Category Archives: Books & Movies

“WHY Are You Doing This?”

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Welcome to Knuckleballs.

I was going to say “Welcome back to Knuckleballs,” but let’s be honest… many of you weren’t even aware this blog existed.

First two books are available. Book Three should be published July 8. Available in paperback and Kindle through Amazon.com

It’s been going on three years since I (that’s me up there on the byline… “Jim Crikket”) posted an article here. In 2020, I used this site as a vehicle for sharing my interest in sports betting, and to provide updates on the surgery I underwent that resulted in a plate and a couple of screws being put in my left foot.

Before that, my co-founders and I wrote primarily about Minnesota Twins baseball here. Then we got lives.

This article isn’t about any of that, however.

This is about my new career. Or new avocation. Whatever it is.

I have become an author. In fact, given that I published my first novel through Amazon in April and I already have a second book available and a third that should be published in less than two weeks, I think I can rightfully claim to be a prolific author.

Based on early sales volumes, however, James Patterson has little to be concerned about with regard to losing market share to S.D. Buhr.

That’s okay.

So… you may be wondering why I decided to do this, if not to make money.

It’s a fair question. And it’s not that I’d mind generating a little income from this venture. It’s not inexpensive to self-publish books, so please know I appreciate everyone who’s supported me by buying my books. I genuinely want the books to be read. I’d love to get them into some libraries, as difficult as that can be to accomplish for an independent author.

But I didn’t start doing this to make millions of dollars (although I’ll answer the phone if Netflix ever calls). In fact, at the onset of this project, I honestly never intended to publish any of what I was writing.

Remember 2020? It sucked.

For me, the sucking started in 2019 when I broke my foot while I was hanging out at the condo in Fort Myers between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The resulting surgery already had me laid up for several weeks BEFORE we all got virtually locked down for COVID the following March.

Somewhere during that stretch–I don’t recall exactly when–I decided to start writing a story. The purpose, frankly, was to keep my mind from turning to mush.

I had enjoyed a retirement life that involved family, friends, golfing, travel, attending minor league baseball games… and writing about minor league baseball.

Then, just like that, spending time with anyone outside the immediate family you lived with was discouraged, for everyone’s safety. Travel was out of the question. Golfing was okay, to degree, although I certainly did much less of it. And after professional baseball shut down spring training that March, minor league baseball literally ceased to exist.

So, with no minor league baseball to write about, I decided to write about something else. I just wasn’t sure what that should be. They say you should write what you know. Great advice, unless you’re someone who really doesn’t know enough about anything to write about it.

But I decided there was one thing I did know about. I knew what it was like to grow up a high school coach’s son. I knew what it was like to be a teenager in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I knew what it was like to be uprooted by my parents from my southern Minnesota hometown and dragged kicking and screaming to a smaller town in northcentral Iowa.

So that’s what I began to write about.

For a short time, I started writing about my actual life in Albert Lea, Minnesota, back in 1968. About half an hour later, however, I got bored with that. I realized my life simply wasn’t all that exciting. I was just a kid, like every other kid in the neighborhood.

That’s when I decided to make stuff up. That was a HUGE decision. It made writing a lot more fun and, I truly believe, it made the story a lot better!

Over the following several months, I wrote. I wrote about this poor kid having to move away from his friends (including his first crush) and into this strange world in his new Iowa hometown.

Naturally, the early life of the protagonist (we’ll call him “Du” because that’s what I called him in the book) parallels the author’s life (that’s me, by the way) in some ways. But not many. Honest… I had to make 99% of the story up because my reality (while I enjoyed the heck out of it when I was living it) just wasn’t the stuff that makes for a good novel.

I wrote what I felt was a nice story, ending with the first date between Du and one of the girls in his junior high school class.

It took maybe three months, but it was done.

I didn’t know what to do next. I never intended to show it to anyone. I didn’t even tell my family I was writing it!

