World Series Game 3: Effective Problem Solving

How do you get back into a series trailing two games to none? Have guys who have hit well throughout the rest of the season, hit well again.

How do you endure a third straight game of Joe Buck? Talk to your friend in Seattle and put the game on mute until the computer screen freezes and your spared any more inanity.

How do you convince your undergrad neighbors that they don't actually HAVE to turn up the bass while butchering their way through a game of Rock Band when you want to go to sleep?

....

No seriously, I'm asking: How do you convince your undergrad neighbors that they don't actually HAVE to turn up the bass while butchering their way through a game of Rock Band when you want to go to sleep?

World Series Game 2: Congratulations are in order

Congrats to Matt Cain and all the Giants fans who have found clever word plays to be made of that name ("Cain is Able!" "You Cain't Touch This!" "Beware the CandyCain forest and go home to your Gumdrop Mountains!"--okay that last one wasn't really there...but I'm not as smart as San Fransiscans.)

Congrats also to CJ Wilson, the Peanuts From Heaven favorite non-Minnesota pitching nerd. You pitched well...you deserve better than an L in the history books and we hope you get another shot at the big W.

And congrats to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver who proved once and for all that they could count: "That's the fifth straight ball.....six balls in a row....seven consecutive balls...and that's eight straight consecutive balls in a row!...NINE! etc." This of course took place during the disastrous eighth inning when, with two outs, the Texas bullpen became the gang that couldn't throw straight.

I wondered: what was the cause of this debacle? Could it be a release point problem? Over worked arms from last night? Changes in the strike zone throughout the game? Honestly, I have no idea because instead I was treated to Buck and McCarver impersonating The Count on Sesame Street. Thank god they didn't talk about batting averages ("Josh Hamilton is hitting: 1...2..etc, etc....345....346 with runners in scoring position!! bah-ah-ahhhhhhh!!!")

Here's hoping we have some thrilling games ahead (and that we don't have to say goodbye to baseball in a scant 4 games)

World Series Game 1: The forgotten thing about duels...

At least one person ends up wounded or dead.

That, in retrospect, was the flaw with all the hype and analysis of the first game of the world series. All we heard was pitching duel this and pitching duel that, and what we got was one of the highest scoring World Series games ever. Turning that duel into a draw, and sending both Lee and Lincecum off the mound, bloody, battered and a little bit astonished.

Was Cliff Lee awesome coming in? Yup. Was Tim Lincecum a two-time Cy Young winner? You betcha. Was it reasonable to assume that two great pitchers, in the so-called "year-of-the-pitcher" would make game one all about the pitchers? Yes.

And therein lies the other flaw: we keep expecting for patterns to hold, for the favored team to win the game in the manner proscribed by the stat-crunchers and pundits throughout the internet--the same stat-crunchers and pundits who didn't give either of these teams much chance to make the World Series in the first place.

Nothing can be predicted. Nothing can be foretold. And predictions are bound to proven wrong.

Hmm...maybe we can use that to our advantage...I PREDICT THE WORLD SERIES WILL BE BORING! (heh, now we're in for a good one)

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

Stinky and I have been talking throughout the LCS and, strangely that's how we feel. It's odd to be elated in Twins territory right now, I know. But if we put aside our personal pain for a minute we can see happy people, and deservedly happy people at that. There's no doubt about it though, we should be happy for them, no matter what we feel personally.

Last year it was the Yankees V.s. the Phillies, pure pinstriped snootery v.s. what some have called "the Red Yankees". It was hard to watch...in part because so many teams go decades without world series trips or victories and those two teams seem to be ensconced in championship entitlement. Where was the underdog? Where was the heart? Where was the basic human dignity that any other team would have brought to the table?

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Mercifully, though the same series was in the offing this year, we will be spared the pain. Instead we'll see one team who has never ever been to the World Series (Texas) play a team who's last World Series Title came before the Rangers were even created. We'll see my compadres in grodie hair (Lincecum and Wilson...an inspiration to the kids, both of you) versus the single greatest ambassador of nerdery in America today (CJ Wilson). And in the end one group of fans who have been waiting for 50+ years will finally get their reward.

It stinks that we lost. It stinks that we lost to a team that played like chopped garbage against the Rangers. But it's over and done with now, we can obsess over postseason strategizing (to arbitrate or not!!) or we can watch and love the last few minutes of summer before succumbing to the long dull winter. So bring on the World Series and the joy and pain associated with it. As long as there's human decency afoot I'm a happy man.

P.s. I know Stinky's got her favorite, maybe if we all ask politely she'll come and tell us why.

