Fish Fear Me

Score One For Obama

Hmmm...It's been some time since I've seen this behavior, so maybe there is a compelling reason for me to vote for Obama in 2012:

Lewis: He has instilled a sense of hope. People need hope. I’ll give you an example: I have a Congressional colleague from California who, out on the street one day, saw a young black man, as is the fashion these days, with his pants hanging down, showing his underwear. This young lady said to the man: “Pull up your pants. Son, pull up your pants for Barack Obama.” The man pulled up his pants.

Though I'm not sure how this fits with Brett Favre and that whole "pants on the ground" thing.

Somebody Poke 'Em With That Bat

The Twins beat the White Sox 9-3 last night, moving to 7 games ahead of Chicago with 18 games left to play. I'm not quite ready to go this far, but one Sox fan is calling it the end:

Here Lies The 2010 White Sox

April 5th, 2010 - September 14th, 2010

The Chicago White Sox (Palehose, Good Guys) passed on September 14th at U.S. Cellular Field with 29,223 of their fans and, of course, the Minnesota Twins at their bedside.

They are survived by their architects, Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen, and were preceded in death by the Designated Hitter and Logic.

The magic number for the Twins now is 12.

Final Stretch

After the win in Cleveland today, the Twins have 19 games remaining and a six game lead over the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central. They travel to Chicago now for three big games starting Tuesday. I'm not going to make any predictions, but I think the White Sox need the sweep to have a real shot at overtaking the Twins at this point. I don't think ending the series five back will do it for them. After the Twins the Sox face Detroit at home for three(Chicago is 8-7 against the Tigers this season), and then head out west for three at Oakland(3-3 this season) and three at the Angels(4-2 this season). They finish the season with four against the Red Sox, who they swept in three just a week ago, and three with the Indians(7-8 this season).

After Chicago, the Twins come home for three against Oakland(5-1 this season) and three against Cleveland(9-6 this season). Then they hit the road for the last time with three in Detroit(9-6 this season) and three in KC(12-3 this season). They finish the season with four at home against Toronto(2-3 this season).

If Chicago manages a sweep, then I can see how it would be possible to make up three games over that stretch. I think making up five games would be possible, but very difficult. If they have to make up seven or nine games, well I don't see the Twins collapse that would let that happen. Um, knock on wood and all that.

In other news: 

• Today marked win number 4000 since the franchise became the Twins back in 1961.
• The Twins have gone 8-2 over the last ten games while the Yankees have gone 4-6 and the Rays have gone 5-5. That means the Twins are suddenly only one game behind Tampa Bay and two games behind New York for the best record. And guess who is going to be down in Tampa Bay for three starting tomorrow...
• And look at that, the Rays have four left in New York. I'm not going to predict that the Twins will end up with the best record, but they have their best shot at home field advantage, at least for the first round, in years.
• The Twins are tied with the Rangers in leading MLB with a team batting average of .276. They have the second best AL team ERA at 3.78. And they are tied with the Reds for a major league leading .989 fielding percentage.
• The Twins were stumbling before the All-Star break and their starting rotation was in disarray with the exception of Carl Pavano. They have been 39-16 after the break, the best record in MLB.

The Twins need to get out of Chicago with at least one win. The White Sox were making a serious run at the Twins with seven straight wins before dropping three in a row in Detroit. Ozzie's gang took two out of three from the Royals and a sweep of the Twins would put them right back in range. They're a banged up club right now, but I still have a lot of respect for them and I'm sure the Twins do too.

There's still no sign that Justin Morneau will be able to get back in the lineup this year. He's been out since suffering a concussion on July 7. I would love to see him on the playoff roster, but the most important thing long-term is that Morneau make a full recovery. If that means he misses the post-season, if there is one for the Twins, then so be it. The first milestone as far as that goes will probably come by the end of next weekend. If Morneau is not batting with an instructional league team or taking batting practice with the Twins, consider him out of the first playoff round if the Twins make it. He's just not going to be up to speed enough to take a precious 25-man roster spot. However, if I understand things correctly, Morneau could make subsequent rosters if the Twins advance to those rounds and he is back up to speed. Could that happen? I think so. Should it? Hmmm, no idea at this point. Frankly, I just hope we're not seeing the end of that young  man's career.

