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The Management

Photo from I Can Has Cheezburger?

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 11, 2007 03:01 PM | Comments (0)

 

Watch U.S. v. Uruguay tonight

The U.S. under 20 squad, having notched nine goals in three opening round matches, takes on Uruguay tonight in the knockout stage of the World Cup. The game is only being shown on ESPNU, unfortunately. Folks will be gathering locally at the Sweetwater Grille & Bar in St. Paul to watch. Kickoff is 6:30 CST.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 11, 2007 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

 

American Freakshow

I haven't watched the All-Star game in years and years. I last caught the thing the year Selig declared the game a tie, and then the next season made it the determinant for home field advantage in the Fall Classic, something I'm sure Tampa Bay's Carl Crawford cares buckets about. Tonight's 5-4 American League victory, the tenth in a row (not counting the one that "didn't count") did nothing to lessen my conflicted feelings about the All-Star game, and baseball in general. Tonight, I couldn't help but notice that this beautiful game of ours is plagued with some bizarre and unhealthy personalities, who literally referred to themselves tonight as distant and untouchable. And they meant that as a compliment.

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Posted by Peter Schilling Jr. at July 10, 2007 09:27 PM | Comments (6)

 

Fabulous Freddy Adu

It's been a schizophrenic few weeks for U.S. soccer fans. The yanks were largely uninspiring in their run through the Gold Cup, gritting out victories over humdrum squads like Panama and Canada. But Benny Feilhaber's miraculous game-winning strike over the evil Mexicans in the final erased any misgivings about the state of the American squad.

Then there was Copa America. Granted it was a B-list U.S. squad, lacking key performers such as Landon Donovan and Tim Howard. But the results were undeniably miserable. I could handle the 4-1 pasting at the hands of Argentina. And even the 3-1 loss to Paraguay--in which the U.S. had approximately 87 prime opportunities to score, but simply couldn't stick the ball in the net--was stomachable. But the dreadful 1-0 loss to Colombia, in which the Americans didn't seem to have a clue, was humiliating. It was the worst performance I can recall watching at least since Chad Deering was regularly suiting up for the yanks.

Continue reading "Fabulous Freddy Adu"

Posted by Paul Demko at July 09, 2007 11:39 AM | Comments (1)

 

Muscle Shark frustrates Franca, defends title

Sean Sherk's first UFC lightweight title defense nearly ended disastrously. In the opening seconds of his match against Hermes Franca on Saturday night, Sherk got caught in a guillotine that looked like it would mean lights out. But somehow the champion slipped out of the choke hold and went on to control the opening round.

Sherk also got caught with three punishing knees to the face, including a vicious second round blow that dropped him to the canvas and would have rendered most human beings unconscious. But Sherk somehow shook off the blows without evident damage and proceeded to dominate the five-round, 25-minute bout. His superior wrestling skills may have bored the drunken yahoos at ARCO Arena (who booed throughout the match), but impressed the judges. Sherk earned a unanimous decision.

Who will be next for the Muscle Shark? BJ Penn?

Posted by Paul Demko at July 09, 2007 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

 

Muscle Shark title bout set for Saturday

Sean Sherk will defend his UFC lightweight title for the first time on Saturday night at ARCO Arena. The 155-pound, Minnesota-based fighter will take on Hermes Franca, a Brazilian born Jujitsu specialist at UFC 73: Stacked. (For a list of bars that will be showing the pay-per-view event go here.)

Sherk won the title in October with a bloody unanimous decision over Kenny Florian, improving his fight resume to 33-2-1. But he's been on the shelf for the last nine months nursing a shoulder injury. Greg Nelson, Sherk's trainer, reports that the champ is ready to defend his belt. "So far everything is going very good," he says via cell phone from Sacramento. "I think he's going to do fantastic."

Posted by Paul Demko at July 05, 2007 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

 

Bully!

OK, now that was a good game. You had Frank Thomas (The Tank Engine) blasting his 500th home run, and the Twins won anyway. Our boys fell behind quickly in the first and then, nonplussed, shut the lid on the Blue Jays in commanding fashion, playing small-ball and Earl Weaver style basher-ball to come back and win 8-5. And that's just awesome.

Continue reading "Bully!"

