The feature Hugh’s Journals has appeared here on Sundays. For some basic background on Rev. Hugh Bebb Jones and his notebooks click here.

Ted Williams & Joe DiMaggio in 1941

According to his notation, Hugh used this excerpt from his notebooks in a sermon on the first Sunday of September 1941, a few months after DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak ended and just a few weeks before Ted Williams went 4 for 6 on the last day of the season to become the last man to hit .400(.406).

Baseball was on the minds of Hugh’s congregation… baseball and the looming shadow of war.

While it may not seem like baseball season here in the North Country, it is. Friday night between snowstorms the Mets played the Twins in an outdoor, inter-league game. The Mets, who were not even in existence in 1941, defeated the Twins, who in 1941 were the Washington Senators.

Much has changed  in the baseball world since 1941: Jackie Robinson, the DH, the height of the pitching mound, the Red Sox winning two World Series.

Two things have not changed: the Cubs still have not won a World Series, and the “Washington Senators” got embarrassed by a New York team.

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Here in the North Country another heatwave has broken. Last night, on one of the rare evening that I do not have to work my second job, I sat on the deck, drank beer, and listened to the NBA finals on my iPhone until the mosquitoes got so bad  that I had to go into the house and turn the game on the TV.

Where baseball is better on the radio, basketball is much better on television. No radio announcer… not even Dr. Jack… can do full justice to something as complex and dramatic and quick and beautiful as an NBA championship game. It is something that must be seen.

In the world of sports, it has been popular the last two years to root against the Miami Heat and Lebron James.  I never could. I love watching D. Wade and Lebron. They play the game right the way. How could I not root for them… “The Decision” be damned!

The end of the NBA season means that for awhile we can focus solely on baseball. In the middle of the summer, that is the way it should be. That the championship of a winter sport like basketball is being decided on the longest day of the year is something it is difficult to make peace with, but what can I say: I love NBA basketball.

The local nine continue to play like what they are: a mediocre team. I have heard it said that in baseball all teams win a third of their games and lose a third of their games. The season is decided by what they do with the final third. The Twins continue to play like a team determined to lose as many of that final third as possible.

Sports, for sports fans, are a combination entertainment and escape. It is not possible to be truly neutral or objective about sports…. at least team sports. Individual sports can be enjoyed (as much as they can be truly “enjoyed”) once every four years at the Olympics in a neutral way. Does anyone really care who wins the 100m butterfly? Or the javelin?

Team sports cannot be approached that way. Modern-day “sports journalist” purport to be neutral… but they are only fooling themselves. Team sports, like religion, are a “tribal” experience… neutrality is not a real possibility.

Men, some people say, show little emotion. Most people who say that are, I am guessing, not sports fans. Or maybe they have never watched a sporting event like the NBA finals, or – more likely– just consider the range of emotions that fans (male and female) feel watching their team win or lose to be merely some kind of “illegitimate” emotion.

Those of us who are sports fans know better. We know the joys and sorrows of tribal loyalty, of caring passionately about something we cannot in anyway affect, of being part of something bigger than ourselves. We know something about the true meaning of life.

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Here in the North Country, like the country at large, the “Rational-Middle” are being held hostage by the small, but quite vocal, partisan minorities that inhabit the polar ends of reason. Ideological madness rules the day, the common good is trampled under the feet of Democratic and Republican flag wavers.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.  ~W.B. Yeats

While MontanaWriter usually tries to hold up and celebrate the best that language and reason can achieve – poetry, fiction, art, theology – today we highlight the lowest level that language can reach: political double-speak.

It has been said that in a democracy we get the politicians we deserve. And in 2012, the Great State of Minnesota has the House Speaker we richly deserve. We also have the governor we deserve (Mark Dayton, Democrat), an United States Senator we deserve (Al Franken, Democrat), and not one, but two United States Congresspersons we richly deserve (Keith Ellison, Democrat & Michelle Bachman, Republican). But for today we are concentrating on our Republican Speaker of the House, the “Honorable” though addled Kurt Zellers.

During the current debate over whether taxpayers should build a stadium for the Vikings to play 10 games a year in, Zellers has pushed double-speak and b.s. to a new level. Whether you are pro-stadium in this kind of debate or anti-stadium, you will be equally confused and angered by the pure, unadulterated b.s. coming out of this “leader’s” mouth.

Enjoy!

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It has been a few weeks since Ricky Rubio tore his ACL in the waning seconds of a game against Kobe and the Lakers. As my friend Mark said, “yet another reason to hate the Lakers.”