So I don't end this post on a bummer note, go to MLB.com and take a look at Jim Thome's 12th-inning home run on Saturday. It was #587 for Thome, and with it he passed Frank Robinson on the all-time home run list. Glad to see you doing that as a Twin, Jim.

9 Years

Nine years later and the memories of that day are just as sharp and jagged as ever. I can only imagine how it is for those who lost a loved one that day. My thoughts and prayers go out to them today, as always. The upper left corner of this page has links to the 2996 Project that has thousands of links to tributes to those loved ones, and also two that I've done over the years.

I have a number of thoughts about the politics swirling around this day, this year, but I think I'll hold off on those. It seems to me that this is a day that is better served if we are united in remembrance and not divided by politics. We have tomorrow for that.

Which Islam?

I hate seeing this kind of crap:

The new results come alongside increasingly critical public views of Islam: 49 percent of all Americans say they have generally unfavorable opinions of Islam, compared with 37 percent who say they have favorable ones. That's the most negative split on the question in Post-ABC polls dating to October 2001.

Morph into this kind of crap:

Clearly, not all opponents of the project feel unfavorably towards Islam. But two-thirds of them do. Does it mean that anti-Islam attitudes are the direct cause of opposition to the project? Impossible to say. But it's overwhelmingly clear that there's a link between the two sentiments, no matter how often opponents tell you the contrary.

The author of the second quote is Greg Sargent and note how he conflates "feel unfavorably" with anti-Islam. The two are not necessarily the same. I may disapprove of some aspect of Islam, but that does not mean I am anti-Islam or some kind of bigot. The problem with any of these polls is that I never see anyone try to define Islam as anything other than violent or non-violent toward non-Muslims, when Islam is not even close to that simplistic. If someone asked me the question, "Would you say you have a generally favorable or unfavorable opinion of Islam?", my response to them would be; Which Islam?

Are we talking about the version of Islam that kills homosexuals? Yeah, I gotta say unfavorable.

How about the Islam that stones to death anyone convicted of adultery? I'm not a big fan of adulterers, but I'm going to have to go with unfavorable there too.

Perhaps they are talking about the versions of Islam that, to one degree or another, treat women as second class citizens. Sorry, those are going to get an unfavorable too.

Oh, I know, are we talking about the Islam that wants Sharia to be the law of the land? You can kind of guess that one's going to be unfavorable too.

I could keep going, and that's kind of the point. There are so many things that average Americans might disapprove of, depending on whether they are practiced within any particular branch of Islam, that I'm surprised that the number of Americans feeling unfavorable towards Islam in general isn't closer to 80%. And an unfavorable opinion may remove Islam as someone's personal choice, but it does not necessarily translate into "anti-Islam" in general, nor bigotry against Muslims personally. It simply means that there are aspects to how Islam is practiced in this world that people do not like.

Is that a shock to any American who keeps up with the news?

Game On

The long anticipated rematch between the Vikings and the Saints kicks off the NFL season tonight. I expect a very physical and back and forth game. Rob is dead-on here that this game will not have the drama that was present for the NFC Championship game last January, but it will set a tone for the start of the season for both teams.

My perspective as a Vikings fan is that it will boil down to protecting Favre. The consensus among sports pundits seems to be that the key to beating the Vikings is for every opponent to just go after Favre and knock him out. Tonight would be a good night to disabuse them of that notion. People seem to forget that while Favre took a beating, the Vikings offense mostly had its way with the Saints defense. It was the turnovers that killed the Vikes. I give the Saints their due in forcing some of those, but the Vikings have to hold onto the ball better tonight.

I also think that both teams will need to be a bit more careful around the QBs. The officials let them play to an extent that I don't think they will allow for a game 1. It is not in the NFL's interest to see either QB lost to injury right at the start. If either team thinks they are going to get away with some of the hits that were allowed last January I think they are in for a rude surprise. Football ain't pattycake, but keep it clean guys.

Good luck to the Saints, but Go Vikes!

Eight Words That Are Really Starting To Make Me Nervous

Matt Capps starts the inning for the Twins.

