Game 160: Twins at Royals

Time: 7:10 Central. Vegas Line: -135 MIN / KC +115

Weather: Slight chance thunderstorms, start temp 73°

Opponent’s excellent SB site: Royals Review

TV: BS North. Radio: As of Monday, 102.9 wil revert back to 100% terrible for the next six months

Since the announced starters for this one as of late Thursday are John Gant (who shouldn’t be a starter next year) and TBD (who will lead the league in night-before Announced Starts, always does), let’s skip the Stats and go right to a preview of Twins Territory, 2031.

It comes, as usual, from the excellent Neil DeMause’s Field Of Schemes website. In this post, about Royals’ ownership pimping for a new stadium before their lease runs out in 2030, DeMause presents an angle I hadn’t considered before. Typically, teams wanting downtown stadiums sell them on all the “urban renewal” stadiums are sure to provide (they don’t). However, in this our second year of COVID, there’s another factor in play; a lot of suddenly declining office-building occupancy levels/resale values. It turns out many makework office jobs could, in fact, be done from home. Are there property interests who’d love to sell these buildings to a stadium authority? Whaddya think?

We move, then, to the last installment of our 2021 Game Preview Series About Things TwinkieTowners own. (Possible non-preview installments are pending internal review by my brainular region.)

Most of all, I’d like to thank and shout-out everyone who contributed pictures/stories of their own! In no particular order except how fast I could find them, there’s been:

• trigonzobob and Victor with Chili Davis bowls
• JohnFoley with family memories and a World Series mug
• Sandwiches (who longer makes sandwiches, yet bread is still involved) with TWO, one a throwback cream Cardinals and another Houston’s great Tequila Sunrise
• Me and Mrs. James’s friends J & J with their brutal Attack Cutie, Gracie
• M.Grasso with TWO MORE, this old-school Minnie/Paul memorabilia and this fantastic Killebrew oil can
• gintzer whose dad got him a classic Wheaties box
• Plus, not technically part of the series, but a That’s So Joel recap
• For two of mine I liked, there’s this involving lures which people enjoyed, and this involving the Saints which nobody read because I forgot how Time Zones worked

Thanks again so much to everyone who chipped in! I haven’t really been able to finish out any kind of Game Preview Theme since I started in 2015 (life interfered), and wouldn’t have this year if you hadn’t provided the best material! Sure, it won’t make you famous, but I like to think it was fun for you to share. And I know for a fact some readers appreciated what you shared. You folks are the greatest. (Except Joel. Nah, even him. Sometimes.)

So, thinking of 2015, I dug into the internet Wayback Machine for this one:

I'd asked Jesse Lund if I could write TwinkieTown recaps back in 2014. Politely, he told me to ask again when I had More Experience. So I looked around and found where to get some.

Portland Roundball Society began as an alternative to SB Nation's extremely successful, pretty stuffy Trailblazers NBA site. It's been run since always by a kind of talented tyrant, who maintains a high level of professionalism while banishing anything outside his comfort level to internet Hades (a youth pastor by profession, he’s raised money on SB to take low-income kids to Blazer games).

This guy forbids cussing, even asterisked cussing, which makes total sense to anyone who's ever watched or played basketball. More irritatingly, he thinks he's God's Gift to writing. For a while, new SB writers could read a "Best Practices" series of articles about how to write correctly (which amounted to writing like him).

Portland Roundball Society found this tone ridiculous, and for a few years it was THE place to go for Blazers coverage which was genuinely entertaining (and more than half crazy).

Just as the site gained real attention, though, most of its staff were able to turn that attention into actual paying work. Only one was left, Corbin Smith, and he asked for new writers to help out with coverage.

Many applied; a team was assembled. Just like here, each PRS recapper would do one game a week. I don't remember what my day was supposed to be.

Because it never was. All the new writers flaked out, leaving Corbin and me. Nobody else did a single article, once.

So this photo was from my first-ever recap. I'd been at work, where there was a Halloween party for residents, friends, family and staff at a care facility. Somebody'd brought this excellent cantaloupe carved into a skull. I took it home, not knowing what to do with it, I just thought it was too cool to waste.

Sure enough, I got home and found an email from Corbin saying all the writers had flaked; could I do the recap? I caught the second half (time zones), threw something together, and photographed the melon in my personalized Fillmore jersey. (Portland Roundball Society was known for neat visuals, and I've tried to carry that forward when the pickings allow).

I concluded like this:

Why did this recap begin with the second half? Because I missed the first. I was at the PRS All Souls Eve reception, naturally. (“Halloween” is for plebiscites like you.) I was only forced to watch the second half in the Gold Room, nursing my 50-year-old whiskey and dictating notes to eager nubiles, since I am not yet worthy of more than a few precious hours in the Jade Room. What, you will inevitably ask, is the Jade Room? Your asking belies your utter insignificance. You can move along, now, with the other wisps of nothing like Bowie who will always dream and never know.

I’m also supposed to write this for Kissinger; they need a restock on ecstasy and first-born Christian babies. Get on it, pledge.

Cartoon fans will recognize that as a mishmosh of Venture Bros. references. Corbin naturally subtitled the recap "Skull And Bones." We did stuff like that the rest of the 2014-2015 NBA season (well, I did 20% of the games, tops). Then Corbin got a paying gig, and the site folded, and I sent some of my linkings from it to Jesse Lund. Jesse was in full “no more f***s to give” mode about SB, he brought me on, and it’s been what it’s been ever since.

Back next year? Who knows, que sera sera. We’ll be together for the recap, surely!