continue following them. I watched the first 5-6 games and then pretty much stopped watching or paying attention as they were losing games at a ridiculous pace. Well apparently things are starting to change, since Christmas the Wolves have lost one game, and currently hold a five game winning streak.
You could definitly accuse me of being a fair weather fan in this case. I couldn’t stick with the team through another awful season, and I honestly did want to see McHale fail. It’s good to see some life in the team again. Randy Foye is playing like I knew he could, he’s playing with confidence and slowly developing into a leader on the team. Since I havn’t watched any games I am relying on recaps and box scores to piece together the reasons for this winning streak. Here are some observations I made.
McHale didn’t follow all of my advice, but he did stop playing McCants, and I consider that a win. Since I”m back on the bandwagon with the other 25 remaining Wolves fans you will probably see a few Wolves related posts once again
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing this letter to inform you that I am putting your team on probation. I considered resigning from your fan base, but I’m unwilling to take such a drastic step without giving you a chance to fix things. This probationary period will last for six months. At the end of that period, your progress will be reviewed and appropriate action taken.
I hope that by putting you on probation you will work to remedy this situation so I do not need to take further action. At the beginning of the season, I had hoped that this step would not be necessary. I fully support the Mayo for Love trade, and believe it was the right move. Getting rid of Marko Jaric and obtaining Mike Miller makes giving up a dynamic scorer like Mayo worth it, especially since Love appears to be a solid contributor. Unfortunately, that appears to be the only positive step taken during the off-season.
The following is a list of some of the grievances I have with your organization.
During this six-month period, I will continue to follow the team, but I will also be scouting other teams, looking for one that is more worthy of my support. I am hopeful that you will show signs of progress and allow me to continue my role with the team. I will be sending bi-monthly reports on your progress, and hope you considers my suggestions.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions or wish to contact me for any reason, please do so by email, at conner[AT]connermccall[DOT]com
Sincerely
Conner McCall
