The Twins have announced the TV team for the new MLB-produced broadcasts, and all the familiar names are there, including lead voice Cory Provus and ex-Twins and booth mates Justin Morneau, LaTroy Hawkins and Glen Perkins, to name just a few. Just one person was missing: Roy Smalley, who also announced last week that he... Continue Reading »

The other day I wrote about a Twins’ Billy Martin baseball card that I recently discovered. What I didn’t mention is that I also came across what I will call a Scott Erickson action pack, complete with baseball card, poster and an Erickson action figure. Unfortunately, Erickson has been in the news of late for... Continue Reading »

You never know when you’re going to have a Minnesota Twins moment. There I was, along with my son, at a baseball card shop in Centralia, Washington, over the weekend where under the counter glass I spotted what appeared to be a card of Billy Martin. But it wasn’t a card of him as a... Continue Reading »

Disco Demolition Night isn’t the only baseball promotion to go off the rails. Promoters have also given us Ten Cent Beer Night, a gimmick to increase attendance that had been pulled off before without incident, but that failed badly on June 4, 1974, in a game that was played in Cleveland between the Indians and... Continue Reading »

The Twins accomplished job No. 1 on Wednesday by completing a three-game sweep of the Kansas City Royals which now makes the club 4-1 this month with plenty of winnable games still to come. I can’t emphasize this enough because the time is now. The Twins face nothing but weak competition in July, so if... 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 »

In “Facing Nolan,” a relatively new documentary about the Hall of Fame pitcher, Ryan, wild but effective in the early days of his career with the New York Mets, eventually was traded to the California Angels. When Ryan first learned that he was going to California, he thought he was on his way to the... Continue Reading »

The Twins are a good team. Don’t believe me? Well, they lead the AL Central with a 50-44 record, they rank 4th in runs scored in the American League, 5th in team ERA and 6th in fielding through Sunday. We also know they can play much better baseball — they certainly showed they can through... Continue Reading »

Who could forget the summer of 1969? Few of my parents’ generation probably could, perhaps most notably because of a history-making event that captured the attention of millions around the world as three men blasted off from Florida on July 16 and returned to earth eight days later. The Apollo 11 lunar capsule touched down... Continue Reading »