There is a God

From the strib: "Risebrough fired as Wild GM"

Now with him and Jacque no longer in the organization, I may actually watch a Wild game.

Vikings @ Cardinals Part II

December 6th - Let me know if you need hotel accomodations.

Congratulations!

I just wanted to take this time to congratulate myself for winning the C-Town Goons 'n' Goalies fantasy hockey league. It was a long season, and I have to say the shut out victory in the championship was well deserved. I am a great hockey mind. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Wild and Gopher Hockey Undefeated This Week

The title really has no relevance other than I felt the need to say something positive and the rest of this post is anything but that. To the game: Twice the Twins had a runner on 3rd with nobody out and failed to get him home tonight. Keep in mind they lost by 2. Let's start with the 4th inning; Cuddyer leads off with a double and scores on a Buscher triple. At this point the score is 4-2 Twins and odds are it's going to be at least 5-2 by the end of the inning. Enter Delmon Young. Three straight pitches out of the strike zone and three worthless hacks later, there's one out and Buscher is still at third. After a lineout from Morales we're left with Nicky Punto needing a hit to score a run. Needless to say he had blown his load with a hit earlier in the game and also struck out to strand numbnuts at third. Sweet. After Slowey was done staking his claim to a bullpen spot, Gardy brings in Matt "Larry" Guerrier. He was pulled before he could do much damage, but still managed to give up a walk, stolen base, and a base hit while only facing 4 batters. After Breslow came in and struckout the only batter he faced, Gardy turns to Luis "Curly" Ayala. I'm not sure where this bum came from, but he is making me hate Guerrier and Crain a little less by sucking a little more. He managed to give up 4 hits including a 2 run bomb in just an inning of work, which gave the Jays their first lead of the game at 8-6. This brings us to the 8th inning where the Twins had another golden opportunity to get back in the game. Brendan Harris led off with a double, went to third on a wild pitch and then a familiar story took place. Delmon Young looked like a one-eyed retard flailing at just about every pitch he saw on his way to his second strikeout of the game with a runner on third and nobody out. After that Crede came off the bench to strikeout and finally Punto followed suit with a strikeout to once again strand a runner at third. While Punto was batting even Dick and Bert were hoping for a wild pitch. Fucking pathetic.

A couple of other observations from the first week: Regardless of what Mauer does at the plate, they need him back and quick. I love Redmond as much as the next guy, but he can't play every day being 60 years old and this other catcher throws like Ray Swatzell and hits like Barry Altepeter. And he dropped a pop up 3 feet from home plate. Fag. The twins pitching is shit and every time they throw a pitch I envision it landing in the gap somewhere. I'm not sure if missing Mauer has anything to do with this, but I'm assuming it hasn't helped. I don't think I've seen a single Twins pitcher shake off a sign from either catcher so far this year (i drink a lot during the games so this could be innacurate) and there is no way that Morales knows dick about the majority of the hitters. I'm not sure if they're afraid they're going to offend him or if they're somehow confident in what he's calling, but whatever it is aint working. Fuck it, it's early. At least we're not Nationals fans, they suck real bad.

Nice Weekend Guys

I was going to do a Twins recap of the games this weekend, but that seems a bit unnecessary given the way the games went. They scored one run all weekend losing twice to the Sox. Done.

I heard a rumor that two Timmy's from C-town are making a push to Douggie Riseborough to take over the reins of the Wild. Seriously I think Lemaire did what he had to do with the bunch of circus midgets he had to work with, but it's probably overdue bringing in somebody else to give it a shot. Smart money is probably on one of his assistant coaches, and I wouldn't mind seeing Mario Tremblay take over. If nothing else the guy has the stones to fire pucks at goalies' throats during practice if he doesn't like them. If you need more on that just google tremblay/roy and see what you find. Roy is an assbag too, so I like this guy even more.

Hockey Time...with Joe Finley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAF1z-uAPFw

stay tough, Joe.

Fuck You Ozzie

I didn't watch the entire game tonight, mainly because I was flipping back and forth between the Wild game, the Blues/Blue Jackets, and later the Ducks/Stars game. I did manage to see the Canadian rip one to left and the Twins pour on 7 runs in one inning against them cock suckers from Chicago. Even my boy Delmon got himself a batting average tonight along with his first two RBI. Granted he did all of that with the infield pulled in, had they been at double play depth it would've no doubt been a tailor made 4-6-3. Regardless, he's on the board and now hitting a whopping .091 which is identical to Casey English at the Clearbrook tourney that one year. Now we all know if bunting was legal in slow pitch he would've been hovering around the .400 mark, but still. R.A. Dickey made his Twins debut and got the win, which in the grand scheme of things is all you really ask for out of your 5th starter. Way to go buddy.

