Twins 2016: Running In Place

Gulf Coast League Twins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Minnesota Twins had their best season since 2010, finishing in second place in the American League Central Division behind eventual World Series champion Kansas City.  Which was quite a feat since the Twins were consistently lousy in the years in between.  In 2016, they hope to do a lot better.

How can you do that when you're in a division where every other team has improved, at least on paper?  Other than signing a slugger from South Korea named Byung Ho Park, trading with the New York Yankees for backup catcher John Ryan Murphy and the retirement of Torii Hunter, the Twins didn't do much during the off season.

So General Manager Terry Ryan, manager Paul Molitor and everyone else will have to make do with young players (Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano) who have promise to be promising, a highly-paid veteran (Joe Mauer) they still don't know what to do with, an infield with hitting chops and little else, and a hot-and-cold pitching staff not marred (they hope) by drug suspensions and slumps.

Ricky Nolasco has been named the starting pitcher when the Twins open their season at Baltimore against the Orioles April 4.  What happens after that depends on how competitive they are with what they've got.  It won't be enough to get beyond third place, but enough to see more signs of life on a franchise that hasn't seen enough of it lately.

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Our picks for who's going into the playoffs come October:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

EAST  Boston Red Sox
CENTRAL  Kansas City Royals
WEST  Houston Astros
WILD CARD  Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels

NATIONAL LEAGUE

EAST  New York Mets
CENTRAL  St. Louis Cardinals
WEST  San Francisco Giants
WILD CARD  Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers 

Pot Shots 2016

Maria Sharapove (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The NCAA men's basketball tournament is going on as we speak.  That means teams from Power Five conferences with championship aspirations are playing "Cinderellas" from small conferences, played at neutral sites on generic-looking courts that might as well be mistaken for TV studios, and televised on networks other than CBS that are not known for sports coverage (TBS, TNT, TruTV).   Wake us when it's the Final Four, which will be held at a football stadium in Houston.

Peyton Manning retires from playing football after winning one more Super Bowl.  Now if he were only as nimble in getting past allegations of performance-enhancing drug use, or what really happened with allegations of sexual assault when he was a student at the University of Tennessee two decades ago.

The Minnesota Vikings have big plans for the future, now that their new Glass Palace is almost ready.  They recently purchased the old Northwest/Delta Airlines headquarters in suburban Eagan, hoping to turn it into a state-of-the-art office and practice facility.  The Vikings also tried to get the city of Minneapolis to change the name of the street their stadium is on from Chicago Avenue to Vikings Way, which was rejected and the team ultimately dropped the idea.  Changing the name of Chicago Avenue for competitive reasons (the Bears are in the same division, duh) makes the Vikings look petty and mean, not to mention ignorance of local history.  They shouldn't be overplaying their hand in public relations.

The Chicago White Sox have decided they'd rather let first baseman Adam LaRoche retire rather than let him bring his son into the team clubhouse for every game.  Now, most of us agree that clubhouses should be considered work places for players and not day care. But what if LaRoche's son had a fatal illness or some other special need?  Then the White Sox would be in PR hell for this.

Tennis star Maria Sharapova has admitted to testing positive for meldonium at the recent Australian Open, a substance banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.  For Sharapova's honesty, a few of her sponsors have dropped her, and any suspension would mean the end of her career.  Which makes you wonder about Serena Williams . . .

President Barack Obama is going to Cuba soon, becoming the first U.S. leader to visit there since Calvin Coolidge nearly 90 years ago.  While there, the President will attend a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and a team of Cuban all-stars.  It's all part of Obama's mission to make Castro Land safe for Americans again, even if Fidel and Raoul aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Wolves 2015-16: Growing Pains

The current Minnesota Timberwolves logo (2008-present) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Minnesota Timberwolves, in their first game since the week-long All Star break, lost to the Grizzlies in Memphis 109-104.  The Wolves are 17-38, and will once again not be playoff-bound.  That doesn't really matter because everyone seems to be pointing to the big future the team supposedly has, what with the presence of Number One draft picks Anthony Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns.  But sometimes the future can be a mirage, not turning out the way you wanted.  The Wolves have had plenty of experience with that.

