Crazy as we are, Rocket — he was in town for the weekend for some sort of nefarious business practice — made a convincing argument that the two of us, despite being denied Saturday morning in a golfing quest by snow, should still head out in the afternoon to a driving range so he could test out his new clubs, followed by a trip to the batting cages so we could make sure we got some fresh blisters. We made some calls and found a nearby course willing to open up the driving range just for our$10 worth of range tokens. Big spenders, we are. Fifty balls apiece later (pictured: Rocket showing off the form that will send tremors through the likes of Woods and Mickelson, particularly if they are standing about 25 yards in front of him and a little to the left. Kidding!), we set out for a batting cage, which proved to be a fruitless and rather lengthy search. The first place, the one we knew about, was shut down. The second one we found was crawling with baseball and softball teams beating the snow and getting in some actual work. This clearly wasn’t the place for a couple of loafers, so we gave up and headed out. But the setback did afford us a chance to play a game on the 36-minute drive back home (weaving through city streets just in case we happened upon another batting cage, some chicken wings, an inflatable gorilla suit or anything else that might strike one’s fancy on a lazy Saturday). We resumed listening to KFAN’s draft coverage and decided to count the number of times we heard a certain name. Starting at 3:30 p.m. until the time we shut the car off at 4:06, the name “Jared Allen” was said exactly 17 times. Mind you, the draft started at 2 p.m. and, in case you forgot, Allen was not a player drafted. We dare say this community has Allen-mania. If there is a better example of right time, right place for an athlete to walk into, we can’t think of it. Allen is a free-speaker, so he will be loved by the media; he is a trash-talkin’, certain number-wearin’ son of a gun, covering a key demographic; by all accounts, he is not just talented but a relentless worker; and he joins a team with a fan base hungry for wins in a market that has been on the wrong end of quite a few talented player swaps in recent years. We took part in the AOL FanHouse’s “City’s Best” series last June, picking who we thought were the five biggest sports stars in the Twin Cities, both in terms of local love and national recognition. The list then:

5. Adrian Peterson
4. Johan Santana
3. Joe Mauer
2. Kevin Garnett
1. Torii Hunter

You’ll notice three of those players no longer play here. Off the top of our head, here is a revised list:

5. Marian Gaborik (though we almost said Brent Burns, and we think that in one year he will be the Wild’s most popular and possibly best player).
4. Justin Morneau
3. Jared Allen
2. Joe Mauer
1. Adrian Peterson

Feel free to disagree, but we’re hard-pressed to find a way the new guy falls out of the top 5. That speaks volumes about what he has created here in such a short period of time. Remember, we’re talking about popularity and buzz as key factors here, not what players have accomplished.

Quickly: How fun is it to say “John David Booty.”

Fasola-link! “Golf in the age of gender equality.”

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