The 2010 FFL Team

Here we go:

QB-Philip Rivers, SD
QB-Eli Manning, NYG
RB-Chris Johnson, TN
RB-J. Addai, IND
RB-Felix Jones, DAL
RB-Pierre Thomas, NO
WR-DeSean Jackson, PHI
WR-Mike Wallace, PIT
WR-Braylon Edwards, NYJ
WR-Vincent Jackson, SD
K-Joe Nedney, SF
DST-Giants

I think I did a much better job of preparing this year, but then I didn't execute so well at draft time. I think what threw me for a loop was that more WRs were picked in the first two rounds than expected and several times I had the player I wanted to draft plucked right from under my nose, leaving me scrambling a bit. I'm pretty happy with my backs and I think I have three good options to pair up with Chris Johnson. I'm not so happy with my receivers. I like having DeSean Jackson and I think Mike Wallace will prove to be a very good #3 WR, but I should have another option besides Braylon Edwards to go with them.

About that V. Jackson pick. I probably should have picked up another WR instead of Manning, but I think that Jackson will settle with a team and be able to get the NFL to waive the second 3-game suspension, but not the first obviously. San Diego is playing hardball with him, which is their right, but I think it makes it more likely that Jackson will win arbitration and be available week 4. It's a risk and probably will turn out to be foolish, but if he does land somewhere soon it could have a big upside. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll be watching the free agent projections for this week.

Yes, I'm Ready

Fantasy football draft tonight, Vikings against the Saints on Thursday night, and I'm ready for some NFL football. The Vikings were arguably one play away from making the Super Bowl last year and are returning just about every starter, yet they are getting little love from the sports pundits. Pretty much nobody is picking the Vikes to win the NFC North let alone make it to the Super Bowl.

Good. I hope that lack of respect provides a little extra motivation, not that I think they really need it.

It's a tall order for Brett Favre to repeat his high caliber performance of last year, but I think he can do it as long as the Vikes give him some reasonable protection. Adrian Peterson certainly has the ability to takes some of the heat off of Favre, but he needs to stay healthy and HANG ON TO THE FOOTBALL.

Which brings me to my significant personal contribution to success for the Vikings this season and I want the proper respect for this selfless act. I have the #1 pick in this year's draft and I am going to use it to pick Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans. This almost certainly means that Adrian Peterson will have a fantastic year and score like 5 million TDs.

You're welcome.

Happy Labor Day

I hope you have had/are having a good holiday weekend(even a good regular weekend for my non-American readers). The weather here has been a bit gray, but tolerable. It looks like another band of rain will swing through in a bit, but I should be able to get the last grilling of the weekend in after that, a chipotle BBQ pork tenderloin. Mmmmmmm.

When my niece and nephew left town it was like a switch had been flipped on the weather. What had been warm and humid, even at night, suddenly became highs in the 70s and lows at night in the lower 50s. Suddenly there is a hint of fall in the air.

In one more week I expect to be cleared to finish my hand rehab on my own over the next couple of months. I still have to wear the splint at night and every so often during the day to keep the ring and little fingers extended. I also have to deal with the opposite; some stiffness still and inability to fully form the "claw" without a little help from the right hand. I'm guessing a couple more months and I'll be back to normal. Two and a half months ago I was feeling pretty down about how things were going and indulging in a bit of self-pity. It's been a fair amount of pain and effort, but with the help of some really good medical people I'm glad that I finally got it done and I'm certain I will be pleased with the final results. The expense? I'm not so happy on that score, but that's another story.

Yesterday I saw what may be the strangest ending to a Major League Baseball game that I've ever seen. As Twins closer Matt Capps was impressively blowing a four run lead, a Texas base runner rounded third, decided he couldn't make it home, and apparently had incidental contact with his third base coach before getting back to third. The umpire watching it called him out per MLB rule 7.09(g):

It is interference by a batter or a runner when --

...

(g) In the judgment of the umpire, the base coach at third base, or first base, by touching or holding the runner, physically assists him in returning to or leaving third base or first base.

...

PENALTY FOR INTERFERENCE: The runner is out and the ball is dead.

You can watch the play here. I probably wouldn't have called it because it doesn't look like an assist to me, but the bottom line was a 6-5 Twins win.

On a non-controversial note, Jim Thome crushes his third HR of the long weekend today and apparently hits a flagpole in the right field stands on the way to a 5-4 Twins win.