But I kind of liked the characters I had created. Some–not all–of them were based VERY loosely on people I knew back then. If you happened to know my parents, you very well might recognize some of my real parents’ mannerisms, language, etc. But the parents I created were not my real parents. They were almost caricatures of my real parents. And, frankly, not particularly flattering caricatures in some ways.

The same might be true of some of the friends I grew up with. Some of the characters in the book share mannerisms, family backgrounds, hair color, etc., with people I grew up with. But the characters themselves… what they do and what they say… that’s all fiction.

Not to mention, I discovered quickly that even if I had wanted to write a character for every friend I grew up with back then, there wasn’t room. There may have been times when I was a teenager that it didn’t feel like I had many friends, but when I started writing, I figured out very quickly that there would only be room for a limited number to play significant roles in the book. So that’s when I learned, first hand, about consolidating characters.

In my real life, the kids I played baseball and basketball with were not necessarily the same kids with whom I did all the other crazy stuff I did back then. But for the sake of keeping things from becoming unwieldly, in Du’s world, the guys he played basketball with were the same guys he raced cars and rode motorcycles with.

What’s that you say? Thirteen year olds don’t race cars and ride motorcycles? I’m glad you brought that up.

So, after I finished the story and STILL had no minor league baseball to go see, I decided to just keep writing.

First, I wrote about what happens to Du on the day AFTER that first date. And the week after that. And the month after that. And the year after that.

It was early during this period that I made a decision. I’m not sure I would make the same choice if I were starting over today. I not only tried to make sure I never used any real names of anyone in my life (for obvious reasons), I also changed the names of the towns where most of the story takes place.

Why do that? Was I ashamed of having grown up in Albert Lea, Minnesota, and Webster City, Iowa? Not for a moment. I cherish the memories I have of living in both towns, and the friends I had in each.

But with this being a work of fiction, there were instances where I needed (or at least strongly desired) a feature in a park, or at a lake, or in a school, that did not actually exist in the towns I grew up in. So, I exercised literary license and changed the names of some of the towns.

So my friends from Webster City can’t read something and say, “Hey, we didn’t have that store or anything like it when we were growing up there.”

I also was toying with the idea of Du, once he was in high school, making frequent trips back to his old hometown in Minnesota to visit friends, so I sort of “relocated” the fictional version of my real hometown of Webster City to a geographical location much closer to the Iowa/Minnesota border.

I didn’t end up doing anything much with that kind of story arc, however, so I probably wouldn’t have had to do that. I could have gone back and “moved” the town closer to where Webster City is located, but by then I was a year (and a million words) into this deal and the thought of trying to do that gave me a headache.

Plus… like I’ve said… NOBODY was ever going to read any of this anyway! So who cares where the towns are located or what they’re called? I KNOW. Nobody else will need to.

Anyway, by the time we were coming out of that COVID lockdown, our boy Du and his friends had graduated from high school… and I had a “book” that had more words than War and Peace. I’m serious. I looked it up.

Did I let that stop me? Hell no. I kept writing until Du and some of his friends had managed to graduate from college, get married, and have a couple of pretty cool careers. Now we were up to twice the number of words in War and Peace.

But at one point, I encountered a problem.

There came a point in the story… I think when Du was in college… where I thought it would be really helpful to insert a chapter from the perspective of one of the women in his life at that time. When I was done writing that, I liked it. So I wrote another similar chapter to insert at another point where I felt it was helpful.

Now that cat was out of the bag, Pandor’s Box had been opened, and all those other similar cliches you want to try to avoid using when you write, but end up using anyway.

But I went back to the beginning. And I inserted chapters from the perspectives of the girls he went to junior high with. And the girls he went to high school with. And the women he met during his college years. And his wife.

That, my friends, is how you take a story that’s already at War and Peace levels and jack it up to three times that size.

It’s also how you turn a three-month project into a three-year (and counting) project.

But for a long time, the length simply didn’t matter to me. I was just writing it because I enjoyed doing it. I became very attached to almost all of the characters. It took almost no time at all for them to completely escape any remote resemblance to any of my friends who may have at least partially inspired them. They all had lives and personalities and hopes and fears and strengths and weaknesses of their own.