As the recent NBA All Star Weekend in Toronto showed, Wiggins, Towns and Zach LaVine impressed enough souls around the league to convince them that all is not lost in the American North.  What's holding the Wolves back is not just the strength of the Western Conference (though the dominance of the defending league champion Golden State Warriors is an exception), but also the questions surrounding the supporting cast.

Ricky Rubio is a good NBA player, but hasn't been the same since a serious knee injury took him down a few years ago.  Kevin Martin doesn't seem to be the answer either, though the Wolves tried and failed to move him before the trade deadline.  And Kevin Garnett is just biding his time before announcing his retirement.

In the months since the death of Phil "Flip" Saunders, this season has been more or less an audition for interim coach Sam Mitchell.  With the record the Wolves have this season compared to last, anything could be considered an improvement.  But there are the rumors that owner Glen Taylor would toss aside Mitchell and general manager Milt Newton in favor of a bigger name who would love the challenge of turning the Wolves into a legitimate winner, which would be a far cry from when Saunders took the coaching job for the second time when no one else wanted it.  Or if Garnett and his teammates have anything to say about it. Mitchell would be the permanent coach.

For the rest of the season, the audition continues.  Will Towns and Wiggins improve enough to start becoming leaders?  Do the Wolves have the pieces to at least be a .500 team, or do they need more pieces that fit?  How much longer can Rubio justify his presence?  Is Mitchell really the right coach?  And how much longer will it be before the Timberwolves and the NBA are relevant again in Minnesota?

Super Bowl 50: Peyton Manning Rides Into the Bay Area Sunset

Denver Broncos logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On this golden anniversary of the Super Bowl at a football stadium named for a jeans manufacturer near San Francisco, the Denver Broncos' defense ruled over the Carolina Panthers 24-10, easing the way for quarterback Peyton Manning to retire in style should he choose to do so.

The Broncos' D held Cam Newton and company's explosive offense in the same manner that they handled Pittsburgh and New England during the playoffs, limiting the Panthers to ten points and causing five turnovers--one of which resulted in a touchdown.  Not for nothing was Von Miller named the Super Bowl MVP.

Manning didn't have a great game either, having thrown for 104 yards and getting sacked five times.  But the way his team's defense had been playing, it wasn't a problem.  Now, with adding to the Manning family's total of four Super Bowl victories (both Peyton and Eli have two each), he can just sit back, sip the brew he holds a distributorship in, collect the money on all those TV endorsements, and decide what to do next.

That's the game, such as it was.  As for everything else that makes up a Super Bowl . . .

• We expect this at every major sporting event now.  The ruthless crackdown on "undesirables" to put on a shiny, happy show for the visitors.  The super-patriotic pregame show with the celebrity singer who screws up the national anthem, all paid for with "your" tax dollars.  Only those with oodles of money get to see the Big Game while the rest of us peasants watched on TV (nearly 112 million, according to CBS).  All this to show the rest of the world that America is still The Greatest Country On The Planet, and that's no Donald Trump hyperbole.
• Whose bright idea was it to schedule Coldplay as the headline act for the Super Bowl halftime show?  (Wasn't Taylor Swift available?)  Fortunately, Beyonce (who used the occasion not only to figuratively raise a middle finger to racist police, but to promote her upcoming tour) and Bruno Mars were around to keep things from flatlining.  But the whole show still seemed like an extended commercial for next week's Grammy awards, which just happen to be on CBS.
• Companies pay exorbitant amounts of money to get their ads into the Super Bowl telecast.  So how come most of them turn out to be boring, confusing, imitative, insensitive, or just plain stupid?  ("Puppymonkeybaby"?  Really?)  Oh well, they got what they paid for.
• Can we please end the new postgame tradition of Hall of Famers like Joe Namath parading the Vince Lombardi Trophy through the gauntlet of players from the winning team, who then put their paws and saliva on it before it's even officially awarded?  Gross.  Yuck.  Eww.  This makes the Stanley Cup ceremony seem classier by comparison.

Wild 2015-16: No Offense Taken

Minnesota Wild (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another season, another crisis for the Minnesota Wild.  This time around, it's not about defense or goaltending.  They're one of the best in the NHL as far as that goes, except when it comes to late-game miscues that cost them a point or two in the standings.

