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A few years ago controversy erupted when Derek Jeter was mistakenly ruled to have been hit by a pitch and took first base at the umpire’s direction. Jeter admitted later that the ball had hit his bat, not his person, but that the umpire had made a ruling and he just abided by it. The subsequent controversy was about the role of ethics in sports. We all know that game officials, like players and everybody else, are human and make mistakes. Blown calls are a part of the game, and while they sometimes ...

First, the good news: On Monday, I watched the Twins home/season opener on my TV here in Idaho (thanks to a newly purchased MLB.TV subscription and a brand-new HDMI cable running from my laptop to my TV).

Now, the bad news: On Monday, I watched the Twins home/season opener on my TV here in Idaho (thanks to a newly purchased MLB.TV subscription and a brand-new HDMI cable running from my laptop to my TV).

I knew when I accepted my new call and moved out to Idaho there would ...

As I sit here getting myself ready to celebrate Easter, thinking of miracles (Easter is, of course, a time to celebrate the central miracle of my faith), I find my mind turning to the upcoming MLB season. What miracles can we hope to see this year? What dreams do we have for the coming season? What needs to happen for us, at the end of the year, to know that something wonderful and unexpected has happened? Here are the miracles I’m hoping for this year:

The miracle ...

As I write this I am reading that the United States has crashed out of the World Baseball Classic (again) and will end up officially in 6^th place – just below Cuba. I find myself of two minds about this. On the one hand, I share the understandable disappointment in the results. On the other, I find myself wondering if I should even care. After all, if MLB and the MLBPA don’t take this tournament seriously, why should I?

Let me back up a bit and explain why I make that admittedly unfair ...

Back when I was growing up I had a poster that proudly proclaimed “All I really need to know in life I learned from watching Star Trek.” Teachings such as “Remember the Prime Directive” and “Set phasers on stun” resonated with me then and still do today. As I start getting myself psyched up for the coming baseball season, though, I have found myself thinking that in many ways baseball, in addition to entertaining, can also teach us about life. Hence my thoughts on what I can learn about life from ...

It’s a ritual that happens every spring. In caves and dens around the country black and brown bears are gradually starting to claw their way to consciousness. The long winter’s sleep is winding down and once again the a new year dawns, filled with times of opportunity and times of crisis, with the chance to excel in the ritual of life and the danger of losing the battle once for all.

In many ways that’s what I feel like as I head into Super Bowl Sunday. Yes, for one more weekend my ...

Note: The following entry is not in any way meant to mock or make light of those with real addictions. I know all too well the struggles that are associated with addictions of all types, and the effect it can have on lives. Please read this in the humorous spirit in which it is meant.

It is mid-September. The Twins are twenty-four games under .500, getting their clocks cleaned 9-1 by Kansas City last night. It is raining and dreary out. So what is the highlight of my day? The release ...

NOTE: This entry is a postscript to my series of entries describing my game-day experiences on a tour of the Minnesota Twins farm system; it describes what led me to make this trip in the first place. Please be advised that it is very different from what has gone before in this series. It is longer, more personal and, in contrast to the light-hearted tone I tried to take with the previous entries, it is written from a more serious perspective and has a strong spiritual component. If this is not ...

It was noted elsewhere that this week attendance dropped below 30,000 at Target Field for the first time in its history. Some saw that as a harbinger of doom, leading to a vicious cycle of depressed revenues followed by lower payroll followed by a poorer product on the field followed by depressed revenues followed by...

My own take: At last! This is what I’ve been waiting for since Target Field opened. Don’t get me wrong – it was fun to see a full ballpark for a while. But I’m glad ...

As I watched the game on TV last night (trying to put comparative images of The Towering Inferno out of my mind) I found myself wondering why I even loved this game so much. I even tried watching some basketball instead, but inevitably my finger kept moving toward the “last” button on the remote to check back on the game. Why? What is it about baseball that has me so ensnared, even when my home team is the Minnesota Twins? After reflection, here are five reasons I still love the game – even this ...

So what kind of fan am I? When I was in Fort Myers that was one of the season-long advertising gimmicks they were touting – the varied nature of those who attend ballgames. Yesterday, attending my first Twins game since my minor league trip (I love watching a pitching duel!), I found myself thinking back to the various minor league parks I was at and comparing them to the relative cathedral that is Target Field. I also found myself thinking about who had attended those games, and who I saw around ...

Note: This is the last in a series of blog entries detailing my game experiences on a road trip to see all the Twins minor league affiliates in their home parks. For those interested, links to previous entries are listed at the end in chronological order.

After a quiet day visiting one of the local state parks and catching a matinee I head out to Frontier Field again. This time it is a beautiful night for baseball and while I am sad that this is the last game of the trip I can’t think ...

By late afternoon I am wondering if the game tonight is going to happen. A series of strong afternoon thunderstorms has come through the area and the rain has been heavy. The Red Wings do a good job, though, of keeping the public informed on their website of the game’s status, updating it regularly (are you listening, Twins?) and at 5:30 it is announced that the game is definitively on; the gates will open at 6pm, rain or no rain! Putting on my jeans (I have been wearing shorts the entire trip) ...

After a much needed late wakeup and a quiet morning worshiping at a local church and stopping by a Dunkin’ Donuts (you can’t swing a dead cat around here in Connecticut without hitting one) for a late breakfast, I headed out to New Britain for my only day game of the trip. Temperature was in the eighties and the sky was partly cloudy; all in all a good day for baseball. Getting to the stadium I decide to splurge today and go for the preferred parking ($6) as opposed to general ($4). The extra minute ...