What in the sam hell just happened? Is this a dream?!?!?!

It's alway good to hear about your favorite baseball team when you're with one of your favorite compadres.

But who would've thought it would ever be this good?

Driving around to do my favorite thing in the world (next to watch baseball) I get the best text i've ever seen from good ol' Mr. O ( deflateddome.blogspot.com ) According to a report out of the Chicago Tribune, the Minnesota Twins have struck a deal with former Chicago White Sox Thirdbaseman and Twin Killer, Joe Crede.

Crede joins a Twins squad, looking to fill the hot corner since the departure of the greats like: Luis Quinones, Scott Leius, Donnie Hill, Jeff Reboulet, Ron Coomer, Brent Gates, Casey Blake, Denny Hocking, Tony Batista, Brett Boone and dare I say Brian Buscher.

Crede has played more professional games against the Twins than any other team during his MLB career and the numbers are pretty darn good. In 102 career games, Crede hit .273, 19 2B, 19 HR and 59 RBI against his new squad.

But lately, it's been Crede's back that has made him a "liability" at thirdbase. But having offseason surgery and hopefully getting a all-star thirdbaseman is just what the doctor ordered for the Twins.

Crede had 363 plate appearances in 2008 (a short season, due to his back injury) and 55 RBI during those at-bats. The average MLB player in 363 at-bats drove home just 42 runners.

Maybe this is just the Twins fan in me (pretty much as happy as one could be when the news broke last night) but I love the addition of Crede. It's about time the Twinkies took a flyer on a player who might actually produce in the middle of an already established lineup. Dare I do another list, but: Rondell White, Juan Castro, Tony Batista... OK, sorry, I'm not getting you upset again, but this is a GREAT signing for Minnesota and with the news that the Twins also close to a deal to land Juan Cruz (4-0, 2.61 in 57 appearances in 2008) from the Arizona Diamondbacks, things may actually be shapping up in Twins Territory.

Potential Twins Lineup for 2009 (Anyone else wish we still had Bartlett?)

Option A:

1. LF - Denard Span
2. 2B - Alexi Casilla
3. C - Joe Mauer
4. 1B - Justin Morneau
5. 3B - Joe Crede
6. DH - Jason Kubel/Delmon Young
7. RF - Michael Cuddyer
8. SS - Nick Punto
9. CF - Carlos Gomez

Option B:

1. CF - Denard Span
2. C - Joe Mauer
3. RF - Michael Cuddyer
4. 1B - Justin Morneau
5. 3B - Joe Crede
6. DH - Jason Kubel
7. LF - Delmon Young
8. SS - Nick Punto
9. 2B - Alexi Casilla

Well done Bill Smith, well done!!!

More bloggin' soon...30 teams in 30 days will start very soon...for now, take care folks...

-Pops

How about a little background for myself...

It really is quite simple, I'm a sports nut. The obsession began from an early age. Watching football every Sunday with my dad is really one of the strongest memories I have during my childhood.

Every Sunday I'd gear up to watch the Vikings play, with pretty much the same routine game in and game out. Wake up nice and early, check out the sweet new ads in the Sunday Paper (unfortunately the only paper during the week my parents got), do my picks for the game (a tradition brought on by my father back in 1998, mind you I was in 7th grade and went 129-98 with the point spreads), watch good ol' Jimmy Kimmel on the FOX morning show do his picks (Quite hilarious if I do say so myself) and then it was game time.

But sports for me goes back to the early 90s, 1991 to be exact. The first memory I have with Major League Baseball dates back to August of 1991, when I was 6 years old and went to my first Minnesota Twins game. It was just me and my pops, sitting row one behind the Twins bullpen, watching the great Scott Erickson warm-up with Brian Harper.

As tens of kids yelled "Scott, Scott, can I have a ball," and pretty much every other thing that a kid yells at a game to a ball player, my pops said to me in quite the loving voice..."Just sit there and just watch, don't yell anything." For starters, I was already tuned into Erickson firing warm-up pitches to a guy (who later that year) may have made one of the greatest plays in World Series history. I followed direction and in return when Erickson was done with warm-ups, Harper gave me my first ball official MLB ball.

