Ron Gardenhire Resigns

Breaking news this morning, as Ron Gardenhire has chosen to step down as the manager of the Minnesota Twins. Gardenhire has been manager of the Twins for 12 seasons, leading his club to six division titles between 2002 and 2010 before bad drafts and bad decisions at the Major League level left the team with a dearth of talent.

"I blame myself, really," said general manager Terry Ryan on a conference call late last night. "You can't win games if you don't have talent on the field, and that's my job - to give Gardy the players he needs to win games. But this was Gardy's decision, too. He called me tonight after the game and told me he was done."

Gardenhire was a guest on KFAN early this morning, speaking to The Power Trip. He said, in part:

"You know, everyone keeps talking about how I'm not fit to manage this club and everything, and as the game yesterday went along I got to thinkin' that maybe they're right. I know I don't understand some of those numbers on the internet about splits and percentages and all that stuff, but I was always able to manage around that. Then yesterday afternoon we go out there and my offense can't get anything going against that lanky kid from Chicago [editor's note: Chris Sale], and I thought to myself: if I can't beat one of the best five starting pitchers in the American League with this ragtag bunch of hitters, then it's time to get out."

Ryan's comments last night meshed with what Gardenhire said this morning. "I certainly understand the desire to make knee-jerk decisions based on small sample sizes. I'm just glad that now the masses are appeased and we can just get on with the baseball season. If the mob mentality wants Paul Molitor or Gene Glynn or someone else to manage this club, just have their club president email me their preference. We may as well just go all-in on this crowd sourcing thing"

Mob Mentality's president could not be reached for comment, possibly due to the leaderless characteristics of the mob mentality, but a club secretary confirmed that while the group was happy with the announcement and that they could all go back to their actual lives for a couple of weeks, key members were already charting the group's graph of displeasure for the next Twins manager whoever it might be.