MVP - Joe Crede

Crede hit his first homer as a Twin and I'm assuming nothing feels better than ramming it up the ass of your former team. Figuratively of course, although with that blonde hair AJ looks pretty gay and probably would really appreciate something ramming up his ass. Crede also walked twice and scored two runs so I guess that's pretty good.

Wild Update...

Wild score a season-high 8 goals in their win over Nashville tonight eliminating the A-Rod Jr's and keeping their own slim playoff hopes alive. St. Louis also won tonight securing themselves a bid and relegating the Wild hopes to Anaheim losing their remaining two games. The Ducks are tied right now with Dallas after the 2nd period and if they manage to lose in regulation tonight, they need to find a way to lose to the Coyotes tomorrow night. If the Stars take care of business I'll be heading down to the Renaisance hotel so I can get a room next to the Ducks' block. I figure 30 hookers dripping with STD's should do the trick. If not, we're going to be at the game tomorrow and I'll bring my marbles.

Well the Wild just learned why you don't leave your playoff hopes in the hands of others. The Stars managed two goals in the last 6 minutes against the Ducks, but also gave up another and are heading to OT right now, eliminating the Wild from the playoffs. In the end it's probably better that we'll get to see the Sharks piss throttle the Ducks or the Blues instead of the Wild, but it still sucks ball sack. Fuck it.

The Archives

I stumbled upon this classic today, and found it appropriate to share with all.

Enjoy!

NOTE: It is a video clip so hit the "play" button on the bottom left of the picture.

Typical Day Game

Once again, I'm too lazy to look up any actual stats, so bear with me. It seems, however, that the Twins just don't give a shit about non-televised day games. Glen Perkins tosses an 8 inning gem only to have the Twins get shutout for the first time of the year. I'd love to give the MVP to Mariners second baseman Jose Lopez, but rules are rules. Actually there are no rules, but it's gonna be a Twins player each game so whatever. He did manage to strike out his first two at bats, then grounded into double plays in his following two at bats, accounting for almost 25% of his team's outs for the game. Awesome. Another candidate would have to be the Seattle manager, whose name is chinese and who looks mexican, not positive on either, but he tried to give the Twins hope in the 9th by bringing in Brandon Morrow and his 40.50 ERA. Unfortunately not even that was enough to put the Twins on the board. Delmon Young continued his perfection at the plate going 0-3 before being lifted for a pinch hitter in the 9th. That brings his average up to .000 and my preseason prediction of him having a big year is looking sillier every time he plays. Whatever, it's Masters weekend so who cares.

MVP - Glen Perkins

Scattered 5 hits through 8 innings and got rewarded with a big steamy pile of dung. I'll assume he'll be out on the golf course smoking a fatty and will have forgotten about this game by the weekend.

1st Place!

That's right fuckers, your Minnesota Twins are in first place. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'm willing to bet it's been quite some time since we've been able to say that. As for the game, I'm not gonna lie it was a pretty boring affair, compounded by the fact that I was stone sober. I'm sure that'll change tomorrow night when they take on the Sox, but that's neither here nor there. Span made his best case for his second straight MVP of this blog by hitting a 2 run bomb in the second inning, only to be outdone by our favorite dim-witted Canadian. More on that later. The bad news for the day is Joe Crede's two game hit streak comes crashing to a halt, just 54 games short of tying Joe DiMaggio's record that has stood for a butt load of years (68 years to be exact, see what happens when I get really bored). Also, the Crainwreck pitched a rare scoreless inning, and we're not talking rare like seeing a clean Mexican, we're talking rare like seeing Christ. This shit just doesn't happen. Kevin Slowey became the first Twins pitcher of 2009 to record a win; not that he deserved it the way he kept battling to keep Seattle in the game, but nonetheless. Nathan also found his way into the record books by recording his 1st save of the year and 200th as a Twin. Outstanding.

MVP - DERRRRR

Derr came in with a batting average of... well he didn't exactly have a batting average coming into this one. He had been 0-8 with 8 runners left on base through the first two games, until a first inning moon shot gave the Twins a 2-0 lead. On top of the big bomb, Derr also walked and hit an RBI double. Even the out he made was a laser that almost found it's way into right-center field. Nice work ya idiot.

