I was originally going to write about the Minneapolis/Green Bay trip, but nothing life-alteringly funny besides inside jokes happened, and can be summed up thusly:
1. Target Field is pretty awesome.
2. I miss ADawg and wish he didn't move to Oregon and only visits once every Presidential term.
3. Lambeau Field is even more awesomer than Target Field.
4. NFL preseason bets: I'm either riding a crazy lucky streak, or I'm on to something here.
5. Jeremiah Weed & water (aka the Michael Phelps) gets me really drunk really quick-- that stuff is delicious.
6. Junior's, a lil' diner/restaurant/bar in Burnsville, is one of my new favorite eateries ever. We ate there for breakfast on Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday morning, and I dominated the #15 cajun andouille all three days.
7. When we get right down to it, I'm just not that good at team-play competitive golf, even though it's my favorite format of golf to play.
So back to the Twins fans.....
Full disclaimer: I know a decent part of the blame belongs to me. I usually refrain from wearing Red Sox gear when they're not involved in the sporting event. When I'm at a random Royals game, I'll throw on a Titleist hat, or an incidental college team, like TCU or something. Since the Twins were playing the Yankees, however, I thought I'd show my support by wearing a Sox hat. Look, I hate the Yankees, you hate the Yankees, let's get together and just fucking hate them together, cool? I'm with you guys tonight. But in a slight understatement, let's just say my support was not appreciated on this evening. (The best line of the evening: Bergman and I rode the light rail in from the suburbs, next to this guy for a solid 25 minutes. He waits until the moment I step off into the streets and the door is closing behind me to yell "I've got bad news for you buddy.....you've got the wrong homestand!") Hey screw you, guy.
Look, I'm sorry that the Red Sox are good now. And I'm sorry that lots of people are bandwagon jumpers. But you know what? I'm not one of them. If you go back to what my sports fandom was like in 2003, with all the close-but-no-cigar-disappointments and maybe-next-year-will-be-the-year-mentality, it's borderline crazy that I have to constantly defend myself now. Sorry that KU won a title, the Red Sox won two, and Phil starting collecting green suit jackets like they cost 70 cents at the thrift store. I paid my dues.
Also, I can pretty much guarantee that I can name more members of the 1987 Twins than 75% of the Minneapolis metropolitan area. So I'm not just any geek off the streets. I'm handy with the steel, if you know what I mean, earn my keep. It's insulting to me that as soon as you lay eyes on me, you assume I'm one of the post-2004 fans, when in reality I was entertaining my parents' friends at dinner parties at age 5 by naming Boston's entire roster, with batting averages and ERAs included for most of them.
I promise I'll never bring this issue up again, as long as I don't have to hear about how "Boston just buys their whole team" anymore either. Something to think about: having a large payroll is undeniably a huge advantage, but that advantage mostly comes in keeping their own players. The Sox haven't really bought anyone that has a major positive effect on the team. Look at their lineup:
Ellsbury, home-grown
Pedroia, home-grown
Gonzalez, trade
Youkilis, home-grown
Ortiz, signed on the cheap after Minnesota discarded him (to be fair, he wasn't juicing yet, or the Twins probably would've kept him.)
Lowrie, home-grown
Crawford, bought and paid for (and he sucks.)
Reddick, home-grown/JD Drew, bought and paid for (and he sucks.)
Saltalamacchia/Varitek, trades
And their pitching staff:
Lester, home-grown
Bucholz, home-grown
Beckett, trade
Wakefield, signed on the cheap, so long ago that I think he might have been around before free agency was even invented yet
Lackey, bought and paid for (and he sucks.)
Bard, home-grown
Papelbon, home-grown
So yes, the Sox have a huge payroll. But it's used on keeping the guys that they brought through the minors and turned into all-stars, and for overpaying shitty players that just piss the fanbase off.
I really do hate talking about this; I just got more and more annoyed, the more I thought about last Thursday's game. I'm tired of being made to feel like a douche, just because my team won a couple of World Series. Red Sox fans get the bad rap, but I've met far more annoying Twins fans in my time. (And I'm not counting ball-busting from friends, that's fine. You guys are mostly dicks and it's expected. I mean the randoms like light rail guy.)
Now there's just this awful vibe hanging in the room. Here's some comic relief.