And that particularly includes Du, the protagonist. He was never me. Not really. But he became his own man, long before he reached manhood. He tried. He failed. He made mistakes. He was hurt. He hurt others, including those he loved. He was a product of the environment he grew up in.

Speaking of that environment, as I continued to write, something I really enjoyed doing was incorporating references to iconic moments in history from that era, and references to our music in particular. I would hear a classic song and think, “Oh, I know a great spot where I can reference that song in the story!”

Often, those thoughts would come to me in the middle of the night, and I’d have no recollection of them the next day, but occasionally I’d manage to remember to plug it in where I wanted it.

Anyway, once I had the story “done” (I put that word in quote marks because I know this story won’t be done until I’ve published the final book), I began to have some thoughts about sharing it. As soon as I started down that path, I had a problem.

It was probably too long.

Unless…

That’s how “The Du-Over” went from an insanely long book to being the first book in the “Growing Up Barely Boomer” SERIES of novels.

Of course, that meant I had to go back and chop the story into book-sized units, with each book having an ending that at least made SOME sense. I’m not big on cliffhangers, so I tried to minimize those. But you also want to leave the reader with enough interest to wonder about what happens next.

So, that’s where we are today. It’s also why I can kick out a new book every couple of months instead of maybe one or two a year like a normal author. The story’s over (for me). I know what happens to every character from junior high to adulthood. Sure, I could (and certainly will) make some additional changes. But the time involved between each book is mostly a factor of getting them into a final version I’m happy with, having my wife read through it, then getting it in the hands of my editors, who take what I write and turn it into something readable.

Here’s the thing, though… and I’m sure you’ll be devastated by this… I’m not sure I’m going to actually publish all of the books.

I’ve made a commitment to myself to publish nine books. That gets Du and the rest of these crazy kids through their high school graduation. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe it’s enough that I know what happens to them after that. I’m not sure.

After all, I’m pretty sure that even those friends I grew up with who have been very supportive and kind in their assessments of the first couple of books in the series probably took one look at the picture of nine book covers and said something along the lines of, “That idiot is writing NINE books? I was all for one of them. That was nice. But NINE? Listen, just because I dated that loser for a couple of months in high school, I’m not going to buy NINE freaking books! After all, I dumped his ass for a reason back then. I didn’t want to keep listening to him talk. I sure don’t want to turn around and read a million words he’s written!”

And I get that.

But I’m going to publish them anyway. And years from now (hopefully) when I’m no longer around, there will be at least nine books out there somewhere that my grandkids can point to and say, “My grandpa wrote that story.”

I can happily live with that.

And now you know why I’m doing this.

Steve

P.S. If you’re feeling like doing some reading, you can find my Amazon author’s page here. You can also keep abreast of news concerning my writing on Facebook here. I’m hoping to make appearances at a few more author events/shows this summer and fall, and I’ll be announcing those appearances on that Facebook page. If you’re anywhere near my old stomping grounds in Webster City, Iowa, put September 14 on your calendar. I’m scheduled to make an appearance at Kendall Young Library at 6 p.m. that evening.

 

Book Review: “Game Used: My Life In Stitches with the Minnesota Twins”

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Of all the non-players connected in some manner with the Minnesota Twins over the near-60 years that they’ve been in existence, I’m not sure you could find one more recognizable to Twins fans than Dick Bremer.

If you’ve been watching Twins telecasts since 1983, you’ve been watching him on television for some 37 years.

But I saw him first.

It is possible, if you listened to “Duke in the Dark” on KCLD in St. Cloud several years before his debut in the Twins’ broadcast booth, that you heard him before I did, but I and my fellow long-time Cedar Rapidians had the pleasure of watching Bremer report on sports for WMT-TV (Channel 2) in Cedar Rapids in 1979.

Before he became the TV voice of the Twins, Dick Bremer held down the sports desk for WMT in Cedar Rapids.