Other big memories of baseball as a youngin' that stick out are:

• I distinctly remember watching Pedro Munoz and Chilli Davis hit back to back homers during a game in 1991.
• I remember hassling players like Tim Raines, Lew Ford and Paul Konerko
• My greatest piece of memorabilia I've gotten at a game is an autographed Cal Ripken Jr. baseball, signed the day after his 3,000th hit.
• I remember (while in attendance at the Dome in 06') A.O. and I heckling Rondell White in an indirect fashion. Not only was White horrendous while with the Twins in 06', I believe it was Hubert's across from the Dome that had beers for whatever Rondell's batting average was at the time, WHAT A DEAL! While watching the Twins play host to the Orioles, we started yelling at Baltimore centerfielder Corey Patterson to "take it easy, you can even sit down when Rondell bats." Corey indeed listened to the advice and began to squat during the second pitch of the at bat (I believe a strike swiwing, 0-2). The next line and probably one of my favorite memories of all time, would come when Andy yelled "You don't even need your glove." Patterson then put his hands behind his back, took his glove off and did nothing but turn around and smile at us after watching White strikeout swinging.

Now, when I say youngin', that's because a year removed from booing Brewers fans out of the Dome after Liriano has just struckout a career high 12 in 2006, I landed the break of a lifetime and had not the slighest of clues what I was about to get my hands into.

In January of 2007, one of my life long goals was complete. I officially became an employee of the Minnesota Twins and damn near crapped my pants. You know you've found yourself in the profession you want for the rest of your life, when the task you've completed is no longer work. I worked with the Twins Radio Network as an assistant producer and learned more than I could've ever imagined about the game of baseball.

I had the great fortune of working on an everyday basis with the likes of: John Gordon, Dan Gladden, Dick Bremer, Bert Blyleven, Jack Morris, Tony Oliva and Kris Atteberry. For me, the best part of my job was gathering post-game material. I love interviewing and had the great fortune to interview some hellishly good baseball players (baring any steroid usage): Alex Rodriguez (D'oh), Mike Mussina (D'oh?), Frank Thomas (after hitting his 500th HR, a question I asked was used on Sportscenter that evening), Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Torii Hunter, Johan Santana, Joe Nathan, Curtis Granderson and Gary Sheffield (D'oh?) just to name a few. As far as managers, I've interviewed: Bobby Cox, Joe Torre, Ozzie Gullien, Jim Leyland, Joe Madden and twice daily (and in my eyes, one of the finest coaches in all the majors) Mr. Ron Gardenhire.

The season was a blast and like I said, a lot was learned and fun was certainly had...

As for right now, I'm kind of searching. Where will I end up? Right now, nobody knows. But if the dominoes fall into place, I may just be sticking around in Twins Territory for a long while...One can only hope...

Take it easy ya'll-
-Pops

The Ending of an awful era...hopefully.

Greetings, the name is Aaron. I decided to start blogging because I love baseball and think I'm going to have a hell of a lot of fun experiences one way or another with it. And wherever the road may lead, it should be one hell of a good time either way.

But all things aside of me...(I'll make sure I have a couple posts later in the week...baseball related stories about the good things in the game that I have been fortunate to cover and hopefully will again in the future)

First was Darnell McDonald in 2005. From Juan Rincon to J.C. Romero and even Matt Lawton. Who'd have thought that Minnesota Twins (past or present) could ever have been "juicing."

For me, I truly hope that when the so-called "list of 104 players" is made public, any player currently on that list and currently featured on a MLB or MILB team, be suspended for whichever offense that may be for the player. There are currently 34 active players that were featured on The Mitchell Report.

Ah Bud, Mr. Bud Selig, a personal note from all baseball fans across the land: "Please figure this shit out and suspend their asses!!!"

Personally, my money is going down on A.J. Pierzynski being included in the list. Main reason, he's a dick! Second reason, his stats take the prototypical jump during the 2001-2003 gap.

• During 2001-2003, Pierzynski allowed career bests of only 44,45 and 46 stolen bases in 110,124,135 games respectively.
  
• 2002 and 2003 quickly become years I like to stress when questioning Pierzynski, as once again during the three year span, AJ bats .289, .300 and .312.
  
• Pierzynski's power wasn't shown in the sense of the long ball but more to that of Twins first baseman at the time Doug Mientkiewicz. AJ had doubles totals of 33 and 31 in 2001 and 2002, but legged out an impressive career best of 35 dubbs, along with another career best of 6 triples.

Folks, it's all just speculation at this point. But I do believe that this may get a little ugly and I hope it happens fast and doesn't start dipping into the time that we all love so much. AJ, no one in Minnesota likes you and sorry to make you post number one...but you my friend are the dirties of all players when it comes to the majors.

And it didn't take my imagination long to picture a rat like yourself, swimming in a sea with the likes of Jose Canseco and a personal favorite of mine (Mr. William Weed himself) Guillermo Mota.

I guess time will tell...but for now thanks for reading and feel free to keep on checking in...

-Pops