AaronGleeman.com

Not since Seth Stohs' last blog entry has someone made such extensive use of exclamation points in an article about a baseball player! Also, you'd think that someone who's "keeping score" would know that home is a plate, not a base. Anyway, Mauer is quoted as saying, "I think I'll be a great husband," which is essentially like throwing chum to a bunch of sharks. Sure enough, accompanying the article there are dozens of comments from women hoping to get a date with Mauer.

Most of them were smart enough to use only their first name or an alias, but someone named Erica Yohre was lucky enough to have her parents post a comment making the case for Mauer to date her. So if Mauer is looking for a girl who comes from a family that does things like try to get their daughter hooked up with a famous athlete by posting comments that he'll never see on a tabloid show's website, she's the girl for him. Assuming she hasn't died of embarrassment, of course.

That's a fascinating story and Bremer told it very well, but unfortunately it's apocryphal. It narrowly avoids being simply "not true" because many of the scene-setting details are accurate, but the whole thing begins to fall apart once Earl Battey steps to the plate and the climax is an outright lie. So, which part is actually true? Well, Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall, and Harmon Killebrew did hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers against Kansas City in 1964.

To be exact, it was May 2, 1964. With the game tied at 3-3 in the top of the 11th inning, Oliva led off by homering to right field off Dan Pfister. Allison followed with a homer to left field and Hall made it three straight with a homer to right field. Pfister was then yanked from the game, with Vern Handrahan replacing him. Killebrew greeted the new pitcher with a homer to left field, giving the Twins a 7-3 lead after four consecutive solo homers. So far so good, right?

Just as the Bremer-Mee story claims, Battey then stepped to the plate with a chance to hit the Twins' fifth straight homer. It's possible that he "tried to hit the ball to right field after the four guys ahead of him hit home runs," but that's where the potential for truth ends. Rather than "hit one about two-thirds of the way off the fence in right field," what actually happened is that Battey struck out looking. Seriously. No drama and no near-homer, just a called third strike. So much for all that.

It's amazing that Mee has somehow remembered the events so wrongly given that he supposedly was at the game in question while working for the Twins. Beyond that, not only has he apparently been telling a fictionalized version of the story to people, Bremer was perfectly willing to relay it to what is a relatively substantial television audience without so much as checking the tale's most basic elements, all while doing his very best to play up the story's made-up drama.

The whole thing struck me as too good to be true when Bremer said it Saturday and within about 30 seconds my suspicions were effortlessly confirmed via multiple sources. Setting aside Mee's faulty memory, it's a shame that Bremer and FSN couldn't have taken the same amount of time that I did to confirm his story before passing it off as reality. Then again, I suppose not everyone can be expected to have the same sort of credibility as a blogger.

Here's what Cameron wrote about why Balentien might be attractive to the Twins:

Balentien is a right-handed hitter who's always shown big-time power in the minors, but his plate discipline and strike-zone control have been wildly inconsistent. The skills are definitely there for him to be an impact bat and he's hitting .333/.407/.585 with eight homers in 32 games at Triple-A despite not turning 23 years old until July. Of course, Terry Ryan hordes pitching to no end and "doesn't care about home runs," so don't expect Cameron's suggestion to happen.

As a very wise man once said, "When you start throwing everyone else under the bus, there won't be anyone left to keep you from getting run over." (OK, I made that up just now, but it sounds pretty good.)

Sure enough, just a couple days later the Official Twins Beat Writer of AG.com, LaVelle E. Neal III, wrote the following in an article about Ryan shooting down talk of the Twins needing to trade for a hitter:

Ford isn't being painted as the savior that Reusse suggests he is, especially by LEN3, but it's true that prior to Mauer going down, injuries to mediocre players like Ford were constantly being brought up by the fans, media, and team to "explain" the Twins' lack of hitting. It was as if being without Ford, Rondell White, and Jeff Cirillo is enough to crush an entire offense. Meanwhile, as Joe Christensen pointed out on his Star Tribune blog, injuries haven't hurt the Twins any more than other teams.