It has been a long and agonizing couple of years here in the North Country from a sports fan’s point of view. The local nine barely escaped losing 100 games last year. As far as I can see, they do not promise to be much better this year. They kept the manager, made no real changes in a pitching staff that was atrocious, and still have most of their money and hopes invested in players whose health and/or hearts are questionable at best. Einstein’s definition of insanity comes to mind: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The Purple are looking for a new stadium so their owner can buy an even bigger apartment in New York City. Another terrible season ensures that they are drafting 3rd in this year’s draft. Next year they are looking for significant improvement: they hope to be drafting no higher than 7th.

The local professional hockey team with one of the worst names in professional sports started out strong but is finishing as poorly as expected. Their coach spends most of his post-game press conferences questioning his players’ effort. Hockey coaches always make a big deal about effort. Apparently they live in a world where all players and goalies are exactly the same in skill and ability and ONLY effort (and coaching) distinguishes one team from another.

The Gopher football team had a new coach this season. The old one sounded like a cross between a used-car salesman and a 100-dollar-a-day motivational speaker. The new one sounds more like a real football coach… but the team was as bad as ever.

The Gopher basketball team lost its best player early in the season and never recovered. They missed the NCAA tournament again. Their NIT success means little when at best all an NIT champion can claim now is to be the 69th best team in the country.

The only positive this year in the sports world belongs to the local WNBA team. When that is the best you have, you know you are in trouble.

Sports despair is a peculiar thing. Even though you know objectively that sports really do not matter… in your heart of hearts you can never fully stop being a fanatic.

Since I grew up in a part of the world where there really were no truly “local” teams, I have always been able to remain, at least a bit, more detached than those who have always rooted for their “home” team. But I still get caught up in the alternating cycles of irrational exuberance and despair. That is the nature of sports. Sports do not allow you to be objective. That is something non-sports fans never seem to understand.

That is also something that many modern sportswriters and sports-talk personalities never seem to fully understand either. One of my pet peeves is sportswriters who treat covering sports like it is real journalism. “I have to be objective,” they say. If that is the case, just publish the stats for the game and shut the hell up.

The best sports writers are fans. Just like the best movie reviewers are fans and the best book reviewers and best music critics.

There are things we can be objective about in life. But they are things like math and science. Most everything else that is worth taking the time to even think about requires some measure of passion.

Me… I will choose despair over dispassion every single time. And as a Minnesota sports fan… I know more than just a little bit about despair.

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Gary Carter played the best years of his career in a hockey town in another country for a team that was perennially off everyone’s radar list. Yet he managed to get All-Star and MVP candidate votes most every year. That tells you all you need to know about how great a player he was.

I got to see Carter play a fair number of times when I was living is Chicago because the people who passed their season tickets along to me tended to horde all Cardinals, Reds, and Mets tickets while being quite generous with their Expos, Padres, and Astros tickets. I also got to see him play a number of times while living in Houston.

Those Expo teams of the early 80s were fun teams to watch: Carter, Tim Raines, Andre Dawson…. Future 1987 Twins closer Jeff Reardon also played on that team. I was always happy to take any and all Expos tickets that came my way.

Carter was one of those players you were naturally led to watch when you were at a game… both at the plate and behind the plate. He was that kind of special player.

I am thinking now of players I have seen in person who – like Carter – seemed to draw my attention toward them when they were on the field or at the plate.

Kirby Puckett, was such a player. He is gone now….

• Nolan Ryan
• George Brett
• Ryne Sandberg
• Cal Ripken
• Bo Jackson
• Roger Clemens
• Rickey Henderson
• Pete Rose
• Steve Carlton (the Phillies Steve Carlton, NOT the Twins one)

Another great player is gone. The field of our memories seems dimmer….

requiescat in pace Gary Carter.

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Ricky Rubio, once in a generation?

The NBA has returned. I for one am glad. And if the Christmas Day ratings were any indication, so are many others as well.

A shorter season is the perfect recipe for both winter sports. Because of flawed revenue structures, both the NBA and NHL have traditionally deemed it necessary to have as many regular season games as possible to maximize their gate revenues. For the same reason they have also chosen to include as many teams in their playoff systems as possible. More games equals more money. Who cares if the games are meaningless… or if anyone really wants to watch them on TV. The goal is just to have as many games as possible.

The result for both sports has been: long, meaningless regular seasons that even the players stop caring about; and a playoff schedule that results in a winter sport deciding its champion in the summer. Who really wants to watch basketball, let alone hockey, in May and June?

50 games seems about right… but not in such a compressed time period. Basketball is not a game that can be played well, or safely, every night. You need to rest the body and the legs in between.

At the risk of sounding like an old-school, old-man (and let’s face facts, I usually do), all sports seasons are too long these days. Baseball should be all wrapped up before mid-October at the latest… and should not begin until Mid-April. Football is a fall sport. Championships for the college game should be decided Jan. 1st…and for the NFL, no later than mid-January. Basketball and hockey should be played from November 1st to the end of March for college and the end of April for the NBA and NHL. That is it. No basketball or hockey in May.

