hall-fame.com Blog
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With Twins Fest each year comes the pleasant reminder that spring training is just around the corner and that another season in the sun is on the horizon. Of course this year, the Twins’ season really will be in the sun – for the first time since 1981. I wonder if the Twins fans who are young enough to have never known anything else but teflon-roofed baseball (30 and under?) will feel weird when they first step foot in Target Field and see blue sky, clouds, and the Minneapolis skyline? It would have to feel like your mom suddenly turned into a hot chick. Nothing wrong with that, I guess.

Highlights of my Twins Fest included talking to Hall of Famer Bob Feller and getting a signed photo. I watched his interview with Bob Costas on the MLB Network last week and was impressed how robust this man of 91 still is. Feller broke into the majors in the late 1930’s and pitched well into the 1950’s so got to face a host of legends like Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle. Feller also served in WW II, commanding and anti-aircraft unit aboard the U.S.S. Alabama. Quite a man.

I picked up a book at Twins Fest called Twins at the Met by Bob Showers. It’s a nice coffee table book that shows many of the Twins players that called Metropolitan Stadium home between 1961 and 1981. It has some entertaining players’ recollections and a few interesting tidbits of trivia. (The largest Met Stadium crowd ever was not for a sporting event – but for the Eagles Hotel California concert.) Showers was there autographing copies. I mentioned to him as he was signing my book that he had at least two sequels he could write, as well.

I sat down by the KSTP stage and listened to Joe Soucheray and Pat Reusse for a minute or two – long enough to remind me how much I don’t like either. While I’m dissing KSTP on-air persons, I have to again plead with the Twins powers that be to find a replacement for John Gordon. Maybe his play-by-play is beloved in nursing homes, but it is just cringe-enducing to try a listen to him. Now that we have a real ballpark, can we next get a real announcer? Please?

Despite my KSTP rant, I enjoyed Twins Fest as I always do. While I was in the baseball afterglow on the way home, I stopped at my neighborhood video game store and pre-ordered a copy of MLB 10 The Show for PS3. Last year’s version was great so I’m sure this year’s will be too – plus it will have Target Field and a bunch of classic ballparks as well. March 3rd.

I was sorry to read that Harmon Killebrew had to have surgery last night and will miss the Twins’ Diamond Awards and Twins Fest this weekend. To me, Harmon is unquestionably the first face on the Twins’ version of Mt. Rushmore. A Twins Fest weekend without him doesn’t seem quite the same.

Have a speedy recovery, Harmon! Hope to see you at Target Field.

The Twins signed Jim Thome to a one year deal for the 2010 season today their website reports. I am scratching my head on this one as Thome is a left-handed DH and the Twins already have a pretty good left-handed DH in Jason Kubel. The PR coming out of the Twins front office is that the move is to add depth to a thin bench – not that Thome is the first move in a sequence to move a current player on the Twins roster. (Such as trading Delmon Young and moving Kubel to a permanent spot in the outfield? All in favor say “Aye.”)

Mark McGwire has finally admitted to using performance enhancing drugs during his career with Oakland and St. Louis. As crafted by his weasly image consultant/spin doctor/pissy former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, McGwire’s confession followed the soon-to-be standard Andy Pettitte non-culpability model in which McGwire claimed that he only used the horse steroids to recover from injuries, not to enhance his strength. According to McGwire, none of his homeruns or his ultra cartoony physique were the result of his multi-year use of Human Growth Hormone and anabolic steroids.

Why did he choose to make a confession now? It was time, he claims. He wanted to clear his conscience. He said he couldn’t make his confession at the Congressional hearings in 2005 because the statute of limitatons hadn’t expired and, without an offer of immunity, he couldn’t risk prosecution. (Not for his sake, of course, but for the others that would be involved.) Hence his oh-so deft “I’m not here to talk about the past” tap dance.

If Mark McGwire truly had a functioning conscience, he’s had years since the statute of limitations expired to ease his conscience. He could have had that peace of mind at any time. Funny he waited until the month before he reports to his new job in baseball, isn’t it?

While the former Bash Brother’s quivery lower lip, teardrop-laden eyes, and choked-up voice in Monday’s interview with Bob Costas may move some forgiveniks to pardon McGwire’s transgressions, I only hold him in more contempt. He only admits to using PED’s now that he wants back into baseball – and still has the balls (however shrunken from steroids) to deny he used them to improve his performance.

McGwire, the word that best describes you is Fraud.