mid-summer sports update

Was baseball always this boring?  When I was a kid, I loved baseball.  My brothers and I used to collect baseball cards and had hundreds of them (and should have kept them until they became collector items), and I knew every player on every team.  Of course, there were only 16 teams then, maybe it was just easier.

Or maybe it's that the Minnesota Twins are exceptionally awful this year and are distorting my impressions.

I was given tickets to yesterday's Twins game vs. the Kansas City Royals, and the game was deadly dull (maybe unless you were a Royals fan).  The  best part of going to a Twins game is being in the stadium, which is very cool.  But by the end of the 7th inning, I had enjoyed the stadium and bratwursts and Jumbotrons enough for one day and left.  I look around as I leave and wonder how the season ticketholders manage to come back for as many as 80 home games without going postal.

The Twins record so far this season:  Won 45, Lost 60, and they are 15 1/2 games behind first-place Detroit in the American League Central.  And there is no hope of getting better than that this year.

The Philadelphia Phillies, my other team -- almost as pathetic:  Won 50, Lost 58, 13.5 games behind first-place Atlanta in the National League East.

No more baseball talk this year.
*****
Meanwhile, football teams are in training camp and pre-season games start any day now, the depressing part of that being that once football season starts, suddenly it's Christmas, and who can think about that?  Here's another depressing thought:  A month from now, the Minnesota State Fair will be wrapping up.  It will be Labor Day.

So, if somebody offers you Twins tickets this year, Just Say No.  Get away from your television.  Don't watch any more baseball or NFL pre-season games.  Go for a walk.  Go for a bike ride.  Think warm thoughts.  It's summer and it's fast.