[Minnesota Twins General Manager Bill Smith is sitting at his desk, staring blankly at his computer screen. We hear a knock at the door.]
Smith: It’s open.
[Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire enters, hat in hand.]
Gardenhire: Can we chat, Bill?
[Gardenhire sits]
When the Twins signed Mike Lamb before the season I was optimistic. While Lamb wasn’t a huge name, he certainly was an improvement over signings from years past (Butch Huskey anyone?). He’s hit over .300 a couple of times and is a .276 lifetime hitter and had just come off a few decent years with Houston.
However, like most of his predecessors (Huskey, Bret Boone, Tony Batista, Phil Nevin, the list goes on) Lamb struggled through the first couple months of the year, and has settled on the bench.
Today I came across an article on ESPN’s Page2 about Lamb.
Read the rest of this entry »
In the middle of this article from the STLtoday.com, there’s a nice little story:
Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster Steve Blass once won 19 games in the majors, but he is known more for what took him out of the majors. Suddenly and inexplicably he couldn’t throw a strike. So it was with profound empathy and amazement that Blass called Rick Ankiel’s 20th home run Friday night.
“It’s stunning,” Blass said about Ankiel, the pitcher-turned-slugger. “No one can appreciate what he has done, how he’s come and what he has accomplished like I can. … I can tell you chapter and verse about what happens to you emotionally when you go through what he did and what I did. To hold it together and come out on the other side like he has is tremendous, just tremendous.”
The Wades and I have chatted about this a bit privately, and I think Ankiel’s story is maybe the most under-rated of the year. I think probably because we’ve never really seen anything like it since Babe Ruth. I’m certainly not calling Ankiel the Sultan of anything, I’m just saying that it’s really a tremendous story to be able to be a proficient major leaguer at both pitching and hitting, and especially with the adversity that Ankiel had to face along the way. Impressive stuff, as Mr. Blass would know.
so, i’m trying to be better about posting content that i actually come up with, vs. just borrowing things from other sites. trying to be less meta, if you will. however, for those who are as appalled by joe morgan specifically (and by the murdering of the english language, in general) as i am, this must be shared:
hat tip to firejoemorgan, of course.
