When you're chewing on life's gristle - don't grumble, give a whistle! And this'll - help things turn out for the best....
And now, in no particular order, a few things to have a bit of a grin about, as we look back at 2010:
- Who knows if he'll be back, but we'll always have Jim Thome. There's not a classier, nicer guy in baseball, according to pretty much everybody. We got to see him belt one off the top of the flagpole at Target Field. We got to see him belt 25 homers. And we got to see him beat the White Sox with one swing of the bat. Really, the amount the Twins paid him this year would have been worth it for just that one sweet, sweet swing.
- Since 2004, we've all been waiting for Corey Koskie's replacement at third base to arrive. We all wondered if Danny Valencia could be the guy. He played basically one-half of a big-league season this year, and he batted .311 with seven homers and eighteen doubles. I think that replacement could well have been found. In the space of a couple of months, he went from "I don't know if this kid's got it" to "Lock up your daughters!"
- Delmon Young hit 46 doubles, second-most in the American League. He hit 21 home runs, second-most on the Twins. He drove in 112 runs, 20 more than any other Twin. And he struck out less than Michael Cuddyer, Orlando Hudson, Jim Thome, or Jason Kubel. Despite slow months in April and August, he still ended up with the type of numbers we've always dreamed he'd put up. (His defense is still an absolute liability. But let's forget about that for now.)
- Carl Pavano kept the mustache. All season. Carl Pavano is awesome.
- Francisco Liriano threw nearly 200 innings and his arm didn't fall off.
- You're going to get mad at me for this one... but I can grin about Drew Butera being on the roster for an entire season. I wondered at one point if Butera would go down as the worst hitter in Twins history, but he wasn't even the worst hitter in the American League this season. Six guys - including two catchers, Jeff Mathis and Adam Moore - posted worse OPS numbers, among players with at least 150 plate appearances. Plus, Butera threw out 43% of potential base-stealers, and attempted to grow a really awful-looking mustache. No, I enjoyed having Butera around.
- And perhaps most important: The Twins won the division. Not the hated Royals, or the despised Indians, or the much-loathed Tigers, or the detestable White Sox. The Twins. We can be happy about that.
I'm sure that you have others. There were good things this season, as awful as the past week has been.