Was worried about this series but the Wolves are just too big and physical for the suns. Loving it so far.

Gleeman also had a tweet that the team’s .193 batting average through 17 games is second worst in the last 50 years to only the 43-119 Tigers from 2003.

Obviously early in the season but boy it isn’t looking good. No one can hit and the starting pitching is mediocre at best. Maybe we’ll get healthy by summer but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Speak of the devil, I got the coupon in the mail today.

crawdaddy wrote:

Hey, I was wondering if there’s any kind of schedule to those postcards that show up from Scheels that say “spend x amount of dollars and get x amount off your purchase.” I’m looking at picking up some pocket binos and a discount code could really save me some $$$.

Seems like it usually is about now and then one in August or so. Been waiting as well. Could search the web for the binos – Scheels is very good about price matching?

dirtywater wrote:

Had a very similar hull a few years back. That hull was rated only for 7.5hp but a 9.9 two stroke would’ve been fine in terms of transom strength. I had a 6hp Yamaha on it and I could get up on plane fine and run about 18mph when running solo. With my kid in the boat I could still get up on plane but it took longer.

18 mph on a 14′ boat with a 6 horse?

There are definitely guys that are dinks, but for the most part I think you just need the right mindset to fish busy water. If your dander gets up when a guy floats 20 feet away from you, it’s probably not the right situation for you. If you get upset when someone takes a couple extra minutes to load their boat, go somewhere else. I fish with guys like this occasionally and it’s like relax, we knew it was going to be busy, let’s have fun regardless.

Are the crowds as horrendous as one would imagine on a weekend?

This is true, offenses typically lag in April when it’s cold. Fingers crossed!

Don’t believe that’s an option but I could be wrong.

6 of the 9 Twins regulars are hitting .182 or lower – ouch. Kepler is 1 for 17; so much for him continuing his stellar second half from last year.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Of course the colleges and coaches like Saban hate NIL and the portal. The LAST thing the colleges and NCAA want is somebody else besides them making money on college sports!

And they certainly don’t like kids having any choices as to where they play! They want the good old days when colleges were raking in the cash and sharing it with nobody and the players were chained to the program once they committed with few options to transfer that didn’t seriously (and punitively) hinder their career. The colleges LOVED the good old days of total control.

If there’s any form of money or compensation involved, it’s a profession. Giving a scholarship is a form of compensation and therefore college athlete = professional athlete. Giving sports supplies, training, special residences, special cafeterias, special training facilities, all that is also a form of compensation even if no scholarship is involved.

And to the point of NIL, it wasn’t even close, guys. The NCAA got as close as you can get to being laughed out of court on that ruling. They got their asses handed to them utterly and completely. There is absolutely no way the NCAA would be able to reverse NIL now.

I don’t disagree, the millions and billions that are thrown at coaches and tv money is how we got here. It’s basically pro sports now with no salary cap and that’s the issue (or not, depending on your take).

Dutchboy wrote:

If your team is Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan you like them. If you are pulling for Minnesota you don’t.

It does, but Nick Saban mentioned as one of the reasons he retired is all his guys could ask after the season is about how much money they could get through NIL.

There is more playmaking in the women’s game, a little less one on one isolation and brute strength beating on each other in the post. Still prefer watching the men’s game but women’s has its advantages. What did Reece do before the game? She definitely seems like a prima donna and a bad teammate, but she is definitely physically gifted.

Ripjiggen wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Umy wrote:</div>
Seriously, maybe we. Edd to look into our training staff/regimen. Are we the only team that goes through injuries like this!?v

We already cleaned house in that department a couple years ago. Obviously that didn’t change things.
It has to be an organization thing.

Would be interesting to see data on how the Twins’ number of games lost to injury compares to other clubs. I’m sure that exists out there somewhere. I know Judge spent a good chunk of last year on the IL, Trout seems to spend a lot of time on it as well.

