Author: David Shama

With such a busy sports calendar, where does a writer start?  It seems best to report on a little here and there. ….

On Friday morning my friend John Bell Wilson gave me his predictions for the weekend.  “I think the Twins are in a playoff on Tuesday,” he said.  “I think the Tigers choke.”

Wilson was upbeat about the Gophers and Vikings, too.  Minnesota beats Wisconsin 24-21 and the Vikings “crush” the Packers, 28-10.

There will be plenty of jawing back and forth these days with two “border wars.”  Seems like bad timing to question the worth of Gophers for the school nickname but another friend, Mike Wilkinson, sent a group email last week reporting on Web sites taking “issue” with school nicknames.

Wilkinson asked what local school made most of the lists and then wrote the following: “Yup, our beloved University of Minnesota, thanks to what I have always felt was an awful nickname and mascot….a Gopher!!”

As consolation, though, Wilkinson offered that Illinois College is stuck with a bad one, Blue Boys.  Others he listed included the California-Santa Barbara Banana Slugs and the Cal-Irvine Anteaters. Richard Nixon’s alma mater, Whittier College, is the Poets.  Wilkinson’s other schools with “embarrassing names” are the Delta State Fighting Okra, the Tufts Jumbos, the Trinity Christian Trolls and the Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys.

The Wild’s first regular season game was a loss in Columbus on Saturday night.  The Gophers won an exhibition game against the British Columbia Thunderbirds on Sunday.  Too early for hockey.  My golf clubs are in still in the car.

I felt guilty about not attending the Twins’ final scheduled game ever in the Metrodome.  A family commitment on Sunday took precedence in Rochester.

I did attend the final Twins game at Met Stadium and skipped out on work that afternoon to attend.  I feel guilty about that, too.  I thought going to the game was important but there were only about 16,000 of us who thought so.

A story from long ago is that a new Twins broadcaster, confident of his skills to promote interest in the club, pronounced that attendance would increase by 200,000 in his first season with the club.  Before the last game of the season he was told, “If the Twins don’t draw 176,000 today, you’ll miss your prediction.”

The last games in the dome might be a final Twins goodbye to several players including pitchers Carl Pavano and Glen Perkins, catcher Mike Redmond, third baseman Joe Crede and second baseman Alexi Casilla.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and his coaches did a lot with less including a starting pitching staff that had two guys left from the five-man rotation that began the year.  Gardenhire, his staff and players deserved the capacity crowds and roars of approval heard in the final days of the dome and the regular season.

The fans turned out in attendance numbers of over 40,000 four times in the last five games.  The season total of 2,362,149 is third best in franchise history.

Michael Cuddyer’s inspirational hitting and play at first base will long be remembered by Twins fans as one of the best late season performances in franchise history.  Leo Durocher was wrong when he said, “Nice guys finish last.”

The Twins were 16-4 in their last 20 games.  Their unlikely heroes included outfielder Delmon Young who hit his first career grand slam home run on Friday night, the same game that rookie starter Jeff Manship won his first game.

Then Young hit two home runs yesterday as the Twins swept Kansas City in three games to tie Detroit for first place in the Central Division and force a tie-break game at the dome with the Tigers tomorrow afternoon.

The joy in Twinsville helped Minnesotans feel better after a sixth straight loss to Wisconsin in football.  After the Gophers lost to the Badgers on Saturday, Minnesota coach Tim Brewster said: “It just rips your guts out.”

I’ve been thinking about clever signs to make for tonight’s Vikings-Packers game.  Stuff that will surely stick with and bother the Wisconsin fans.  Try these out:

Our cheese is better than yours.

Your cheese stinks.

Our stadium has backs on the seats, yours doesn’t.

You guys got Favred.

To be fair, I need to report on those T-shirts Wisconsinites are wearing like “We’ll never forget you, Brent.”

Speaking of Brett Favre, a column reader and friend emailed to complain a bit about the new Vikings quarterback who is receiving a heavy dose of reverence.  He referred to those that think Favre sits at the right hand of God.

Right hand?  Left Hand?  What’s the diff?  The guy is there.

Just to clear up any confusion, I didn’t run in yesterday’s Twin Cities Marathon.

Not sure what the news media reports were on the number of marathon spectators yesterday, but in another year awhile back at least one news organization reported a half million or so people watching.  Now let’s see.  The population of the metro area back then was maybe 2.5 million.  So one of every five residents was watching?  Hmmm.