The Kansas City Royals, one of the weakest teams in all of baseball, edged the Twins 3-2 on Saturday by hanging around just long enough to finally tie the game and then took advantage of some miscues late as served up Twins’ closer Jhoan Duran. But it never should have been that close because Royals... Continue Reading »

Robert Pirsig, whose manuscript for a book called “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” was reportedly rejected more than 100 times, finally found overwhelming success when it was published in 1974. Ostensibly about a motorcycle trip from Minnesota to California, the book uses the journey and motorcycles to make a philosophical exploration. Its tagline... Continue Reading »

The 89-loss Kansas City Royals, one of the few teams the Twins have been able to beat with regularity this season, finally got their revenge with a three-game sweep, including Thursday’s 4-1 win. The Twins entered the series with a 12-4 record against the Royals, but emerge from it at 12-7 for the season. What... Continue Reading »

Remember the back-to-back walk-off wins, Twins fans? The good vibrations created by those two late-inning victories quickly ebbed away on Sunday after the Twins mustered only four hits in a 3-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. Despite the loss, the Twins still won the series, although it’s pretty clear that when Byron Buxton gets a... Continue Reading »

The Twins are a win away from tying their longest winning streak of the season at four games. How did they get here? A Game 3 win over the Seattle Mariners and two wins so far against the Texas Rangers in Arlington. They go for the sweep on Sunday. It’s refreshing to see another team’s... Continue Reading »

As I have written before here, the 1973 Twins encountered a little bit of everything it seems. They swept the eventual World Series-winning Oakland A’s to start the season — and went 14-4 against the club the rest of the way — yet they had a losing record against the 91-loss Cleveland Indians, struggled as... Continue Reading »

Hall of Fame pitcher and knuckleballer, Phil Niekro, is no longer with us, joining a long and sad list of Hall of Fame baseball players who died in 2020. I guess you could say his death, to quote a Bloomberg news headline, “capped a hellish 2020.” Niekro, who spent most of his career in the... Continue Reading »

After I became a Twins fan (yes, there was a beginning), I suffered through a 102-loss season in 1982, another down year in ’83 and then, incredibly it seemed, the Twins began to show signs of life in 1984. They were helped by a young nucleus of rising stars, including Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Frank... Continue Reading »

I hope you read Strib columnist Patrick Reusse’s recent blog post/column about Dick Allen, the fearsome slugger, best known for his years with the Philadelphia Phillies, who recently passed away. Reusse not only touched on his contributions as a player, but also about a unique game against the Twins. Very sad to hear of Dick... Continue Reading »