For Timberwolves fans, it has been awhile since there was anything to get excited about. Bad players and a series of poor coaches has meant unwatchable games with inevitable outcomes. All that has changed.

Rickey Rubio seems like the real deal. A true point guard.

I have always thought that the single most exciting thing to watch in sports is a real point guard. One who elevates other players’ games, who quarterbacks and directs the offense, who knows when they need to shoot, or drive the lane, or set someone up. Rubio is that kind of point guard. A once in a generation one, perhaps.

Winter has been mild here in the North Country this year. But even if it were as bad a winter as last year, it would not seem so deep or as dark. Not when the Wolves are playing well and Rubio is on the floor every other night dishing passes and heating things up.

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Target Field (copyright © m.a.h. hinton)

The NFL lockout looks like it is coming to an end. By all accounts the NBA one though, has the potential of taking down all or part of the season. In the revenue strong NFL it was a battle over splitting up an exponentially growing pie. In the much weaker revenue world the NBA lives in, it is a matter of fighting over scraps of a smaller and smaller pie. When bench-riding shooting guards are guaranteed tens of millions to suit up and sit in half-filled arenas, you need to seriously rethink your financial structure… maybe even contract a few teams.

For those of us who live and work in the real world, these off-season battles are mere irritants. Once they interfere with the season however, they become something much more serious.

Before the 1994-95 strike, I followed baseball as closely as I followed… religion. Then they had a “work stoppage” and I learned what many did:  that I could live quite well without baseball. I have never regained even half of my love and devotion to the game, I never will. In my mind and heart the game is forever lessened. Performance enhancing drugs did not make baseball irrelevant, greed did.

I am a hopeless sports fan. In the right context, I can watch and enjoy most any sport. Given a choice, I would choose sports every time over a movie or television program. Unscripted drama is much more compelling. I am glad that there will be football this fall. I hope that there will be an NBA season. If there is a shorter, more meaningful NBA season… say 50 games… everyone would be a winner.

For now there is long summer days and there is baseball. The Twins are playing better and Mauer is transitioning to first base. Greed has meant that I do not get to watch the Twins on “free” television anymore. But for the most part, I do not mind. Baseball on the radio is one of the definitive sounds of summer. I prefer it on the radio, in fact.

Re-invigorated by my recent vacation, I am writing again. Common blog wisdom is that to grow your blog readership you need to consistently and reliably post. Re-energized, I hope to do better. Yet blogs, like sports, also seem to me to need an occasional off-season. At least that is the way I am spinning it to myself.

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The famous swing

This week the upper Midwest and true baseball fans everywhere have been mourning the loss of baseball great Harmon Killebrew… one of the greatest home run hitters ever. In my way of figuring things, number 4 on the all-time list.

Golden Era Home Run Leaders (500 or more)
Hank Aaron         755
Willie Mays        660
Frank Robinson    586
Harmon Killebrew    573

Minnesotans were well aware that Killebrew had just been moved into hospice care, and so the news did not come as a surprise to us. I heard about Killebrew’s death in an email from my friend Jerry, which seems appropriate because Jerry is as great a baseball fan and mind as anyone I have ever known.

I have spent the week listening and reading tributes to Killebrew… and talking to friends who grew up in Minnesota watching him play.

Those who are not sports fans quite often criticize those of us who are for what they perceive as a fundamental shallowness on our part… making such a big deal out of something that really does not matter. Besides being bewildered by such people, I have always felt sorry for them. Like all who are truly ignorant, they do not really know what they do not know.

Of course it can be said that we make too much of sports and sports heroes at times. But in the case of Harmon Killebrew, we do not. By all accounts he was that great rarity, a great man who really was great.

The last time I saw Harmon Killebrew was at the Minnesota History Center at the opening night of the Baseball Hall of Fame exhibit. My friend Dave, who is a member, took me with him. Killebrew was there, along with Paul Molitor, Ryne Sandberg, Tony Oliva, and a host of Twins.

We were not allowed to ask for autographs, which was fine, but we could have our pictures taken with the players. I had mine taken with Sandberg. I did not have mine taken with Killebrew, but I ened up for awhile being the unofficial photographer for those who were having theirs taken with him. A number of people gave me their cameras to snap pictures for them. I hope I did a good job.

It was not that I did not want my picture taken with Killebrew. It was only that I had meet him before and I was having so much fun watching those older than me meeting and talking with him. It is fun to see a 6o year-old woman become an excited girl of 12 again… a 65 year-old man become a beaming little leaguer again as he meets and greets his childhood hero.

Baseball as a game has been diminished this week. We have all grown older.

requiescat in pace Harmon Killebrew.

