Life in the Blue

We have a guest blogger in the Blue today. A red head transplanted from Husker Nation to the Northland. Take it away hombre.

I’m turning all Twins gear into the dome at Noon tomorrow. Let me know if you have any remaining items at your parent’s house, and I’ll stop by and take it off their hands for you.

I’m going to buy an Angels hat, maybe a Brewers cap as well. Because it’s all over. Its been a good run. Back to back to back AL Central titles to flat on their back to another title to flat on their back again. It was a nice run, one ALCS appearance, multiple first round flame-outs, and two mid season disasters, sprinkled with retarded signings such as Tony Batista, Jeff Cirillo, and Sidney Ponson. Maybe they couldn’t resign Hunter, I tried to understand.

Editor’s Note: How much longer are we going to buy this ’small market’ BS the Twins keep giving us? That they are a small market team so they can’t afford to keep players. Anaheim isn’t even the most popular team in their own city and they were able to get Hunter. The Twins dominate a 5 state area and can’t keep him? I don’t get it. Sorry for stealing your thunder. Back to the red-headed step-child.

But trading the best pitcher of our era for 4 unproven minor leaguers is where I finally decide after much consideration, that I cannot support this team any longer.

How can you not get a proven player in this deal to plug a hole on your leaky roster? I’m not asking for a super star like Jose Reyes or David Wright, although neither should have been out of the question. We could of had Melky Cabrera, Troy, Bucholtz, Jonathan Lester or Jacoby Ellsbury. Instead we got two Puerto Ricans and two beer league All-Stars. I’m absolutely at a loss. I’m out.

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Had the company Christmas party this weekend. Delayed by snow to late January so everything was nice and festive.

Like all things Christmas Party, it was dangerous. Sushi dinner at the Drunken Fish, good times at the Dubliner. At one point I was attempting to get one of our under 21-year-old employees into a bar. Mind you that 10 other people from our group had already entered and were in the process of spending copious amounts of cash on vodka sprites and Georgia peaches. I offer the bouncer $20 to get this guy in. And he responds with “Twenty bucks? Or my job?” And won’t let the dude in.

Never mind you that this place was a lawlessness cesspool of under 21-year-old, too hot to trot Central West Enders. But this guy made it seem like he was giving up his long time career. There are only two possible outcomes. A) No one will care and you make $20. B) There is a less than 1 percent chance someone does care. You make $20 and you have another bouncer job what, tomorrow? I mean it isn’t like you have worked your whole life to have the prestigious career of a bouncer. Those jobs are a dime a dozen. So how wise was he really in choosing risking the one percent chance someone would care for $20. I say not really.

I need to get one other thing off my chest here. How on Earth did Andy Defrese get a zip-lock bag in Shawshank Redemption in the 1950s? Remember when he crawls thru the sewer and comes out in the lake with his clothes in the bag? What technology existed in this time period to keep his cloths bone dry? I am fully convinced that Red was a man who could get his hands on anything, but a zip-lock bag? And then there was that part where they are worried Andy will hang himself and the one guy says “I got Andy 6 feet of rope.” Don’t you think this would have been the opportunity for Red to tune in with “I got Andy a zip-lock bag.” I swear this is the most ‘How does no one ever notice this’ event in a movie of all time.

Anyway, happy Monday. Apple Bottom Jeans…Boots with the fur…

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I cannot live in world where Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin are in the Super Bowl. Eli Manning will give that deer in the headlights look after he throws his third interception. Coughlin will be yelling at him like “I told you not to throw it to the other team!” It will be horrible. I decided the only way to get thru it will be to get drunk so I invented a drinking game for it:

Every time Eli gives you the look like he is unclear if he is at a football game or shopping at the mall, everyone drinks. Also, if you are the first to spot Coughlin standing with his clipboard, one knee bent and hands on his hips with the look of bewilderment on his face, you get to pass out a shot.

The New York Giants are the most stunning Super Bowl team in my life. There is not one of you out there, for all of you who are geniuses, who thought that the Giants were the best team in the NFC until Sunday, on the last play of the game. There were blown out in their first two games. The Cowboys crushed them. The Packers beat them in the Meadowlands. The Vikings clobbered them.

Really, the most exciting part of the season for the Giants was a loss at home to the Patriots. How did the Giants get here? Can’t we blame the BCS. Maybe we can blame Global Warming.

I wanted Packers Patriots. I had the game all planned out. Now I get a game I saw a month ago? If any of the presidential candidates can pass a law to keep the Giants out of the Super Bowl, they have my vote. The patriots now have two weeks for a team they already beat, on the road. I love the Patriots in that one. Print it.

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Is there some new policy in the NFL that when you have the ball on the 1 yard-line you have to throw a fade to the corner of the end zone?

I see it all the time now. Same thing on the two point conversion. These teams that run, run, run all the way down the field, get one yard away, and then feel like they have to run one of the hardest plays in the book to get the touchdown. Every team does it. I just don’t get it.

I saw it in the Jags - Steelers game just this weekend. My friends and I were at the pub when late in the 4th with Pittsburgh down by 5, they get 2nd and goal at the 1. I look to my friend and say, “Welp, I guess this is where we see the fade to the corner of the endzone.” Sure enough, the next two plays are Roethlisberger looking to throw the fade.

As a side note, when did Ben Roethlisberger become known simply as “Ben?” No other player in all of sports gets called only by his first name. Watch when he plays, all the announcers, namley Al Michaels, will say “Ben drops back to pass?” I guess they are on a first name basis.

Anyway, luckily for the Steelers, the Jags commit a penalty on one of the fades so they get first and goal still at the one. Run up the middle. At what do you know, easy touchdown. I don’t know why they couldn’t have run that play 3 downs ago, but whatever. But then sure enough, on what turned out to be the game-losing two point conversion, what do they decide to do? “Ben drops back to pass…”

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