The Johan Santana talks "heat" up for the 79th time today. ESPN.com is headlining this story, which isn't really anything new at all. The Yankees said this, and the Red Sox won't offer Lester and Ellsbury, but look out for the Mets, yada, yada, yada. I've heard the same garbage since early December...why doesn't somebody take the cojones out of Mama's purse and grab the best pitcher in baseball? My second thought is that the Twins 4 year $80M extension offer isn't really looking all that shabby now, seeing as how none of the Evil Empires have leaked any information about being willing to offer Santana the $150M over six years that he is supposedly seeking. If I'm Bill Smith, I'm expanding the splash I caused last Friday with the Morneau and Cuddyer signing by offering Santana what he is worth: A five year extension for $110M. Smith could instantly erase all of the negativity that has clouded this Twins off-season with the departure of Hunter and the Santana trade talk. Suddenly things would all seem right in Twinsland once again, with the pitcher, the slugger, and the ballpark all locked and loaded for a 2010 World Series run. Just a bit of advice...
I have targeted keeping Justin Morneau in a Twins uniform the number one priority for the franchise, Santana included, as the Twins have been able to develop a left-handed first basement that can hit 40 home runs....never. In a surprise move, the twins have agreed with me, locking in Morneau to a long term deal this afternoon.
It's currently 2 degrees in Minneapolis, and has been hovering around zero for the past 10 days. I am beginning to worry a little, because I wore a light track jacket to work today. Am I so well adapted that I can now just roll around in gear that is meant for 60 degree weather? Is that a good thing? Regardless, when the weather gets like this in January and there isn't any football to look forward to this weekend, I have to get out of the house and do something before I start developing multiple personalities and freaking out my roommate. Thus Twinsfest 2008 is the destination tonight. Current and former players will be there signing autographs/staring down women. There is a model of the new stadium that is just going to piss me off upon viewing and realizing that I have to sit in the dome for two more years. Twinsfest also boasts a baseball card and memorabilia show, which should produce a great collection of Mom's basement dwellers slugging around in sweatpants buying pieces of cardboard meant for 11 year old boys...and I'll probably sneak a peek. The Dazzle Man, Dan Gladden is going to be in attendance..which brings me to a solid story. One of my former colleagues, who we will call Pat Landy, once got into a little altercation with Gladden at a Twins pre-game BBQ rally. Apparently our perpetrator was pretty intent on talking to a little hottie that we would later find out was Dan Gladden's 16 year old daughter. If I'm Dan Gladden, Pat Landy is about the LAST guy I want hitting on my teenage daughter. Mostly because his attitude towards the younger generation consists of this basic principle:
From what I hear, Dazzle and Landy exchanged some words, some louder words, and then a choking match ensued. Apparently a Vice President of the Twins at the time started getting excited, jumping up and down and pointing like a teenage girl at TRL. He's shouting "I know WHO you are and WHERE you work! You're fired dude!" Let's just say that Pat Landy is now banned from any future Twins games, Twins Events, and I'm not sure he doesn't have a restraining order disallowing him from going within 100 yards of any High School in the state of Minnesota. What a guy.
Let's quickly discuss who we would and wouldn't want to fight on the 1987 or 1991 Minnesota Twins.
The Glass Joe All Stars 1. Greg Gagne- Checks in at 5'11" 172 and that may be pushing it. He's far and away the obvious candidate. 2. Bert Blyleven- Just for the fact that he was like 49 when he was on the 1987 team. 49 year-old dudes can't hang. 3. Steve Lombardozzi- He played second base, never showed any emotion, weighed 174 lbs, and just looked like one of those guys that you could whoop up on. Similar to Luis Rodriguez now...which reminds me that I am mad that Luis Rodriguez is on our Major League roster.
The Pretty Boy Floyd's 1. Kent Hrbek- You don't fight a large Minnesota bred guy that can toss around Ron Gant like he's one of the girls on Dancing With The Stars. Hrbek is a good 6'2" 250, and I want no part of him. 2. Gary Gaetti(pre born again days)- Gaetti had a reputation for being the biggest partyer/psycho on the team. What would Jesus do? 3. Dan Gladden- The Dazzle man looked like one of those little guys that you would see in a townie bar and not think much of. Until he's drunkenly hitting on your girlfriend, causing you to give him some crap and then he rips his shirt off and starts cracking randoms with pool cues like he's Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse. Nice work Landy.
