I remember writing something during the previous off season about how the Twins could, perhaps, fetch some kind of replacement for the Torii/Santana departures and it might not be so bad because Matt Guerrier was a gutty four-pitch reliever and I could see him in the closer’s role.

There are other examples of things about the Twins that should never have left the keyboard and gone floating into cyberspace, and I’ll be compiling them for an end-of-the-calendar-year post. (Like the time in May I pretty much guaranteed Nick Blackburn a win against the Rangers because he was pitching against Sidney Ponson that night at the Dome.) But that’s the way baseball goes for a blogger. If a batter is considered highly successful when he gets hits 30 percent of the time  and a manager is considered successful if he makes the right move 105 percent of the time, then I guess bloggers can consider themselves reasonably astute if their dot on the line graph falls somewhere in between.

With that in mind, I call your attention to two links still floating around the Internet that, somehow, managed to escape and need to be addressed today.

First off, there’s this page on Baseball-Reference.com, which was perhaps a too-giddy reaction to Delmon Young’s arrival. I should probably go in and change the sponsorship message. Anyone have a suggestion?

And then, there’s this April post that was fabulously witty at the time but, uhhhhh, doesn’t look too good today as the Tampa Bay Rays get ready to complete their incredible season by going where they never, ever came close to going before.

I was kind of conflicted about the ALCS. I wanted Boston to win because I thought a Boston-Philly World Series would be a neat match-up between two old-time established teams. And the thought of Tampa Bay in the World Series with its 4,651 fans, cowbells, mohawks and a stadium that makes the Metrodome look like a baseball cathedral by comparison just didn’t sit well.

But I guess things turned out for the best. If the Red Sox had rallied from a 3-to-1 games deficit for a second straight season, we would have read endless and tiresome tomes to a new mystique that replaced the curse that allegedly befell the Red Sox for the Babe Ruth trade. It would have been kazoo music passed off as classical and, as I’ve shown here, I’m fully well capable of doing that on my own several times every season.

So it’s time to celebrate the final week of the baseball season. Pick a temporary allegiance, start gathering firewood for the hot stove and hope for good games. And, if that’s not enough, you can join me in celebrating the official college and pro football teams of Section 220.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 11:06 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.