The Game's Afoot. Sort of.

At the All-Star Game break, the Minnesota Twins found themselves just where they were supposed to be; in the AL West’s cellar, looking up at the Kansas City Royals. No surprise there. It was pre-ordained.

After losing 99 games in 2011, the bankers who own the Twins reacted with banker-like alacrity. Nodding to reality, they made their principal off- season move. In order to go forward, they went backward, exhuming Terry Ryan, the retired general manager, to return to the lists once more.

At his first press conference after being re-installed, Ryan waxed giddily at the prospect of working with a one hundred million dollar payroll. By doing so he in effect conceded that the Twins’ most glaring need, pitchers who can pitch, would go unheeded. Good young pitchers sign for $12-15 million; good old pitchers go for $18-25. A payroll of $100 million can accommodate neither age demographic.

So we knew what we were in for before a single pitch was thrown. Ryan’s best move was to acquire a 39-year old career utility man who has turned out to be the club’s best infielder. Also on the plus side; Joe Maurer’s return as the best hitting catcher in the American League, Ben Revere’s emergence
as an exciting young hitter, base stealer and fly chaser, who, unfortunately, cannot throw; and the heart-warming come back of first baseman Justin Morneau. Due diligence demands acknowledgment of the fact that the Twins play in worst division in the American League and one of the worst in the major leagues. Their fans however happily accept any victory, even
one against the Eliot Park Tigers. Come to think about it, the Eliot Park Tigers might be better than Cleveland and Kansas City.

At this point, on the cusp of the dog days of August, the Twins’ chances of advancing to third place in the Woeful West of the American League look pretty good. That means the bankers can continue to charge major league prices for a product that’s just barely, and that their faith in Terry Ryan is well-founded. We will do well to remember, though, that in his previous tenure operating with the same penurious owners, Ryan took ten years to reach the playoffs. But the game’s afoot. Check back in 2022 and see what Ryan has done.



The Minnesota Vikings marked the recent passing of ex-general manager Mike Lynn, who presided over the team’s fortunes from 1975 to 1990. Lynn was plucked from the ranks of the most promising young movie theater managers by the canny Max Winter who had outlasted the original investors to become president of the team.  In just two years, Max’s protégé
became the team’s general manager.

His tenure included one Super Bowl appearance, a loss, among nine playoff seasons. That success, however, was due almost entirely to the efforts of his predecessor, Jim Finks, who, along with Coach Bud Grant, laid the foundation of the Vikings’ rise to power. Finks left the Vikings following the 1974 season, after
his request to buy stock in the team was denied. In effect, the canny Max Winter let Finks go and replaced him with Lynn.

Finks is in Pro Football’s Hall of Fame. After bringing the Vikings from an expansion team to perennial contenders, he did the same with the Chicago Bears, a proud pillar of the NFL.  The 1985 Super Bowl victory Finks brought them was the first for the storied Bears. He then replicated his Vikings’accomplishments with the New Orleans Saints, setting the course for future
Saints’ success. In a biographical sketch published in a Chicago paper, a Bears’official was quoted as saying that Finks’ organizational skills were such that the team was equipped to carry on just though he was still managing.

Lynn, of course, could depart from the Vikings leaving no such legacy. Which is not to call him a piker. He left with a deal that paid him $500,000 a year from luxury suite income. The deal was set in perpetuity, meaning it will last until the team no longer plays in Mall of America Field. That nifty bit of management
should earn him enshrinement somewhere. Is there a chutzpah hall of fame?



The University of Minnesota Basketball coach, Tubby Smith, signed a contract extension worth nearly $2,000,000 a year, plus millions more in performance incentives. That makes him the top paid U employee. What’s more, the contract can be re-negotiated prior to the 2013-14 basketball season.
If Tubby can beat somebody other than South Dakota State, the roof will blow.
New president, new athletic director, same old, same old U.



People loyal to Penn State have protested the punishment imposed by the NCAA incident to the pedophilia scandal. Typically, the NCAA equated justice with money, and cut off several important sources of income to Penn State for a period
of four years.

Unless you believe pedophilia is only an exercise of goofing off between adults and children, you have to think the NCAA went too lightly. Instead of just $60 million in fines, not much money in big time college football, Penn State, additionally, should
have been banned from all intercollegiate athletic competition for at least a year.
That might have sent a clearer message to society, to pedophiles, and to institutions that harbor them.



Rev Cox