Day: March 5, 2010

Twins to sign new TV/radio deal… and Mauer, too?

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I hadn’t seen or heard anything about this in any of the “usual” online sources for Twins’ news that I read rather religiously (doesn’t mean it wasn’t there… I may have missed it), but Peter Gammons had this little nugget in his mlb.com report on the Twins:

“… regardless of the weather, the Twins will realize a significant bump in revenues with their new park. They’re about to sign a new radio and TV deal.

‘It’s not quite a Seattle deal,’ said one club official, but another says it will put the Twins within ‘the top 8-10 revenue teams,’ giving them a higher payroll than the Dodgers.”

Seriously? Although I guess maybe the whole soap opera revolving around the divorce of the Dodgers’ owner might be inhibiting the Dodgers’ payroll and, if so, maybe it’s not as big a deal as it sounds. I just assumed the Dodgers probably were one of the $100+ million payroll clubs.

I suppose it’s foolish to hope this new TV/radio deal will mean I’ll actually be able to watch/listen to Twins games in Eastern Iowa.

In any event… now that they’ve got this TV/radio contract pretty much ironed out, maybe they can make some progress on another contract issue of significant interest to the fan base.

UPDATE: Those of you who actually live in/near the Twin Cities probably can opine about the reliability of “Common Man”, but Jesse over at TwinkieTown posted a link to Common’s podcast in which he claims to have a source with a “family member with the Twins” who says a Joe Mauer contract agreement will be signed by Sunday. Eight years @ $22 mil per year plus a couple of option years. Sounds a bit like one of those “friend of a friend of a friend who has a sister who dates the janitor” kinda things to me… but who knows? We can hope, anyway.

My God, isn’t it Friday yet!? Oh… it is? COOL!

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To say it has been a long week is putting it mildly, but we didn’t create this blog to give voice to our whining about our personal lives, so I’ll just say I’m REALLY glad this week is wrapping up.

So let’s talk Twins-stuff.

Yeah, I know the guys lost to Boston last night in their Grapefruit League opener and those four measly singles weren’t much to get excited about, but I’m very excited about the performances of Kevin Slowey and Pat Neshek! Slowey’s spoken openly about how his wrist feels “different”, so it was good to see him be very effective in his first two-inning stint of the spring. And, while he hasn’t posted anything yet on his blog, I can’t wait to see what “Sideshow” has to say about his first trip to the mound in almost two years, so I’ll be checking back there later.

It was interesting reading Gardy’s post-game comments, this morning, though. I get the very distinct impression than he considers his bullpen full, at this time, and he’s downplaying any expectations of having Neshek go north when camp breaks. (Although, technically, Rochester is also “north”, right?) All I know is that if Neshek is anywhere close to his old self, it’s going to be very tough to keep him off the roster.

We’ll probably try to do the GameChat thing again here today for the Red Sox’ return visit to Hammond Stadium. Since some of us actually work for a living during the day, I’m not sure how that will work out, but we’ll give it a go.

As much fun as it is to listen to games and chat a bit online as it unfolds, it’s even more fun to actually attend the spring training games! Nick Nelson of Nick’s Twins Blog will be doing just that today and mentions he will be doing some Tweeting in the process. Needless to say, I’m VERY jealous. I just keep reminding myself that my turn is coming. Less than two weeks from “JimCrikket’s Spring Training Vacation”!

I got my copy of the Twins Annual, put out by the TwinsCentric guys and Maple Street Press, in the mail this week. This is the magazine edited by “TwinsGeek” John Bonnes with articles contributed by a virutal “Who’s Who of Twins Blogging”. Nick Nelson, Seth Stohs, Parker Hageman, Howard Sinker, Josh Johnson and a number of other terrific local authors, in addition to the TwinsGeek, himself, contributed some terrific writing. If you haven’t bought your copy yet, what the heck are you waiting for???? Absolutely the best Twins magazine you’ll see all year.

Speaking of reading material, I’m patiently (OK, not so patiently) awaiting the arrival of my copy of Seth’s Minnesota Twins 2010 Prospect Handbook. I see he was expecting to mail them out to those of us who pre-ordered yesterday, so perhaps my wait is about over. I did note that half of Twins Territory apparently have received their copies already and provided reviews, while I’m sitting here waiting for mine. But I’m not impatient. I can wait. And I even promise not to write him any more harassing emails asking where my copy is. After all, I now have a blog where I can express just how PATIENTLY I’M WAITING for my dang Prospect Handbook!!!

By the way, Seth’s got a nice interview with Jesse Crain on his site today.

I guess that’s enough ranting for this morning.  I feel better… even though I realize that just two days in to this whole blogging thing, nobody is listening. It’s still very therapeutic, I’m sure.