Big players make big plays in big games. Well...that sentence isn't really at all relevant, as no one can classify any game prominently featuring your Minnesota Timberwolves as "big". That being said, the Wolves has inexplicably taken two of three from the Western Conference leading Phoenix Suns. Al Jefferson went off last night. The home win against Phoenix coupled with this promising news may...MAY strike fear throughout the NBA, or at least Seattle and Miami.
On Friday, January 18th, 2008 Sacia, Amanda, and I departed on our Wisconsin voyage to the NFC Championship Game. The drive over was complete with a hell of a lot of air guitar, drum solos, piano jamming, and a unfortunately some Lionel Richie. The Captain of the ship is also the DJ, so I was at Sacia's mercy while he flipped through his CD collection that featured many of my mom's favorites such as Bruce Hornsby, Fleetwood Mac, Lionel Richie, Frank Sinatra, and on and on. I've finally been able to introduce Sacia to some music made in the last few years...a little more progressive such as Kings of Leon and the new Silverchair album. Some day when we have a little more time I will attempt to introduce him to the Strokes, Radiohead, Silversun Pickups, Arctic Monkeys, and other music that isn't 35 years old. But that's how he rolls and I love the dude. Our first stop was in Stanley, Wisconsin, which was a town of 2,000 right off US 29 in North Central Wisconsin. We hit up a typical small town Wisconsin Bar: Cheap beer, jukebox (with hand-written song lists), great food, and LOTS of locals staring you down. I ordered a round of Miller Lite's and the bartender asked me for $4.25. I thought she meant for each beer, but it was actually $4.25 for the round. Amazing. I instantly felt like I had gotten a raise. We had a few rounds, threw down some food, and continued on our journey. There isn't a hell of a lot between Eau Claire and Green Bay. It was basically a lot of towns that caused us to ponder what we would do with our lives if we had resided there. Some of the conclusions: -Drinking Heavily -Meth -Make Meth -Sell Meth -Hunt Drunk -Eat Cheese Curds -Track down a hot cousin
Small town USA! In all seriousness the people you meet in Wisconsin are really the nicest people you will ever meet in your entire life. When we finally arrived in GB and hit up a bar named Sidekicks, Amanda got invited to a Bon Jovi concert in St. Paul by couple in their 40's within 5 minutes of talking to them. Additionally, within 5 minutes of talking to them Sacia and I had put down three Jag Bombs, attempting to sneak them in before the fourth member of our group arrived, Marcia...Sacia's girlfriend. Seriously...Lionel Richie?!
We got good and "Wisconsin'ed" on Friday Night and most of the day on Saturday. As we went from bar to bar it was a riot meeting people and explaining to them that I was a Vikings fan from Minneapolis, and THEN explaining to them why I was going to the game. As a Vikings fan, I am really envious of the passion for the Packers that the state of Wisconsin holds. Every single person I talked to; man, woman, or child discussed the Packer game within the first 30 seconds of our conversation. This state absolutely lives and dies with their team. The only comparison I could really come up with would be the Nebraska fans with the Cornhuskers. These states literally shut down (well the bars stay open) when their teams are playing. Sacia had a group of 65 year-old diners at the table next to us SCREAMING "GO, PACK, GO!" during a busy dinner service, and everybody in the restaurant smiled and laughed. These Packer fans got such a kick out of us, and vice verse that they invited us to the next bar they were going to for a few rounds. Unfortunately, we had to head in a different direction to get home, but the gesture was appreciated. Sunday Morning came...and the first thing on my mind was gambling. I introduced Sacia to the wonders of online sportsbooks and he looked like a 9 year-old opening up a Nintendo Wii on Christmas Morning. I took the Pats -13.5 and the Giants + 7.5. Had a gut feeling the G-men would keep this game close. Ended up splitting these bets...and I can always live with that. I'm just going to throw all of the money at the Giants in the Super Bowl anyways. I will ride the Eli "how the hell is he doing this" train until the last stop. Anyways, back to the task at hand here: Tailgating at Lambeau. We had the privilege of going to a VIP tailgate party at Brett Favre's Steakhouse, complete with free brats, burgers and of course Miller Lites. This gave the four of us a chance to get good and warmed up before the game. I read a lot of studies in Men's Health about what city is the healthiest, or what City is the best for singles, and I would like to introduce a new study: What city can drink more beers before noon on a Sunday? The chances of ANY other city in American topping Green Bay are similar to the chances of any other woman in American topping Britney in a "Who