The Wild's record at the All-Star break--or should we just call it the All-Star Three-on-Three Tournament to be held in Nashville, with goalie Devan Dubnyk Minnesota's only representative?--is a respectable 23-17-5 in the tough Central Division, but whose 55 points (shared with the Colorado Avalanche) provides a small cushion between getting into the playoffs as a Western Conference wild card and staying to see who else wins the Stanley Cup on TV.

Instead, this season's crisis is about scoring, or the lack of it.  The Wild have scored 122 goals so far this season, which is far from the league's worst (that would be the Anaheim Ducks with 101).  But it's when they don't put the puck in the net that matters.  They have one of the league's worst power plays.  They'll score maybe once or twice per game and hope that holds up.  They were shut out twice on consecutive nights.  And they have yet to master the NHL's new three-on-three overtime.

All this talent--Zach Parise, Jason Pominville, Nino Niederriter, Mikael Granlund, Charlie Coyle and others--that Wild management have spent millions to bring a Stanley Cup championship to Minnesota, and they don't score?

Maybe we're being a bit hard on the Wild, having caught them at a bad time.  After all, they did get off to a good start before the calendar flipped to 2016 and things grounded to a halt..  But ever since Mike Yeo became coach five years ago (and maybe even before), the Wild have faced at least one period during the season when a part of the machine wasn't working.  This season, it just happens to be the offense.

Once the season resumes next week, we should know if either Wild management will be getting help for the struggling offense before the trade deadline, or the players they already have will be able to work out the problem themselves.  If the problem persists and the Wild somehow misses the playoffs, Mike Yeo may no longer be chief mechanic.

UPDATE (2/19/16):  After dropping an entire homestand, the Wild didn't wait to replace Yeo with  John Torchetti, who had been coaching their minor league team in Des Moines, Iowa.  Since the change, the Wild are 3-0 after scoring five goals each against mediocre teams in western Canada (Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers--in that order).  It's too soon to say whether they're out of the playoff woods or not.  But at least NBC's announcing crew will have something positive to say about the Wild this Sunday, playing outdoors against the Chicago Blackhawks at the University of Minnesota's football stadium.

The Los Angeles Rams, Act Two

Front gate of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What did F. Scott Fitzgerald say about second acts in life?  The NFL Rams are moving back to Los Angeles after having spent two decades in St. Louis.

Owner Stan Kroenke, a Missouri-born land developer who just happens to be married to a member of the Walton family (the one that owns Walmart), successfully convinced the NFL to let him move his football team to a stadium on property he owns in nearby Inglewood, California.  Until it's finished in 2019, the Rams will probably play out of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which they called home the first time around.

This development leaves the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders in the lurch.  Both franchises are stuck in old stadiums and couldn't wait to move to LA.  Unfortunately, the NFL voted down the two teams' proposal to share a stadium in Carson, California.  But they're both still in the running to join the Rams at their new digs in Inglewood.  Or maybe San Antonio is available.

For years, NFL teams have used Los Angeles as leverage to get the stadium deals they wanted:  Seattle, Arizona, Minnesota, Buffalo, Jacksonville, Miami--have we left anyone out?  Now that they can't do that any more, they'll come up with another city worthy of blackmail.  London?  Toronto?

So why did the NFL leave LA in the first place, when both the Raiders and Rams left in 1995?  Lack of fan support?  Lousy teams?  Fear of lawsuits if the league dared to interfere?  Or couldn't they make money on it any more?  Obviously, two decades have done wonders to change attitudes.

Going back to La-la land also means the NFL is returning to the second-largest TV market in America, which makes their current deals with several networks all the more valuable.  Hollywood's power elite will want to get next to pro football's poobahs, and vice versa.  The Rose Bowl can host the Super Bowl again.  It'll be a destination for free agent players and top draft picks, if only for the fat contracts and endorsements they'll bring.

None of this describes St. Louis, which has now lost its second NFL franchise (the other one being the Cardinals, who left for Arizona in 1988), and will probably not see another one any time soon.  Kroenke is Public Enemy Number One there right now, in the same way Norm Green was regarded by Minnesota North Stars fans when he moved the team to Dallas in 1993.  The city fathers and mothers tried to counter with a new stadium to replace the outdated (to the Rams) Edward Jones Dome.  But how do you compete with the glitz and glamour of southern California, and an owner hellbent on getting there?  Oh well.  St. Louis has always been a baseball town, anyway.

