Game 69: Twins at Rangers

Time: 7:05 Central. Vegas Line: -155 MIN / TEX +145

Weather: Scorching° at first pitch, no rain, They Have A Roof

Opponent’s SB site: Lone Star Ball

TV: BS North. Radio: Talk radio’s usual nuance and calm is even bigger in Texas

The delightfully-named Mike Foltynewicz, who starts for Texas today, is a fairly-tall, fairly-skinny 29-year-old whose best season, in 2018, involved throwing a lot of sliders. As often is the case with lanky slider-throwers, he’s suffered from recurrent injury issues... including the quite terrifying-sounding costochondritis and subsequent blood clots/pneumonia. Weird health stuff can happen at any time to anybody, folks.

He grew up in Minooka, Illinois, a distant southwest Chicago suburb, which was also the childhood home of such facial-hair luminaries as comedian Nick Offerman and MLB pitcher Sal Fasano, who somehow managed to never get any mop-up innings with the Twins. Foltynewicz made a habit in Atlanta of bringing pizza to kids in schools and orphanages, which is nice. He also has a BRef profile photo which looks uncannily like Chris Elliott from Schitt’s Creek. Digits:

Hey, somebody FINALLY jumped in on the “share your baseball stuff for Fridays” thrilling offer of fame and glory! That somebody was longtime site malcontent imakesandwichesforaliving, who emailed me thusly:

I WAS FLIPPING FISH - THE FROZEN KIND, NOT THE FRESH KIND - IN THE OVEN AND MY FRIED BAKERY MANAGER MIND JUST REMEMBERED THAT I NEED TO SEND THIS TO YOU FOR THE GAME THREAD.

I like collecting retro/throwback baseball uniforms. This one (attached) was one of my first ones - the Tequila Sunrise, worn in the late 70s to at least the late 80s, maybe early 90s. I love it, but I can’t wear it anymore thanks to the Astros being Asstros.

Here’s the photo:

This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping people would share. I love this color scheme, too, although some most certainly do NOT. (I also like the horizontal-stripey, 1980s White Sox “beach blanket” uniform; both were on the baseball cards I collected as a kid.)

A website you probably weren’t aware ever existed, Racked, had this fun short article on that Astros jersey’s history, which the team wore from 1975-1986 (and probably commissioned because the mid-70s Astros were like 2021’s Twins in terms of crumminess). It was created by graphic designers from the huge advertising firm McCann-Erickson (yes, the “competition” company in Mad Men, and the people who did make that real-life “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” commercial). Theoretically, the colors supposedly suggested a comet’s tail (as in, Space Stuff, as in “Astros”) or a southwestern sunset, but one member of the design team said they were basically just a stripe-y phase he was into. So that’s that.

The article also has this picture of Nolan Ryan and young superstar J.R. Richard modeling that jersey’s glory; sadly, Richard would later have his career cut short by, of all things, a stroke he suffered at the ripe old age of 30. Weird medical s**t, any time of life, as mentioned...

Racked was apparently “a retail and shopping website” (per Wiki) that SB daddy Vox Media first bought, then binned, to the dismay of all who love “retail and shopping” websites, AKA people you never want to know. It did put up a list of its staff’s favorite articles, including a cute one titled “Why Do Men Put On Basketball Shorts After Sex?” in case this is a situation you’ve both A) run into and B) been curious about.

Is it the wrong week for the Astros? Sure, but the Twins are playing another Texas team. And we already reviewed the fine documentary about how local politicians pushed through public financing for the Rangers’ airplane hangar-looking dumb stadium.

Anyone who has their own baseball swag pictures and/or stories can email them to me at twinsbrewer@yahoo.com. Be sure and put something in the subject header like “your recap was wrong and you’re a bad person” so I know it’s from one of our friends here!

Lineups posted when I get home. Not like they really matter, do they? now!