Trivia: what year was the picture at the top of this post taken? Answer tomorrow.

"Wooh, I did not c that happening"

The title of this post is lifted word for word from a text I received minutes after the Twins game last night. Awesome. I won't put a name on here, but there's a real good chance if you're reading this that you also received the text and know who sent it out. If not, take a guess and I'll bet you're right.

As for the game itself, I'll quote another post-game text and just say "Holy fucking shit Batman!" Couldn't agree more. Let's take a look at the events that had to take place leading up to the improbable finish...

1. Matt Guerrier pitches two scoreless innings. Seriously. And he looked good doing it. You're all aware how I feel about this homo, but for this one game anyways, he was money.

2. Gardy leaves Nathan in the pen trailing by a run heading to the 9th at home. If you read my post from last night, you can pretty much guess how I felt about this decision. I'll probably expand on this at some point in the near future as I could bitch for 5 pages about this method of thinking. So we'll leave it at that.

3. Carlos Gomez. This idiot walked all of 25 times last season, yet somehow manages to eke out a two out walk in the 9th, essentially starting the rally. His comments after the game included this gem: "I still swing, but I've got a plan when I go to the plate. I look for a pitch. If he don't throw it, I don't swing." My advice to opposing pitchers; throw a lot of off speed pitches.

4. Kubel and Buscher also walk, both of them in pinch hitting roles. Twins pinch hitting has been pretty much worthless ever since LeCroy hit like 4 bombs as a pinch hitter a few years ago. I wonder what that Newquist look a like is up to these days. I'll assume he's playing softball somewhere and absolutely ripping it up.

After that, all it took was an RBI single from Span and a two run single from Casilla and the Twins were back to .500. Game is in HD tonight, so everyone should be able to count the sweat beads rolling around on Silva's fat head.

MVP - Denard Span

Span had 3 hits, two of them drove in runs, stole a base and scored a run. He's better than you are.

Is Nathan Hurt?

Why the fuck don't you bring him in to pitch the 9th down by a run? He's supposed to be your best reliever right? If you're down heading to the 9th at home there is absolutely no chance for a save right? Fuckin christ Gardy, I swear to god he won't explode if he pitches and it's not a save situation. Gay.

It's Go Time!

Well it certainly has been one fuck of a month, but things are starting to get back to normal, and along with that I think it's time to fire up this poor excuse of a blog again.

I fully intended to do a live blog of the Twins opener, but I didn't crack a beer until the first pitch and just wasn't feeling it. After watching the game it's probably a good thing because I would've gotten bored and quit typing the minute Derr bounced into that inning/comeback/rally/game - ending double play. After that the only joy I got was watching the Gurrain Train derail and put to rest any remaining hope. Guerrier managed to keep his ERA at 0.00 for the time being, even though he was on the hill for the two 9th inning runs. Ol' Crainwreck wasn't so lucky however, as he saw his ERA shoot up to 13.50 where it should remain for the duration of the season. Here's hoping that was the last time we see either of those mental patients pitch in a meaningful situation this year. I realize that is certainly not the case, but it gives me something to hope for anyways. Fuck.

MVP - Mike Redmond

It seems like every game he gets his ass battered worse than Skippy in prison, and yet he never comes out of a game. He's either really tough or really dumb, neither of which would surprise me. And on top of taking a broken bat to the head last night, he still had the Twins' only extra base hit and scored the only run. That fucker is alright in my book. Well, I don't really have a book, but if I did he'd be on the cover.

Final Five: We Hardly Remember Ye

Now, many of us are attending WCHA's Final Five this weekend, and I know how excited we can get about it. Some of us have been busily emailing each other all week in preparation and excitement, while others have been doing fuzzy math during our night shift at the liquor store on the how much we'll save on cheese curds alone if we don't go down to the cities until Saturday night. Needless to say, it's occupied a great deal of our time so far. So much so, that I fear some of you have missed out on a very important day. This past Tuesday was a day that deserves observance, and I think we really missed the boat, collectively. It's a day that celebrates a wonderful story. A day that should be honored. I am talking, of course, about...












Wait for it...






Wait for it...







Just a little more...





Almost...

... Patrick Duffy's birthday!

