Uncle Sven Weighs In: “Well, we’ll See …”
You know you’ve made an impression on the Minnesota sports scene when my Uncle Sven knows who you are. He watches the Twins and Vikings religiously, but unless you’ve drawn phenomenal attention to yourself on or off the field, he simply doesn’t have time to learn your name. I think it stems from the fact that the professional athletes of his generation, Whitey Skoog, Vern Mikkelson, et al, earned comparable salaries to his as a mail train conductor and they ate at the same church Lutefisk dinners. Uncle Sven never bothered to deify professional athletes as society seems to do now.
Sure, he knew Kirby and Hrbie and Bud and even Touchdown Tommy Kramer, but honestly I don’t think he knew the Timberwolves existed as a franchise until Kevin Garnett made his third All-Star game. Well, I can now add Joe Mauer, Johann Santana, and Justin Morneau to Uncle Sven’s cultural radar because when I asked him if he’d been keeping up on the Twins yesterday, he mentioned he was excited to see those three guys play. Of course, his guarded Swedish pragmatism immediately led him to qualify his excitement with a “but, ya’ know, they need to pitch, and, well, we’ll see.”
Old Home Week
According to reports, Gardenhire is initially married to the idea of a Carlos Silva, Sir Sidney, Ramon Ortiz, Boof Bonser rotation behind Santana until proven otherwise. Something tells me “otherwise” is lurking in the possibility of a plus 6.00 spring training E.R.A from two or three of those candidates rather than Matt Garza or Kevin Slowey pitching their way on to the team. In short, I’m predicting one of Terry Ryan’s flotsam pitches his way off the roster or into the bullpen before opening day and we’re left with Baker as a No. 4 and Garza thrown into the crucible for a possible 4-9 type year. Best case, I’d take a Kenny Rogers 2003 effort (13-8, 4.57 ERA, 31GS) from any of the vets.
25th Anniversary
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 1982 baseball season, throughout the summer we’re going to look back at the intrepid Twins team that went 60–102 that year, a franchise record (as the Twins not the Senators) for lowest single season winning percentage (.370). Seven young players who took their lumps on the ’82 team would go on to win the World Series with the club five years later. This paradigm for success played out again in 1999 as “Kelly’s Heroes” took their licks to the tune of a record of 63-97 before embarking on a string of Division Championships in 2001. Stay tuned …
Abe Luckman’s Dots
[Editor’s Note: We sent our intrepid reporter, Abe Luckman, down to Fort Myers to cover Spring Training, but he’s been M.I.A. since calling in and asking for an advance on some per diems from a payphone at a Big Boy’s outside of Peoria. As we all know, Abe has a lot of “close, personal friends” down in the Snow Belt section of Florida, and there have been unconfirmed sightings of Abe and Dick Vitale enjoying an omelet breakfast in Sarasota. We’re sure he’ll get there soon as we’ve taken the step of cancelling his corporate card.]
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