Heavy Duty Hardware

As the playoffs role on, Stinky and I wanted to make a small shout out to a Twin who had a great season and deserves to take home an award that recognizes his superb contribution to not only Twins Territory but all of America. You can help him obtain this accolade by following the link below and casting your vote in recognition of his awesomeness:

VOTE CARL PAVANO FOR MUSTACHIOED AMERICAN OF THE YEAR!

It takes a great man to wear a psuedo-caterpillar on his upper-lip all year, to with stand the taunts and jeers of visiting teams and remain strong in the face of adversity. Carl Pavano did all that AND avoided the embarrassment of getting foodstuffs trapped in his lip jacket.

A Man, a Minnesotan, A Mustachioed Defender of Freedom!

Clash of the Talking Heads Playoff Edition!

**Note: with so much ink being spilled over the various championship serieses, I decided to wait until I had something meaningful to say before blogging again. Then I reversed that decision when I realized I could do more snarky commentator analysis!

Tonight's Contestants: Ernie Johnson, Ron Darling and John Smoltz (the flagship team of TBS coverage, responsible for both the Yankees/Twins divisional series, and the ALCS)

Credentials: Ernie Johnson has been an announcer for over 30 years but, as an Atlanta boy, has been largely confined to Ted Turner's monolithic hold on NBA games, it wasn't until TBS bought out the division series' that he won the right to get back into baseball. Ron Darling pitched 12 years for three teams, made an all-star team and now announces for the Mets telecasts (he also speaks Chinese and French!). And John Smoltz is so flippin' accomplished that his wikipedia page doesn't even condescend to mention a piddling announcing job: 8 All-Star appearances, a Cy Young award, pitched in 5 World Series, and an accomplished accordionist.

Analysis: With most two-man teams you get two perspectives: play-by-play from a guy who's really just a big kid with a well modulated voice, and in-depth analysis from a former player. If you add a third man to that mix and you would hope that he offered something different...not in this case! Darling and Smoltz are both pitchers. Darling and Smoltz both know what's happening on the diamond. But, while Smoltz delves into minutia to explain just why release points and elbow angles and stutter steps by lead runners make such a difference, Darling ends up paraphrasing the action in his own words. Personally, I think Darling is dead weight, but he does provide some of the worst tangential comedy you could ask for when you're trying to watch a baseball game!...So...bright side?

Meanwhile Johnson is reasonably serviceable in the play-by-play chair. Much better than the jack-wagon Chip Caray we all learned to hate last year. Johnson is less prone to Yankee-induced-drooling than Caray was, though, as always, the Yankees induce lots of unnecessary amazement (Jeter jump throws! (and-doesn't-get-the-base-runner-but-that-doesn't-matter-because) HE JUMP-THROWS!!!!). The biggest problem for Ernie Johnson the baseball announcer is that he's battling 20 years of Ernie Johnson the basketball announcer. I keep waiting for him to say: "And the Portland Trail Blazers take the field!" or "Great shot to right field by Dirk Nowitzki!" or "what do you think Charles Barkley?!?" He never does of course, he's too professional to do that but his hyper-active enthusiasm makes more sense in the up-and-down ceaseless action hard-wood game than the languid, philosophic diamond-based game. And when the lulls are most pronounced he's clearly casting about for any topic to get a laugh out of his buddies in the booth (Darling's amenable, but John Smoltz for laughs NO MAN!!)

Rating: 2.5 Blylevens. There's nothing spectacular about TBS coverage team, though Smoltz is great for the nerd in me, and it's always fun to cock an eyebrow of doubt at Ron Darling's mannerisms. But as long as we're stuck with national coverage, these guys will do fine.

And then there were four

So we're out of the playoffs, as are Bobby Cox, those devilish Rays, and the communists of Cincinnati (just kidding Reds fans!). Sadder still for me, I'm back in Ohio away from the warm, tater-tot-casserole scented embrace of Minnesotans. But if anything can pick me up and give me new hope it's cheering for a new team in the Championship and World Series.

One of the nice things about being in a constant state of transit for 11 hours at a time, it gives you plenty of time to ask irrelevant questions (If tuna is chicken of the sea, and manatees are sea cows, what is sea bacon?) and plot blog related shenanigans.

In that spirit I'm happy to give you a set of recommendations about which team you ought to cheer for in the next round of playoffs. But rather than listing their pros and cons, I just popped a few variables into Netflix and saw what they recommended. (In case you've not yet encountered the awesomery of Netflix: after listing things you generally like--shown at left--recommendations are generated on the right, but of course, it's not just baseball!)