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The Minnesota Twins are leaving the Metrodome and relocating to the brand-new state-of-the-art Target Field. To remind fans of this fact, the Twins have put together a TV commercial showing movers at the new digs delivering the goods - such as boxes, championship trophies, and Joe Mauer encased in bubble wrap.
Video of the full ad after the jump.
If there’s one thing that sports blogs have done very well over the past 5 years or so, it’s that they’ve shed some light on the deeds and misdeeds of athletes, coaches, and front office types. Beat writers and columnists have a harder time sweeping things under the rug to protect their chummy relationships and access, now that fans have a way to express their outrage and hold people accountable when they say or do dishonest things.
But perhaps not enough attention is given to the people who do keep their words and act in good faith. Being a man of your word doesn’t often make for compelling reading or righteous indignation. That’s why people freaked the heck out out when the White Sox traded lovable lout Jim Thome to the Dodgers. But they were wrong.
After hearing about Mike Singletary’s latest motivational move at San Francisco 49ers training camp, we can all be glad of this: he kept his pants on this time. In fact, he did what many 49ers fans wish someone would have done years ago: he sent former No. 1 draft pick and genial bust Alex Smith packing.
Unfortunately for those fans, Smith came back, as he wasn’t traded or cut. No, Singletary had Smith watch the last 30 minutes of training camp from the top of a hill overlooking the practice facility after Smith threw a deflected pass into coverage that was intercepted during a scrimmage. Personally, it sounds like a better punishment would have been to give Smith a couple of passes to nearby Great America and tell him to have fun and enjoy the roller coasters.
Smith tried to force a pass to noted slacker-slash-slugger Vernon Davis, but it was tipped and eventually picked off. Unfortunately for Smith, this came right after Singletary announced to the team that “the next guy responsible for a turnover would have to sit on the hill for the rest of practice,” leading to Smith getting his perch high on a hill.
Again, some one tell me how this is punishment? Instead of working his butt off at training camp and sweating in the summer heat, Smith got to relax and watch the practice from a grassy vantage point - probably under a shady tree while eating a couple of apples as bluebirds sang to him. And I guess that we are supposed to be impressed that his starting offensive line came to sit with him in a “nice show of solidarity,” although I suspect they saw a chance to get out of the last half-hour of practice and made the most of it.
I know NFL teams are careful not to push players too hard, but don’t players run laps as punishment any more? Suicide sprints? Something other than sitting down and not training at training camp? Mike Singletary’s training camp is allegedly some combination of the Junction Boys, the Bataan Death March and the training montage from “Rocky IV” from how the media is portraying it, but if that’s as tough as it gets in the NFL, maybe we’re coddling players a bit too much.
I have no idea what a UFL training camp is going to be like; I’m guessing it will be more advanced than teaching the players what the Xs and Os on the playbook mean, even if just barely. But it does seem like the players are going to go through a lot of punishment - at least on the field, thanks to their names and uniforms. That is, if the ones announced on Monday by the Las Vegas franchise are any indication.
First off there’s the name: the Las Vegas Locomotives. Because when I think of Las Vegas, I don’t think of gambling or nightlife or danger - I think of trains. Yup, you really get the high rollers coming in on the train from Barstow to Las Vegas. It’s basically a half-step up from calling the team the Las Vegas Hobos, and unless your team’s offensive coordinator is John Hodgman, that’s not going to fly.
And then there are the uniforms. Now, I’m no sartorial demigod, but…I don’t want to say that it’s hideous, but the USFL called and they are planning on suing you for $1 for ripping off their designs. The whole thing looks horrendously 80s, from the shiny neon aquamarine pants to the blocky numbering. I think I saw MC Skat Kat wearing something suspiciously similar in a video with Paula Abdul back in the day.
Basically, the whole thing is a mess, and even Las Vegas head coach Jim Fassel is confused as to the connection between Las Vegas and trains. (But this isn’t the first time he’s been confused in his life.) Plus, the team’s name is sure to be shortened by people to “Locos,” which the owners seem to think is great cross-cultural marketing but just reminds me of how crazy you’d have to be to try and go up against the NFL.
Finally, I have to wonder what Jeff Gordon’s motivation is to keep racing. After all, he could be at home having sex with his Brazilian supermodel wife, playing with his kids or simply climbing up and down one of the giant mountains of cash he presumably has laying around his house from all of his winnings and endorsement deals.
And after yesterday’s race at the Watkins Glen road course in New York, he is probably wondering the same thing himself after being involved in a bad multi-car crash that sent him careening into a guard rail - not a SAFER barrier - at nearly top speed. Gordon walked away unscathed, although he was complaining of aggravating a sore back injured after he’s been involved in several big crashes in the last few years.
After watching that replay again, let me ask Gordon something: hot Brazilian supermodel wife, or smashing the bejeezus out of your car head-on into a guard rail? Your choice.
