Thursday was my last day of teaching at my old middle school. Although it was tough at times, I have to say that the last day simply went too fast... well, once my pounding headache disappeared. I'll admit that it's a shame I won't see some of the kids again, but there's nothing I can do. By the way, if you or a loved one knows of a middle or high school that's in the market for a math teacher, I kinda sorta would like to hear about it.
To the baseball factoids!
- As is typical when you collect a bunch of names together, you get some really interesting ones. For example, there were two guys I knew in high school that went by the names Eric Thunder and Derek Domino (if I have my story straight, Domino was in training camp with the Denver Broncos last year but suffered a season-ending injury. Here's his profile page to prove he exists). Well, Old Time Family Baseball put together a list of the best names drafted from this year's First Year Player Draft, and the Twins have two players on the list: Byron Buxton (under "Just Fun To Say") and Will Hurt ("Ominous Portents").
- Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new unit of measure, and it is the "Altuve," named after the diminutive Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros. Altuve is supposedly 5'7", but I'm willing to bet he's actually shorter than that. Regardless, this website will help you convert anything you have from feet into Altuves. Fun fact: I am 1.14 Altuves tall, but that sounds far less impressive than telling people I'm 6'2".
- This is kinda gross but kinda cool at the same time, as Jamey Carroll shows us his mangled right hand. I had to look at his index finger for a solid 5 seconds before I realized that it's unnaturally bending to the right. At least nothing about his hand looks as awful as former NFL player Brian Baldinger's pinkie (Warning: Those that are easy to be queasy should not click that second link).
- Do you think the Twins attendance has been suffering in just the third year of Target Field? Well, at least they're still in the top half of attendance in all of MLB (thankfully it's counted as paid attendance and not by who actually shows up). Now the Marlins... well, they're not doing so well. Brand new ballpark, and yet they're 16th right now at just over 28,000 fans a game. However, that does represent nearly a 50% increase from last year, so I suppose some fans are pleased with the new stadium.
Scott Diamond's pitching today, so the Twins' probability of winning goes up about 66%, or something like that.