is the biggest train wreck mom in America?" contest. It ain't happening. It is nothing for these Packer fans to have a 12 pack and 3 brats in them before they even head into the stadium. For legal reasons, I will not be divulging any information on my intake. We sat in section 111 row 26 and watched a hell of a football game. Amanda and I were surprisingly comfortable, although our beers turned to slushies within 10 minutes of purchase. The Giants were the better football team on Sunday Night. Eli Manning has been the story of these 2007 Playoffs. For a guy that the entire city of New York was trying to run out of town just 3 months ago, he has played as well as anybody of late, and he's now just one win away from a Super Bowl victory at age 27. The turning point in this kid's season came when he stood up to the remarks made by Tiki Barber, telling him to more or less shut it. Once Eli was able to show his teammates that he was the leader of this team, and he wasn't going to take any more crap from people they really rallied around him and believed he was "their guy". I felt bad for the Packers fans after the game, and here is something that I thought was really cool: Giants fans going up to Packer fans in the bar afterwards and telling them that they were sorry they had to win that game and take away Brett Favre's shot at the Super Bowl. I chatted with a few of these Giants guys and they said that the reason they felt bad about winning was that the GB fans had been so nice to everybody all weekend. There was no hostility, no trash talking...just fun and football. I wish more parts of the country could boast a reputation like that.
NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME Cold weather doesn't affect games as much as people tend to believe they do. Wind affects games, snow affects games, and rain affects games. The Giants can play in the cold. They have been rolling on the ground behind 270 lb Brandon Jacobs bringing the thunder and rookie Ahmad Bradshaw the lightning. You have got to love the way the G-Men have been playing football of late, especially on the road. That being said...I can't take them. Not against Brett Favre in Lambeau Field when it's supposed to be eighty-seven below zero. Against a banged-up Giants secondary, I see the Packers getting Greg Jennings and company going early, and Ryan Grant going late. The Packer D will play up for this game, and shades of the old Eli will appear before the night is over.
PACKERS 24, GIANTS 14
AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
It's not happening...not this week anyways. The quest for perfection will continue on towards Arizona for Bill Bellichick's 17-0 squad. I know that San Diego defensive front seven does create some matchup problems for the Pats, but the New England coaching staff will have a trick up their sleeve to counter punch Shawn Merriman, likely a max protect scheme, and Tom Brady will find his way through the pressure. He always does. That's why he dates Giselle and rocks three Super Bowl rings. If you think Randy Moss ISN'T going to have a huge game amidst all of the likely bullshit allegations thrown in his lap this week, you're out of whack. That is exactly the type of negative publicity that Bellichick uses to keep his 17-0 football team thinking in a "us against the world" mindset. Brady throws for 350, Moss catches 2 TD's, and the Pats move to 18-0, setting up the most watched Super Bowl in history: Brett Favre at age 38 trying to stop the Patriots from going 19-0. That's good stuff right there...
On Saturday this die hard Vikings fan will be trekking over to Lambeau to party down with all the crazy wisconsinites and watch what I perceive to be history, in Brett Favre at age 38 leading his Pack to the NFC Championship Game. The game time temperature is expected to be 5 below zero, with windchills in upwards (or downwards) of 20 below zero. Yikes...that's as cold as Hillary Clinton at a NRA rally. Not as cold as the reception Tom Cruise's last movie received though...no sir. The last time I went to Lambeau was in the 2004 Wild-Card Playoffs...also known as the time Joe Buck went public with the fact that he is a total douchebag. It was an interesting drive over, complete with violent shaking, cold sweats, and vicodin. I felt like Chris Farley on a Sunday morning. This wasn't due to partying however, as I would find out the following Monday, I had pneumonia, and a severe enough case that I required hospitalization. Long story short, as long as I don't get pneumonia again by this weekend, I am looking forward to ROCKING it at Lambeau. Full day tailgating, brats, miller lites...all the classic Lambeau treats.
"With the first pick in the 2008 NBA draft, the Minnesota Timberwolves select Michael Beasley, Kansas State University."
When you are 5-29 these are really the only things you can look forward to. That is until the lottery when the Wolves inherit even MORE of Boston's '06-'07 team and drop down to the 5th spot.