Now, unless you're me, you probably don't go to theonion.com everyday to read the American Voices section. If you are me, you would have noticed that the last three days' American Voices have all been devoted to Patrick Duffy's bday for some reason. At first I didn't understand why, so I did some digging... and figured out he was the dad on Step-by-Step, and most likely banged Suzanne Sommers in her prime. And maybe had a fling with that brunette stepdaughter from the show that was being so relentlessly pursued by everybody's favorite: Cody (or whatever the dumb guys name was). Who knows - he's fucking Patrick Duffy, anything is possible. In addition, he was on a show called Dallas, which I'm told was a big hit at the time. I think it was about rich cowboys from the 70s, judging by pictures on the interwebs.



In any event, I just wanted everyone to take a second to reflect on what Patrick Duffy and Step-by-Step (No , not Step-by-Step by NKOTB [New Kids on the Block], Step-by-Step the hilarious long-running sitcom with the classic nerd kid with glasses) meant to them. Thanks for your time.



Notcho

Yes, I do realize I am going to Hell

CROOKSTON PIRATES SPECIAL OLYMPICS BASKETBALL TAKE SECOND!!





The Crookston Pirates Special Olympics basketball team completed their season in Perham in the Region 4 tournament. The morning session was individual skills and the athletes all placed well in their divisions. The afternoon had games. There were 3 on 3 half court games (which the majority of teams played) and full court. There were only 2 teams entered in the full court, of which the Pirates were one. The other team was the Perham team, who are the 5 time state champions in the highest division. Apparently no one else wanted to take them on, but the Pirates were willing and able. Last year, they lost 62 -0. This year was different. The Pirates lost both games of the best of three, but there is more to the story than that. This time the scores were 48-6 and 41-5. The athletes stood toe to toe with them and did not let down. By the end, they were exhausted. But, they lived the spirit of the special olympics oath, "Let me win, but if I do not win, let me be brave in the attempt."

Cock Tease from "The Classic"

Seeing this headline got me a little excited, "Punto injures elbow at Classic" Then it all came crashing down as I read the article.

BRADENTON, Fla. -- Nick Punto's departing gift from the World Baseball Classic was not exactly a pleasant one.
The Twins shortstop returned to the clubhouse at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, Fla., on Thursday morning with a swollen right elbow, the result of getting drilled by a pitch in Italy's loss to Venezuela on Tuesday night.
Punto had an X-ray on the elbow after that game and it came back negative. The Twins medical staff was going to look over the X-rays he had taken, but the expectation was that Punto will just miss a couple of days while he waits for the swelling to go down.
"It's pretty stiff," Punto said of his elbow. "We'll see. ... The swelling has gone up a bit. It could just be the flight [back to Florida] too."
Although the swollen elbow was a disappointing way to end the Classic for Punto, he said the overall experience was more than he could have imagined. Italy's 6-2 victory over Canada at Rogers Centre in Toronto was an especially memorable moment.
"It was unbelievable," Punto said of the win. "It was exciting for everybody, but it was truly like they won Game 7 of the World Series -- from the manager to the players to the president of the Italian Federation."
While some of Punto's teammates have teased Justin Morneau and Jesse Crain about Team Canada's loss to Italy, the shortstop said he won't be giving those guys any grief.
"I don't even want to touch that," said Punto, who went 1-for-12 with an RBI in three games for Italy. "I'm sure they are still a little sore about it."
The Twins shortstop had so much fun in the event that he said he'd love to take part in when the next Classic rolls around in three years. But he came away with one lesson from it as well. Punto, who has been hit by only one pitch in his Major League career, said that he's going to try to stay out of the way of any errant pitches in the future.
"It hurt," Punto said. "Now I know why I don't get hit by pitches."


I guess it was just too good to be true, cue the blue balls. The shit news for the Twins is that his 0.083 WBC batting average will probably be ready for the regular season. What a fucking pussy, I hate Punto.


And by the way, Doc, did you get the Flux Capacitor fixed and take the fucking Delorean out again? You have an explanation of events on 3/9/2009 posted on 3/6/2009. Simply amazing!

Explanation of Events on 3/9/09

First of all, had I known about the events that had transpired earlier in the day, I would've never thought the Wild would lose last night's game. It wasn't until this morning that I was given the full story, and I'll recount that here to let all of you know exactly how the Wild won last night.

7:00am C-Town Time(CTT)

Here we see our favorite goalie Reeser starting the morning off workin on the rails. I'm not sure where he was planning on going, but I'll bet he never got there.

9:00am CTT
The call comes in from SJ Sharks GM Doug Wilson telling Reese to get his pads out of the basement. It seems Nabakov is out and they're in a pinch. Naturally Reeser is busy having a ciggy so he misses the call, but he'll get the biggest voicemail ever soon enough.

