Labor Day Weekend is upon us and that means there’s but one month left in the Twins’ baseball season.
I’ve gotta be honest, though… the season is pretty much over already, where I’m concerned. I’m simply unable to muster enough enthusiasm to even listen to Twins games, at this point. Maybe I’d retain a bit more interest if I could actually watch their games, but since FSN isn’t carried on the local cable provider here and MLB blacks out Twins games (and those of five other teams) in all of Iowa, I can’t really put that theory to the test.
I’ll be mildly interested in seeing what some of the September call-ups do with the Twins. Again, I use the word “seeing” loosely, since all I’ll be able to “see” will be the results in the boxscores. I’m hoping that at least a couple of the newbies will be impressive enough in their auditions to provide a little hope for next year, but I’ll wait until Spring Training to really pay close attention to them.
So, for the next month, I’ll be focused primarily in three other areas.
First and foremost, I’m a fan and season ticket holder of the Iowa Hawkeyes and they get their season underway Saturday night against Northern Illinois over at Soldier Field. That game is followed by five straight home games (though there’s a bye week mixed in there somewhere, I think), so my Saturdays for the next several weeks will be spent in Iowa City.
I’m not expecting great things from the Hawks this year, but I do expect a winning season with a midling bowl game at the end. Best of all, Iowa has several new assistant coaches, including both offensive and defensive coordinators, so at least there’s a chance that play-calling and defensive schemes won’t be as predictable as they’ve been for the past decade. Now if they can just find a running back somewhere.
I’m also a Vikings fan, so I’ll be starting to pay much closer attention to them, as well, this month. I did watch their final pre-season game on TV, for whatever that was worth (which wasn’t much).
I understand that the regular radio voices of Vikings football were doing “simulcast” broadcasts of the pre-season games on TV. Let me just say this… for all the crap I’ve heard from Twins fans about their TV and radio crews, I just hope none of the same people actually LIKE the two total bozos that are doing radio for the Vikings. If you give me a choice between signing up to listen to Bremer/Blyleven and Provus/Gladden for another ten years or having to listen to those Vikings broadcasters for one more game, put me down for the Twins. If I had to listen to the Vikings broadcasters, they’d probably force me to become a Packers fan within the course of a single season.
It did make me ponder the whole TV thing more, though. A Vikings game in which their top 25 or so players were not even dressed was shown live on local television in Cedar Rapids and not a single Twins game was on TV here all season. The Vikings and the NFL are lowering their attendance threshhold required to prevent a TV blackout in their actual local market. The Twins and MLB impose a blackout that extends hundreds of miles away from the Twin Cities, regardless of ticket sales or whether their broadcast affiliate has any coverage on cable systems in those areas.
The NFL shares their media rights relatively equally. MLB embraces a system where the Dodgers are expecting a TV rights contract exceeding 8 BILLION (yes, with a B) dollars, while other teams might be lucky to scrape in a few million due to their market size.
Gosh, I wonder why pro football has long ago passed Major League Baseball in terms of fan interest across the nation.
Anyway, I think the Vikings should be improved, but if they win six games, that’s about all I’ll be expecting. Of course, that means that by October, I’ll probably be ready for the brief distraction that will be provided by MLB’s playoffs. I do know I’ll be watching the single game Wildcard play-in games. After that, I probably won’t pay much attention to the playoffs outside of “deciding games” and, depending on who makes it that far, the World Series.
Finally, over the next month, I’ll also be continuing to keep eyes and ears open locally as the mini-drama concerning the Cedar Rapids Kernels’ affiliation for next year and beyond unfolds. I’m still hoping we’ll be seeing the Twins’ young prospects playing for the Kernels, but at this point, I won’t be surprised by much of anything when that announcement is finally made late in September.
On the immediate front, my Labor Day Weekend is going to have a full day of sports on Saturday (Hawkeyes on TV in the afternoon, Kernels game in the evening) and I’m also planning on making it out to at least one of the two final Kernels games of the season Sunday and/or Monday afternoons.
I’m actually giving serious thought to making the drive over to Clinton IA on Wednesday for Game 1 of the Beloit Snappers’ playoff series with the Lumber Kings. It’s a bit sad to realize that will likely be my final opportunity to see a baseball game in person at least until Spring Training.
In the mean time, someone give me a little nudge or something if the Twins do anything worth paying attention to, ok?
– JC