Posted by Peter Schilling Jr. at June 28, 2007 12:02 PM | Comments (30)

 

Battle of the Also-Rans

The Toronto Blue Jays and The Minnesota Twins, wrestling for possession of fourth place in the Wild Card race (with the mighty Oakland Athletics), were like a pair of samurai this evening, each desperately trying to push the other out of the chalk ring without success. Behold: Scott Baker and Shaun Marcum pitched very good games and watched as their respective clubs could only score a run apiece. Baker's was a particularly impressive performance, going seven full innings, giving up a run and striking out nine. This type of performance should be rewarded with a Win for the young hurler, right? Not in Twins Territory...

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Posted by Peter Schilling Jr. at June 26, 2007 07:18 PM | Comments (2)

 

Night Of A Thousand Blunders

The heroes of tonight's game were Vernon Wells of the Blue Jays (a homer, three hits and three RBI) and Mike Redmond (two hits and a pair of RBI) for the local nine in the Twins 8-5 loss. As for the goats, I say, what goats? Tonight, we got slapstick all over the place!

Continue reading "Night Of A Thousand Blunders"

Posted by Peter Schilling Jr. at June 25, 2007 08:38 PM | Comments (0)

 

Taking Care of Business

Here's a question for you: what do Jason Bartlett, Jeff Cirillo, Nick Punto, Lew Ford, Jason Kubel, Luis Rodriguez, and Jason Tyner all have in common?

Answer: They're all hitting worse than Johan Santana!

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Posted by Peter Schilling Jr. at June 24, 2007 03:31 PM | Comments (0)

 

To Trade or Not to Trade? It's Not Really a Question...

By now every Twins fan worth his salt (and any that come here for their news) should have read the Blotter post or heard that Torii Hunter spouted off to the New York Daily News about trade rumors. He added that he'd love to be in New York, or Boston, to play in what old friend David Ortiz called the "Super Bowl" of baseball (and that, in my mind, is the epitome of damning with faint praise). Local pundits are all weighing in; I might as well join the fray.

Continue reading "To Trade or Not to Trade? It's Not Really a Question..."

Posted by Peter Schilling Jr. at June 21, 2007 09:28 PM | Comments (0)

 

Let The Man Hit!

Oh, so briefly: a preview of Michael Moore's Sicko kept me from tuning into the ballgame tonight. Tho' I have to admit the radio would seem like cold comfort for not giving me the vision of Burt Blyleven getting his mane sheared. You just can't beat that, can you?

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Posted by Peter Schilling Jr. at June 20, 2007 11:45 PM | Comments (0)

 

Slapstick!

The great silent film comedian Buster Keaton never broke a smile in his movies. Nor, however, did he bust out weeping at his fate, which was usually cruel, but always comic. In his films, Keaton lost his true loves, couldn't find work, fell from skyscrapers eluding police, watched his house torn apart by a train, tried his damnedest to kill himself (to no avail), sailed a leaky homemade ship into the maw of a storm, and slid head over heels into home plate only to land two feet shy of scoring. Buster took his myriad hits square on the noggin, ass flying out from under him, feet in the air, and then stood up, brushed himself off, and went right on trying. It was no wonder baseball was his favorite game.

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Posted by Peter Schilling Jr. at June 18, 2007 08:50 PM | Comments (0)

 

Minneapolis player places in WSOP Seven Card Stud tournament

Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth, Jr. made WSOP history last week, winning an 11th gold bracelet in a three-day, $1,500 No-Limit Texas Hold'em event at the 38th Annual World Series of Poker. Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan, who each hold ten bracelets, were on hand to present Hellmuth with his record 11th bracelet. Hellmuth was quoted as saying, "To now be at the top of the all-time [WSOP wins] list is really about as good a feeling as I have ever had." Chippy Poker's Judd Greenagel, our man in Vegas, heard a rumor that Brunson had bet an unknown player $10,000 at 40-1 that Hellmuth would win the bracelet. Hellmuth got the bracelet and Brunson pocketed $400,000 on the bet.

Other unconfirmed rumors from one of Judd's recent communiqué's...

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Posted by Corey Anderson at June 18, 2007 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

 

The Bad News About the Best Pitcher in Baseball

So I'm going to rain on the parade again...

I don't have to tell you to check out G.R. Anderson's Jr., esq., superior article on Johan Santana. If you venture this way for some opinion about the noble sport, well, then you no doubt check out the longer, well-written and researched stories in this paper, too. At least I hope you do.

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Posted by Peter Schilling Jr. at June 15, 2007 10:26 AM | Comments (0)