In the history of the Rams franchise, they have won one NFL championship (1951) and made one Super Bowl appearance (1980, lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers) while in Los Angeles.  They won a league title in 1945 as the Cleveland Rams before moving west.  In 2000, the St. Louis Rams (then called "The Greatest Show On Turf" ) won the Super Bowl over the Tennessee Titans, in what could only be described as a Hollywood ending.

What will the script be for the Rams, now that they're in love with LA again?

It's Only Football. Isn't It?

English: American football with clock to represent a "current sports or American football event" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a season in which the Minnesota Vikings overachieved enough to win the NFC North division title over the stumbling Green Bay Packers, who won enough to make the NFL's wild card round, it must gall the Vikings and their supporters that the Packers are moving on and they are not.

The final on Sunday was Seattle Seahawks 10, Vikings 9.  Contrary to popular belief, this playoff loss was a team effort.  It wasn't just Blair Walsh's incredulous miss from 27 yards that would have won the game for the Vikings in the below-zero cold of TCF Bank Stadium.  It was Walsh being the entire offense with nine points on three field goals.  It was Adrian Peterson fumbling the ball at a most inopportune moment in the fourth quarter, which would have eliminated the need for Walsh to win the game.

After three quarters of being frozen out offensively, the Seahawks' Russell Wilson showed what a savvy, experienced playoff quarterback looked like.  He made the most out of a fumbled snap, picking it up at midfield and throwing the ball to an open receiver who almost took it to the end zone, resulting in the game's only touchdown that led to Seattle's victory.

Meanwhile, the Packers will be moving on to Arizona, having won their wild card game at Washington with ease.  Aaron Rodgers also showed the Redskins what an experienced playoff quarterback can do.

With the season suddenly cut short, everybody is predicting great things for the Vikings for next season and beyond.  Quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and Adrian Peterson are the offensive cornerstones, the defense is playing up to its potential, and the Vikings are going back indoors.  On the other hand, Bridgewater has yet to show he can be an elite signal-caller like Wilson or Rodgers, Peterson is getting older, and the Vikings are going back indoors.

In their 55-year history, the Minnesota Vikings have had more bizarre things happen that have kept them from winning a world championship, rivaling Charlie Brown's attempts at kicking a football.  It's happened at every place they've called home:  Metropolitan Stadium, the Metrodome and TCF Bank Stadium.  What kind of horror awaits them at US Bank Stadium?
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Our projected Super Bowl 50 matchup:  Seattle vs. New England
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In the second College Football Playoff championship game at Glendale, Arizona Monday, the Alabama Crimson Tide won its fourth national title in seven years (only Notre Dame in the 1940s has also done that) with a 45-40 win over Clemson.  The Tigers had been the top-seeded team for half the season.

Tide coach Nick Saban won his fifth championship, putting him one shy of the mark set by another Alabama coaching legend named Bear Bryant.

While the championship game was an entertaining shootout between two Southern football powers, all the talk has been about how far the people who run the CFP would go to sabotage their own product.  Unlike last season, in which both semifinal games were played on New Year's Day in the Rose and Sugar bowls, Alabama beat Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl while Clemson took care of Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl . . . on New Year's Eve.

Granted, the two games were one-sided and ESPN kept reminding its viewers that the new Taylor Swift video was about to be shown on fellow Disney network ABC's "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest".  But New Year's Eve fell on a Friday this year, meaning some folks were still at work and/or had to choose between partying and watching football.

Add to that the refusal of the Rose and Sugar bowls to move from their traditional New Year's Day time slots--unless it's January 2nd, because the NFL usually has first dibs when the holiday falls on Sunday (which it does in 2017).

Predictably, the New Year's Eve games had ratings that resembled flat champagne.  Still, the CFP insists on putting its semifinals on that day despite pleas to move them somewhere else.  They might get lucky next season when New Year's Eve falls on a Saturday, when more people will be home.  Other than that, an awful lot depends on the calendar and what the NFL wants.

ESPN usually gets blamed for a lot of things when it comes to sports on TV.  In this case they really can't be, unless you want to claim that the Worldwide Leader spent too much money over the next decade to let themselves be pushed around by an organization that rivals Augusta National Golf Club in not letting TV networks call the tune on when to schedule their events.

But then, it's only football.  Right?