Peanuts and Cracker Jacks

So, my son went to a Twins game.

A friend of mine notified me that he had some spare tickets. I checked with my wife, and we decided she had more interest in seeing the new Target Field than I had (and the friend is a mutual friend); she went with our son.

Our friend brought his nephew, who is about one year younger than our son. The boys got along great, as all boys who meet doing something they both enjoy will.

Now, what you can't find by searching for the game stats (which are here) is the weather from that night. It was warm and sticky all day, and when the sun started to go down, you could just feel the thunderheads forming. I knew what time the game was at. I checked the radar, and I added in the average time a baseball game takes.

I sent them with ponchos.

After finding their seats, they discovered they had a great view of the backside of right-handed batters (meaning they had an excellent view of left-handed batters...of which the Twins have several). Hot dogs and brats were consumed, and they had a fine time at what turned out to be one of the fastest games this season (third fastest game of the MLB season, as of the date of the game, I've read).

They also stayed dry.

Sensing the weather was closing in, as soon as the last out was called, the adults were up and herding the boys to the car that our friend drove to the game (my wife hates driving downtown), to try to beat the storms. They ended up driving right into the teeth of it, but didn't see any of the tornadoes that were running around the cities that night. Upon arrival, the two boys compared Pokemon cards before my wife and son called it a night and headed for home. As I said before, boys who meet doing something they both enjoy will get along just fine.

What did my daughter and I do, you ask? We stayed dry too; we ate caramel puffcorn, and watched Disney movies involving princesses.

Until another time,
Salt

And Cheer Them With Fervid Elation

I was born during the winter in Nebraska in the mid 70s.

I like to tell people that my first words were spoken in the fall, and that they were "Go Big Red"; my parents assure me that was not the case. I'm told that my first words were, "Here's Johnny!"

I grew up feeling sorry for beating up Kansas, and worrying about Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. I hated all teams associated with Florida.

I considered a bit of a history lesson here, for context, but it's been done. The first article is (slightly skewed) from Sports Illustrated, the second is the Wikipedia entry for the (former) Big Eight Conference, and the last article is a timeline of events regarding (current) Big 12, Big Ten, and Pac-10 teams, and the conferences they have been affiliated with. So, I'll just intersperse my growing up with the changes I've seen in sports. If you need more analysis, you might read some Writing For The Cycle. He's much more knowledgeable about such things, and I'm sure he'll get to talking about this.

I moved to Minnesota when I was nine years old, carrying my Husker pride with me (which was a good thing, the Gophers were terrible in the 80s). I was a sorta Orioles fan, since Omaha didn't have a MLB team (Omaha Royals are AAA, so I kinda followed KC), but then the Twins won the World Series in 1987, and I was on the bandwagon. They did it again in 1991.

I started to learn hockey during this time, and began following the North Stars. I was not as devastated as many of my friends when they moved to Texas, but I was not happy about it.

I went to college at Drake University, in Des Moines, IA, still cheering the Big Red in the Big Eight (which, for 20 years at the beginning of the century, included Drake). Baseball lost a lot of its shine for me in 1994. Even in Iowa, in the heart of Hawkeye country, I found fellow Huskers. We would gather on Saturdays, and watch the Blackshirts eat up offenses for most of the 90s.

I remember the outcry among the Iowa fans when Penn State joined the Big Ten conference. I remember it being a big deal, but I didn't really pay much attention to it, because it was Big Ten, and although I lived in the conference, I lived and died with Nebraska.

I learned to hate Texas for reasons unrelated to hockey, when the Big 12 Conference was formed in 1996. They were arrogant bullies, and everything I hated Florida for being, but now Texas schools were locked into schedules with Nebraska every year. Texas got them to move the conference seat from Kansas City to Dallas.

I married in the late 90s, and my wife still jokes that she's a Cornhusker by marriage, and roots for the team because it's in the marriage contract. Nebraska's fortunes went down, and Texas fortunes went up.

I saw today that Colorado has left the Big 12 for the Pac-10. Nebraska is expected to announce it will join the Big Ten on Friday, June 11th, 2010.

I am not entirely sure what all the fallout from this will be. But I do know one thing: Nebraska already has one of these, which may help them get along with their new Big Ten brethren.

Until another time,
Salt

Deep Down, I'm a Horrible Person

I live just north of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. The winters are long and cold, the growing season is short and mild, and I like it this way.

I have seasonal allergies.  Actually, I have a lot of environmental allergies, but the pollen and mold spores are by far the worst. I help my wife in the garden, not because I like to garden, but because I think my kids need to see living things nurtured and helped to grow (and because it makes my wife happy). So, you see why I like winter...and now, it's ending.

This past Saturday, Minnesota hosted Louisiana Tech in a baseball game in the new Target Field. The Gophers lost, 5-2. Most of the articles I read were about the stadium, not the about game. How nice it was outside, how this was a dry run for the Twins, to see how crowds would be handled, and logistic sorts of things.

I'm not going to lie to you, I was not in favor of a new stadium. When they decided not to put a roof on it, I was completely opposed. However, the trickle-down effect to a local economy from a professional sports team is undeniable, if somewhat incalculable. So, in the long run, it's probably not a bad thing to have (and, it's not my county with the elevated sales tax).

But the whole idea of building a new stadium, so you can offer more amenities (and charge more for them), so you can take in more money, so you can pay better players, so you can have a more successful team, so demand goes up for the tickets, so you can charge more, so you can pay better players, ad infinitum... it just seems like it never really works out that way for teams, you know?

Starting sometime last week, we've had a stretch of good weather here. In fact, the high today (Wednesday the 31st of March) is forecast to be near 80. On the days the Twins have two exhibition games scheduled (Friday and Saturday), there is rain predicted both days.

Don't get me wrong, I don't wish for it to rain on ... yeah, I kinda do wish for rain. But not because I want the fans and players to get wet. Not because I want the game canceled, which would lead to make-up games, which usually leads to double-headers, which would make a friend of mine near-giddy. A side reason I want rain is I'd like to know the color and/or pattern on the tarp they use to cover the infield.

No, the real reason I want rain, is because I love the sound of unreasonable people shouting at other unreasonable people...and a rained out game at the new roofless field would likely cause that. I told you, I'm a horrible person.

Until another time,
Salt