damn yankees

Today a lot of people here in downtown Minneapolis wore Minnesota Twins shirts to work. That's because, after work, a few blocks away, the baseball playoffs start. The Twins won their baseball division in impressive style. Reality, though, might hit them hard in the face now since the first (and maybe only) team they're meeting in the playoffs is their nemesis, the New York Yankees. In their last 18 meetings, Minnesota has won two games and the Yankees have won 16. Of course, everybody in the country other than Yankee fans hate the Yankees, so maybe all that hate flowing from around the U.S. will energize the Twins to victory.

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Then, if somehow they get past the Yankees, the Twins will face either Texas or Tampa, and the winner of that match-up will go to the World Series to face the National League champ, which of course I'm hoping will be the Phillies. Philadelphia starts their playoffs tonight against Cincinnati. It's a lot of good teams to get past, but a Phillies-Twins World Series would be great, wouldn't it?

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The Phillies were in the World Series last year, you know, but ended up losing to -- whoops, the Yankees. Damn!

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Football note: I'm so glad I kept my Randy Moss Vikings jersey!!

dusty, rainy

We're in the new condo finally, even though some of the work by contractors is still being finished. It's hard to keep up with the dust. I'll be so happy when the last one of them is gone and we can give the place a good cleaning.

Meanwhile, around us, it's been raining here for several days. Rainy and chilly. April was way nicer than May has been so far. Earlier this evening, it stopped raining but the skies were still very threatening. I decided to take a chance and walk over to the gym, six blocks away at Target Center. Target Field, the new Twins stadium, is next door to Target Center, and when I came out of the gym, the straggler scalpers were trying to get rid of their last tickets for tonight's Twins game (The game had already started). A scalper talked me into spending eight bucks for a decent ticket, and I thought, what the heck, why not?

So I went to the game, spent nine bucks on a brat and a bottled water, and sat among the huddled masses in their blankets and hooded sweatshirts. The new stadium, everybody agrees, is great. An outdoor baseball game on a beautiful summer will be perfect, but this was not one of those perfect nights. I enjoyed the outdoor-baseball ambience for several innings until my hands got too cold and the White Sox scored five runs in one inning, and I was out of there, walking quickly back to face the dust.

I guess I'm one of those fair-weather Twins fans you hear about. But I do admit, I love having the stadium nearby.

more sports and weather

It looks like Brett Favre isn't coming to the Vikings after all, or, who knows?, maybe he just wants a chance later on to get his name back in the headlines again, Will he un-retire or won't he? I know the guy is a dweeb, but I just want to see some spark in this franchise so that they don't move to Los Angeles in a couple years if they don't get their new stadium, and maybe he could be a one-year spark.

Switching from football to a sport that is actually in season -- baseball. The Minnesota Twins, the team that was almost dissolved several years ago by Major League Baseball because the state wouldn't build them a new stadium, moves into their brand new stadium next spring. The stadium is looking good, everybody is excited about finally having baseball outdoors again after twenty-some years inside the Metrodome, an awful venue for baseball but which somehow helped bring them two World Series Championships. And there is certainly something romantic about picturing those beautiful summer nights watching baseball outdoors. But remember what I was telling you about what a terrible April we had this year -- the wind and the rain and the cold? And do know how many snowstorms Minnesota has had during the month of October while some teams somewhere were off playing in the World Series? Let's hope for lots of rugged season-ticketholders. And players.
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On the home front: we've taken our house off the market for now and are going to try to stick it out. :-)
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My next blog will be sport-less and weather-less. I promise.

the Phillies do it!

The Phillies have won the 2008 World Series.

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When you're a fan of the Philadelphia professional sports teams, you wait a long time between chances to win the Big One. I think of my nephew Michael. He is an absolutely devoted Philadelphia sports fan, and, since he has been old enough to follow the teams, there has been a total drought of championships. He has had his heart broken many times during those years...

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So, I say to Michael, enjoy it!!! The Phillies did it!

a home run

A reason to flip the channel from last night's final (thank God!) presidential debate: The Phillies were beating the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant and head to the World Series. Let's go, Phils.... Philadelphia hasn't had championship team in so many years...

(wow, it's October 16th already and the World Series doesn't start til next week -- Was the Series always this late? Might be chilly baseball weather -- unless they end up playing in Tampa, that is.)

No TV tonight... I hate TV most of the time. And the work week was too busy.... So it's mellowing-out night tonight... Listening to Rachmaninoff, 2nd Piano Concerto. From there, maybe I'll get really wild and move on to the 3rd.

hanging out with mud hens

Most of the world is in China now for the Olympics, but my brother Davy, who lives in China, is currently here in the States. He teaches English in Shanghai, is on semester break.. . He's been in Toledo, Ohio part of this week visiting his daughter (my niece) Ling, so I made a sort of spur-of-the-moment decision to drive to Ohio from Minnesota (about 650 miles) to spend a couple days with him and with Ling. So here I am. Greetings from Toledo.

Have gotten to know the city a bit the past couple days. Last night, we went to a Toledo Mud Hens minor-league baseball game ("Klinger" on M*A*S*H's team). Nice stadium, fun game, dinner afterwards at Tony Packo's (another "Klinger" reference).

A couple things happened that I've never seen before at a baseball game. First, one of the Mud Hens swung at a pitch, and his whole bat flew out of his hands way up into the third-base stands (a guy caught it). Then, in the same at-bat, his bat flew out of his hands again, this time landing in the Mud Hens dugout. Wow, a dangerous place to be! Soon after that, a batter hit a foul ball that went over the net in front of us (we were in the 2nd level behind home plate), bounced off the luxury boxes above us, and hit Davy in the knee, then bounced down to the first level.

So Davy had a sore knee today. He says what hurt most, though, was everybody booing him for not catching the ball. I say to him, the heck with all of them, and, by the way, if you have a bad knee the rest of your life, just tell everybody it's from an old baseball injury.

Leaving town tomorrow, heading in the general direction of home. I think.

a late-spring sports update

Two or three years ago, as I was walking into the locker room at the gym, innocently wearing my Philadelphia Flyers t-shirt (because it happened to be clean, probably!), a guy walked up to me, got in my face, and said, "The Penguins are going to kill the Flyers this year!" Who was I to argue? This guy was rabid, and it's rare to run into a rabid Pittsburgh Penguins fan in downtown Minneapolis. I thought of him this morning when I opened the sports page, something I apparently hadn't done recently, and noticed that somewhere in the world (specifically Pittsburgh and Detroit) people are still playing that icy sport of hockey -- the Stanley Cup finals. That Penguins fan must be having a meltdown by now. Wow!, what a long season. Seems like the Wild -- and, later on, the Flyers -- were eliminated ages ago.

And there across the page I saw that there are four teams still playing basketball. Hey, go Celtics! Kevin Garnett deserves a ring after all those frustrating years with the Timberwolves.

The gym where I work out is at Target Center, home of the Timberwolves. One cool thing about working out there right now is that the new Twins baseball stadium, set to open in 2010, is being built next door. Three or four times a week (or however many times I can drag my unmotivated butt to the gym), I get to check out the progress. It's fun watching a stadium being built. A slow process, almost as slow as baseball itself.

Baseball?.. a true spring sport? The Twins, I see, (still playing in their domed stadium) are two games behind Chicago in their division. Ah, better news: The Phillies are only a half game out of first place in their division. Go, Phils. Philly needs a championship of some kind.

What else matters?

P.S. Happy Birthday, Heron... :-)