For posterity's sake and because looking at the numbers makes me smile, the first four hitters in the Twins' lineup have the following season totals after collectively going 10-for-15 with four homers, two doubles, four walks, 10 RBIs, and 11 runs scored in yesterday's blowout win against the Indians:
Here's hoping that Ron Gardenhire can resist the urge to fix what isn't broken by jamming Alexi Casilla or Matt Tolbert in there.
According to Sports Business Journal, the Twins have baseball's eighth-largest television audience with an average of 108,000 "households" per game, which is pretty amazing when New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit are the only markets ahead of Minnesota. Meanwhile, the Washington Postnotes that the Nationals have seen their TV audience increase by 56 percent this season ... and are still drawing only 12,000 households per game.
"Amazing" by Kanye West has basically been running on an endless loop during the NBA playoffs, so this remix honors the subset of guys who rarely make any "Where Amazing Happens" commercials:
"No matter what they'll never pass it to me, my range is as far as my arms can reach. I'm Caucasian."
People magazine callsAlex Rodriguez's relationship with Kate Hudson "somewhat serious," noting that "Hudson followed Rodriguez on the road late last month to Dallas" and the couple "worked out together in the fitness center" of the team hotel. If by some miracle Hudson ever makes a decent movie again--seriously, check out her resume since Almost Famous--the Hollywood media will no doubt start buzzing with talk of performance-enhancing drugs. Does human growth hormone help you act?
Apparently the "good-looking girl playing football in a bikini" craze is taking over the world of staged photo shoots: Kim Kardashianlast week and Kristin Cavallarithis week.
University of Minnesota student journalist Trevor Born has been named this year's recipient of the Big Ten Conference William R. Reed Memorial Award. ... The conference annually honors the former commissioner by presenting this award to a student journalist ... who ... best exemplifies the spirit, ideals and dedication to the Big Ten and intercollegiate athletics.
A sophomore journalism major, Born is the beat writer for football and men's basketball at the Minnesota Daily, a post he has held since the second semester of his freshman year. Born was named the 2008 Sports Reporter of the Year by the campus daily publication and has spent time freelancing for the Associated Press. In addition to his excellence as a reporter, Born has excelled in the classroom, maintaining a 3.8 GPA in the University Honors Program.
That's all, huh? Nearly three years ago one of these Link-O-Rama entries included my plan for "landing a newspaper gig" that involved "waiting a couple decades until Born is the editor-in-chief somewhere and hoping he remembers me." At this rate the "couple decades" timetable is going to look kind of silly.
In his latest first-round projection, Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com has the Twins picking a high-school pitcher, Matt Hobgood, at No. 22 overall. While that may indeed happen, it's worth noting that the Twins have selected either a high-school hitter or college pitcher with their first pick in every draft since 1997.
Last week's Link-O-Rama included the latest amusing installment of Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis, so here's a 5,000-word New York Timesarticle about the man himself.
Friend of AG.com, Dodgers blogger, and Variety editor Jon Weismanput together a survey about the decade's best television and the results look surprisingly good to me.
David Dorsey of the Fort Myers News-Presswrote a nice article about the tallest pitcher in baseball, Twins right-hander Loek Van Mil.