11:00am CTT
Reese puts in a call to Bob Montague pleading for any advice that might help him settle down and be ready for the game. "You've only got one job to do, stop the puck." Nuff said.

12:00pm CTT

Reeser is on a plane and heading for California. Soils all three barf bags in his row. Now working on some Copenhagen.

4:00pm CTT
Rumors start flying around San Jose that this kid from Minnesota is being called up by the Sharks. Nabakov has no comment.

6:00pm CTT

Reeser arrives at the arena to throngs of reporters wondering just who the hell he is. "No comment, talk to the birdie."

8:30pm CTT
Dressed and ready to go, the puke count up to 5, It's finally time to hit the ice. Rob Blake taped over Reese's skate blades and his entrance onto the ice for warmups is a memorable one. That crafty old fuck. In another bizarre move, the Sharks allow The Feever to warm up their new goalie, and all this results in is about 30 head shots and a stick in the nuts. Needless to say Reeser is rattled.

9:30pm CTT
Game Time. Reeser looks to be shitting bricks right now.

10:45pm CTT
We're about half way through the second period and the Sharks have built themselves a 3-0 lead. Reese hasn't had this many shutout minutes since...well never. Maybe in mens league that one time, but that really doesn't count.

11:00pm CTT
Bergeron finally solves the mystery goalie from Minnesota. Apparently someone on the Wild staff was watching film of warmups to get an idea on this kid's weaknesses and noticed after about 13 or 14 head shots he was turtling on every shot above his waist. The call came in to the bench and before anybody knew what happened we were heading to the 2nd intermission with the Wild down just 3-2.

12:00am CTT
With about 8 minutes left in the game and the Sharks clinging to a one goal lead, another tip comes into the the Wild bench. It seems the coach of the high school team in Detroit Lakes is watching the game, and apparently knows a surefire way to get the Wild another goal. He tells the lockerroom staff about a play they ran back in '98 that worked like a charm. "Just bounce the puck from as close to center ice as possible, make sure it hops a couple times and he'll lose it 5-hole." What happened next will live on in highlight shows forever.

Here's a still shot, bulletin board material if you will.

1:00am CTT
Overtime now. Scrum in front of Reeser, he gets shoved aside like a salad in front of skippy, and just like that the Wild leave California with two points. San Jose sent Reese packing, probably his last soiree in the NHL, but you never know.

I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it, but it all makes sense now.

Gross

That's all I can say about the picture that previously occupied this space. Thanks pipe smoker. Anyways, I've been hoping somebody would post anything to get that picture to drop down, unfortunately that didn't happen so I'll have to step in. Wilbur sent me a link to his blog, which includes a pretty in-depth preview of the Twins season. I refuse to post it on here due to a couple things; A)My preview is better. B)It's like 6 pages long. C)My preview is all you need to know. Anyways, here's the link to his blog. My only suggestion is to drink more when posting, it makes everything better.

God I can still see that fucking picture.

Hopefully this will take care of that.

Oh yeah, and the Wild are in the midst of a serious ass-whipping at the hands of the Sharks. Either San Jose is really good or the Wild are all drunk. Probably both. It reminds me of what would happen if a varsity high school team played the JV. Which reminds me of one of the worst movies of all time; D3. My favorite part of that movie is when Charlie is crying because he isn't captain anymore and Hans throws a bunch of C's at him. Then he dies. I blame Charlie.

Doug (I shit my pants when it comes doing something productive) Risebrough

Once again another trade deadline has passed us and Doug is caught with his pecker in his hands. This guys has not been able to pull the trigger or get anything done since he made a mess in the 90's out of a Gilmour trade. I am going to suggest he, just like the reporter in Colorado, walk his children to school. Douggie R., congrats, you are the biggest f ing joke right next to Marian (my pussy hurts all day everday) Gaborik. I love Belanger's comments on Gabby when told he was taking some tests, "what, is he getting a degree, he has had enough time off to study for one." I am glad that Doug was working those phones so hard today in attempt to better his team. I guess he felt confident in the fact that we score two goals a game and have a line that includes...Weller, Boogard, and sometimes AHL all star Krys Kolanos. Doug was found in his office today wearing this shitty diaper.

Note To Josh Harding:

Have fun in Detroit next year.

Sincerely,
Doc


SAINT PAUL/MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- Minnesota Wild President and General Manager Doug Risebrough today announced the National Hockey League (NHL) club has re-signed goaltender Niklas Backstrom to a four-year, $24 million contract that will run through the 2012-2013 NHL season