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Another disappointing season?

The Kirby Puckett vs. Joe Mauer comparison/contrast has been on my mind these last few days. Though positionally they are different players (Mauer a catcher… Kirby center field), Mauer’s recent health issues will  narrow that gap sooner than later. They both played for the Twins… both were the number three hitter in the lineup… both, by far, the most popular players on their respective teams… both all-stars… the face of their respective franchises… both the highest paid players on their teams.

I moved to the Twin Cities and started following the Twins in earnest in 1986. I had followed them from afar because of my previous sojourn in the Red River Valley and through friends who grew up in Minnesota and were life-long Twins fans. Living in Chicago I usually went to Wrigley UNLESS the Royals or Twins were playing the White Sox. I always went to at least a few of those games with friends.

1986 was a good time to start following the Twins in earnest. That was the year before they won their first World Series. It was an over-achieving team of lunch-pail kind of guys that were about the same age as me: Gladden, Brunansky, Hrbek, Gaetti, Viola, Blyleven, and, of course, Puckett. Puckett was worth the price of admission, as a fielder and a batter. He was charismatic, a difference maker, a true super-star.

I assume that today’s fans feel about Joe Mauer the same way. He does stop time when he bats. All eyes in the stands and both dugouts are on him when he steps to the plate. Few players can do that in any era.

As I was thinking about them I looked up their stats. Baseball is, after all, a game of numbers. The first thing I found is that I had forgotten how great Kirby really was. Here are some side-by-side stats after their first 7 seasons with the Twins:

Kirby Puckett and Joe Mauer after first 7 seasons

What you notice in looking at these stats is that Kirby’s batting average after his first 7 seasons is really remarkably close to Mauer’s… but he hits more homeruns AND plays in more games. Kirby brings his batting average and power to more games than Mauer.

Mauer won an MVP in 2009, the year of his historic slugging percentage. That year he put up way more homers than he has at any other time in his career. So I decided to compare Mauer’s best season in his first seven, 2009, with Kirby’s best season in his first seven seasons, 1988. Here is a chart that compares those:

Mauer's best and Puckett's best in their first 7 seasons

Comparing the these two great seasons we see the same trend. Catcher Mauer is not able to play in as many games as the durable Puckett. Over a season that durability adds up to RBI. The number three hitter has one job: drive in runs. Again in 2009, Mauer hit substantially more  home runs than his career average… he more than doubled his career average. He has never come that close before or since. Puckett in 1988 hit just a few more than the number you would expect.

What do the Twins long term need to be competitive as a team… besides dominating pitching? A high average hitting catcher who plays in just 135 games a year? Or a run producing center fielder who plays in 158 games a year? I think the answer is obvious.

At the end of 7 seasons Joe Mauer has 1 MVP trophy… Puckett none. At the end of 7 seasons Mauer has won 1 playoff game… Puckett a World Series.

Man, do I miss Kirby!

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20 years already?!

With last night’s predictable Timberwolves loss, another miserable basketball season in Minnesota has come mercifully to a close. For basketball fans in the gopher state, it has been another long and disappointing season. Only the local semi-professional team, Hopkins High School, had a season worth remembering. The coach and administration of Hopkins High School should probably be compelled by the Minnesota State Legislature to hold a basketball recruitment seminar and invite David Kahn (GM of the Timberwolves), Tubby Smith (Men’s Gopher coach), and Pam Borton (Women’s Gopher Coach) to attend.

Fortunately Spring is here and the baseball season has begun. Though if the first two weeks of the season are any indication… this could well be a long season for Minnesota baseball fans also.

The Joe Mauer dilemma has raised its ugly head a few years earlier than the Twins management would have liked. They know that at some point they are going to have to move Mauer from behind the plate. You can’t have your 23+ million dollar man squatting behind the plate for too much longer if you expect his knees and body to hold up. But the moment you move him he becomes just a high-average singles hitter. The league is filled with those kind of hitters. None that can hit with Mauer’s average… but many, many who can drive in more runs. Singles hitter never make 23+ million dollar salaries, though. They are not worth it… no matter how high their average.

It is a long season, though. Much can happen in 162 games. I have little faith that much will for the local nine, but I hope to be pleasantly surprised. If they give Kubel less playing time, and Thome more at bats… if Mauer could regain just a little of the power he showed his MVP year… if Morneau gets back into the swing of things… and if every pitcher on the staff pitches much better than I think they can… they may be able to get back into the playoffs for a one and done with the Yankees.

1991, Minnesota sports’ last championship season, is 20 years past. At the rate we are going around here, it could be another 20 until we have something to celebrate.

*UPDATE Friday morning: the paper reports that Mauer is going on the DL and has an appointment with a doctor. Man, I miss Kirby!

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