Why We Watch - 2008 Minnesota Twins

March 5th, 2008 by Tuffy Posted in baseball, mlb, why we watch |

There’s 200 days or so of baseball to come this season and it can be quite intimidating to jump into the deep end of the baseball viewing pool.

To help, Refrigerator Logic is providing a list of reasons to watch every Major League Baseball team for the 2008 season. Anyone that’s read all the team lists should be able to pull up the MLB schedule on any day in early June and find reasons to enjoy any contest on the board that night.

Please join in the comments to add your own reasons. Tell everyone why your team is worth three and a half hours of their lives on any given day. Make us care and we’ll be there with a tasty beverage and an appreciation for what you feel each time your team takes the field.

I Admire Your Notion of Fair Odds

When Joe Mauer found himself besieged on all sides by Tigers and Indians and the Royal guard and very ill-fitting Socks, he set out to find a new band of brothers to help him defend his baggy village after losing so many compatriots over the winter. When he returned, he presented to the villagers…

Joining him on the field of battle are:

• Justin Morneau (the Most Valuable Bat-slinger) and Michael Cuddyer (the gent standing well behind the Most Valuable Bat-slinger on the field) - Two valued warriors from old skirmishes
• Delmon Young - Quick to anger; quick to love; quick to smash the hell out of the baseball
• Mike Lamb and Adam Everett - Joe Mauer knows what the brains in Toronto do: it’s bad luck to break up the left side of the infield, so always import them in pairs (from Houston, in this case)
• Brendan Harris - Sparring with Little Nicky Punto(™ Bat-Girl Enterprises) for a spot on the horse, he has the distinct advantage of knowing which end of the weapon to hold
• Jason Pridie - Can never be photographed

As Mauer knows from painful experience, it matters more who returns from battle than who you go to battle with. Yet each of these men will defend the baggy village with honor… at least until the first lousy home plate umpire rolls into town.

Under Construction

This is what you will see in 2010 in Minnesota as the Twins are finally receiving the new ballpark of their dreams. It’s the Legends Club, one of the perks for Minnesota’s financial elite. It will cost $1,000 to belong to this club and season tickets ($4,000 or so) are extra. The luxury boxes will look like a kitchen model at Home Depot and the amenities will be as lavish as one would hope from a $420m playpen.

That’s one of the reasons why what you see on this field also feels like an unfinished product. You’re watching the player personnel version of a construction project. When the Twins have new funds coming in from their ballpark, the hope is that those funds will be plowed back into player acquisition and development. Also, the aging Tigers could be on the wane and no one outside the Indians in the AL Central seems ready to challenge in two years.

So enjoy the team in progress like you would one of those mesmerizing construction fast-forward videos, but don’t try to make it go any faster than that; quality takes time. (And money. Right, Carl?)

Reconstruction Site

This is young pitching phenom Francisco Liriano in 2005 at the World Series Club in Hartford, CT. This is a year before he exploded onto the scene in Minnesota with 121 innings of 2.19 ERA tossing and 144 strikeouts. It’s also one year before his elbow exploded in a similar manner because of his trademark reckless pitching style.

Only two years ago, he was expected to join Johan Santana as the 1-2 slugfest to carry the Twins through the playoffs and into the World Series. Now Santana is learning the names of Pedro Martinez’s children and Liriano is no longer very young, turning 25 this fall.

Still, the man’s a phenom and quite forgotten in all the reconstruction going on in his professional life. The Twins are telling all the correct tales about making minor changes in his motion without changing the Essential Liriano. If he does pull it together, though, Liriano’s starts will be appointment television once again.

Best Rebuilding News Yet

The I-35W bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed in August just after the start of a Twins game, taking 13 lives and injuring dozens more, is on track for completion by the end of the year. (You can watch the progress at the Minnesota DOT Web site.) Pictured above is the current progress, conveniently labeled to help with your bridge construction scorecards.

Continued sympathies to the families affected by this and that all this new construction in Minneapolis leads to a better place for everyone.