In other sports news that happened while you thanked God you weren’t the local TV reporter who drew the short straw and had to cover the “Furries” convention:
And so we learn the folly of scheduling a bobblehead night featuring one of your star players on the day after the MLB trading deadline. The Cleveland Indians have some ’splainin’ to do on Saturday during Victor Martinez Bobblehead Night. I hear that anyone who’s anyone in Cleveland will be there, except of course Victor Martinez, who was traded to the Red Sox in exchange for Justin Masterson and Nick Hagadone a few hours ago.
So does this become an instant collector’s item, or a handy object to throw onto Progressive Field in disgust? We’ll find out tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Padres are breathing a sigh of relief that they decided to cancel Saturday’s Jake Peavy Kissing Booth. Read more…
In the 134-season history of major league baseball in this country, there have been a total of 388,502 (and counting) attempts to pitch a perfect game; that is, there have been 194,251 games (and counting) and each game has presumably started with two opposing pitchers facing eah other. Of those 388,502 opportunities, only 18 of them have resulted in a perfect game. Put it this way - when you sit down at a bar or in your living room to watch a baseball game, there is only a .0093% - one nine-thousandth of one percent - chance that the game you watch will result in an elusive perfect game.
And yet, there I was last Thursday afternoon, sitting in my home office on Chicago’s north side watching Comcast SportsNet as Mark Buehrle inched ever closer to the near-impossible. At some point in the 7th inning, I hit the record button on the DVR remote…you know, just in case. By the end of the 8th inning, I was beginning to think it might actually happen. And then, in the 9th inning, Gabe Kapler hit a deep fly ball that seemed destined to bring everyone back to reality, when DeWayne Wise made the catch of the year that kept the perfection alive. Two short outs later, Buehrle had done the unthinkable, and I had the same thought in my head as millions of people across the country did later that evening as they saw the highlights - “dude, Buehrle owes Wise BIG-TIME.” So…what exactly is saving a perfect game worth, anyway?
• We’re keeping abreast of ex-figure skating champ Katarina Witt’s efforts to bring the 2018 Winter Olympics to Munich.
The IOC would have to be a bunch of boobs not to hear her out.
• New blood tests reveal that Steve McNair was probably passed out drunk when he was shot & killed by Sahel Kazemi.
• Can’t Michael Jordan go throught at least one round of golf without being bothered by a giant inflatable penis?
• Secret video of Jordan Crawford dunking on LeBron James is finally released - in two versions, even! The final review: Meh.
• ESPN doesn’t feel like making news about the rape allegations aimed at Ben Roethlisberger. Why not? The accuser seems newsworthy enough.
• Manny Ramirez does his bobbleheads proud with a pinch-hit grand slam.
• But Minnesota Twins legend Harmon Killebrew isn’t so impressed.
• Michael Vick supposedly spent his first day of freedom at a strip club with Allen Iverson. But the no-longer incarcerated QB denies such reports.
• The Cambridge cop accused of acting racist against Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates was also the one who tried to revive Reggie Lewis after the Celtics player suffered a fatal heart attack.
• White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle hurls a perfect game, thanks to a great catch by Dwayne Wise. Guess Ozzie Guillen made the right move, after all.
Say, remember a couple days ago when White Sox fans were whipped up in a lather about Ozzie Guillen’s decision to demote Brian Anderson instead of DeWayne Wise in order to make room for Carlos Quentin? Remember how people had gone so far as to claim racism in emails to Guillen?
(Believe it or not, that’s his happy face.)
Well, it turns out that was far more of a consequential decision than anybody could have imagined. Fast forward to today, and Wise - who, according to a commenter here at SbB, “can’t read a fly ball for anything,” was inserted in center in the 9th inning of Mark Buerhle’s developing perfect game for defensive purposes.
Drama ensued.
Back when the Mitchell Report was released, one figure named as having purchased from noted supplier Kirk Radomski was Jim Parque, a pitcher whose career with the White Sox was cut short by injury at the beginning of the decade. You probably never even had him on a fantasy baseball team.
(”All right, Kenny, let’s go over this again. I’m a seedy clubhouse assistant, and you’re a pitcher with a heart of gold. ‘Do you want me to sell you any drugs?’ Now say ‘no’ and beat me with a fungo bat.”)
But Parque did take the opportunity at the time to admit his usage rather than engage in vague non-speak about the report’s allegation, itself a brave move but one ultimately forced rather than voluntary. Parque’s letter to the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES about his HGH use today, however, was totally voluntary, not to mention gut-wrenching in its portrayal of the decisions he faced: Read more…
When we last heard from Ozzie Guillen, he was sporting some threads from Chicago Cubs fans, that legendary bastion of maturity. And by that, of course, we mean a shirt that says “Ozzie Guillen Mows Wrigley Field.” Sure, it was based off of a different racist shirt perpetrated against Cub Carlos Zambrano, but this would be a prime example of that whole “two wrongs” thing.
(What could be wrong with this? It’s just innocuous fun for racists everyone.)
Anyway, to Ozzie’s credit, he was able to laugh it all off. We all figured that was because he was above all the racism stuff, but could we have been wrong? Could it be that Guillen’s not only racist, but he hates everybody who isn’t black?