Pretty silly that they don’t just use home sites for the regionals. I think from what I’ve heard the ‘lesser’ programs in the country vote against it since they’d rarely host. Women’s basketball does it because they know they would be playing in 70% empty arenas.

Even in the UND game last night it looked like there were quite a few empty seats. Suppose they may have been fans from the previous game that left?

Dutchboy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Netguy wrote:</div>
Morneau sure took over for Bremer being the super homer and pumping the team up. Morneau also talks too much.

Shut the radio and tv off and read about the game on-line or in the newspaper, you will be much happier.

If listening to Justin Morneau talk about baseball makes you unhappy, you have some issues.

Know little about construction but 30k to fix something like that doesn’t seem bad at all.

glenn57 wrote:

i havent followed it real close, but isnt there a fair amount of higher seeds that got bounced out already????

Couple 14s over 3s and 12s over 5s. Fun games.

Denver vs. Omaha for the NCHC championship – you’ll probably be able to fit the crowd into one section of the xcel center.

Pretty much the epitome of what has made the tourney so popular. Kentucky obviously has way more talent but Oakland made plays every time Kentucky came at them, fun to watch.

Duran & Thielbar on the IL to begin the season, sounds like Duran will likely miss all of April so that ain’t good. Sounds like Tommy John for Desclafani but probably not a big loss there. The lineup is definitely going to need to score runs this year!

I don’t think Scheels carries them and you don’t save much by just getting Chirp/GPS on the 7″ model. https://humminbird.johnsonoutdoors.com/us/shop/fish-finders/helix/helix-7-chirp-gps-g4n

Dutchboy wrote:

Heard on the radio that they make the selections Sunday. Since I haven’t paid much attention to bouncyball will the Gophers make the field this year? Since Coach K retired what program is the “hated evil empire” now?

A month ago I thought the gophs had a decent shot but they ended with a thud. I think Duke/Carolina/Kansas are probably still the blue bloods but there is so much parity in the portal/NIL era. I’d say there are 15-20 teams that could win it, and any of them could even be beaten the first weekend.

The couple guide pages I’ve seen mention they’re still getting out. Imagine the accesses are getting pretty sloppy but after today it cools down a bit.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Holy crap that block by Ant at the end was ridiculous!!!

You got that right – literally hit his head on the rim, looked like he jumped off a trampoline.

I’ve been involved in HS athletics a long time as a player, coach and official, pushing 30 years. It is always a little disappointing seeing kids give up a sport just because another sport is so demanding that it leaves little time for anything else. I think about my own experience, average athlete in a smaller school so I played everything. If my parents would have spent 50 grand over the course of my schooling on individual training, etc (not that I didn’t do any of that), would I have been a substantially better basketball player? Probably a bit, but there’s no way I was going D1 or probably even D2. I get it in larger schools though, it just sucks that it has to come to that. Again, such a miniscule number of these kids are going to get a scholarship let alone a living of it. I see so many kids give up sports in 5th-6th grade because it gets so serious so young. They haven’t even grown by that age and so many of the kids that were studs at that age fizzle out by high school from burn out or because they just don’t physically grow.

Dan wrote:

I must be getting old now that, with the exception of Smalley, I can remember all of those now-TV personalities in the lineup for the Twins. And it really doesn’t seem that long ago.

Kind of like that they are switching it up throughout the season. Gets kind of stale with the same color guy day after day (a’la Bert 10 years ago) because let’s be honest, they only have so much insight to give.

Shoot, guess I read the headline wrong – can’t say I’m disappointed though

Dutchboy wrote:

Twins are trading with the Dodgers for former Rays Margot. More centerfield help when / if Buxton can’t go. He’s also cheaper than Taylor.

Appears to be typical Twins offseason signings of scrap-heap guys. Margot has virtually no power (52 HR in 800 career games) but decent average around .260. Also signed Keke Hernandez who appears to be about a .240 hitter with little power. But at least they were cheap!!