During spring training a year ago, I was on the back fields with Twins Daily’s Seth Stohs watching the minor leaguers when Bremer walked up to us and struck up a conversation with Seth, who then introduced me to Bremer.

I mentioned to him that I’m from Cedar Rapids and have been there long enough to remember him from his days at WMT. He smiled and shared a couple of anecdotes from his time in Cedar Rapids.

He also mentioned that he was including those stories, as well as one or two more, in a book he had been convinced to write and which would be released sometime within the next year or so.

Game Used: My Life In Stitches with the Minnesota Twins is that book and I bought an e-book version for my annual trip to Fort Myers, expecting to read it in between outings to the Twins’ spring training complex and the beaches.

As with most of the rest of the country, I found myself with much more down-time than I anticipated and I used a chunk of that time to allow Bremer to guide me through 108 stories – one for every stitch in a baseball – that stretch from his youth and throughout his professional career.

Twins fans’ opinions of Bremer are as widely disparate as they are for any Twins player that’s put on a uniform since he began doing play-by-play for the club. You can’t do the job he’s been doing since 1983 without garnering a fair number of critics. But you don’t keep such a public-facing job for so long without doing something right.

Personally, I’ve always liked his work. Granted, thanks to MLB blackouts, I didn’t get to watch and listen to Bremer nearly as frequently as fans who got to watch virtually every Twins broadcast in the past four decades, but I’ve always found Bremer extremely relatable. Until I read his book, though, I’m not sure even I understood just how closely I could relate to him.

Bremer and I are close in age (he’s my elder by four months) and we were both adopted as infants. We both spent much, but not all, of our formative years being raised in Minnesota and grew up huge fans of the Minnesota Twins of the 1960s and 1970s.

But while the life I chose to live as an adult continued to leave me relegated to the role of a fan, Bremer’s decision to leave me and the rest of his WMT viewership in Cedar Rapids and move back home to the Twin Cities positioned him to be able to take advantage of opportunities to meet and work with many of the Twins idols we shared as kids while providing the voice soundtrack to countless historical Twins games and seasons.

Broadcasters in most jobs are supposed to provide an unbiased narrative to the events they work and Bremer has done that job when covering various events over the years. But Major League Baseball clubs have no such expectations of the broadcasters they, along with their broadcast partners, employ to describe the local club’s games.

Say what you wish of that business model, but it’s worked well for Bremer. He is a Twins fan and has been his whole life. He’s you and me. And for generations of the team’s fans, he’s been as much a part of the action as Ray Scott, Herb Carneal and Halsey Hall were to me (and to Bremer, himself, no doubt).

In addition to the anecdotes like the one he shared with me about the role kazoos played in the 1980 Final Four appearance of Lute Olson’s Iowa Hawkeyes, Bremer has stories that provide a virtual guided tour through the last four decades of Twins baseball.

In case you need a reminder, that’s a stretch that includes time spent in all three stadiums that the Twins have called home, seasons under both ownership families in the club’s history, two World Series Championships, win-or-go-home tiebreaker games, a couple of near-relocations and a near-contraction.

Bremer also witnessed the very different conclusions to the careers of Twins greats such as Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek and Joe Mauer.

He was witness to the clubhouse reactions to the deaths of Puckett and his (and my) boyhood hero, Harmon Killebrew, to 9/11 and to the collapse of the I-35 bridge in the Twin Cities.

Bremer has been a regular at the Twins’ Fantasy Camps. His experiences from that, alone, are enough to make me insanely jealous.

There are moments that touch your soul, too. His recollections from Puckett’s funeral certainly fall into that category. But those moments aren’t all sad. In fact, some are quite the opposite, such as a certain gesture made by Ron Gardenhire related to the 1992 All-Star Game.

There are so many stories from the time spent in the broadcast booth with an array of analyst partners, especially Bert Blyleven. The Bremer-Blyleven partnership obviously plays a starring role in the book and be assured you’ll enjoy the stories, regardless of whether you always enjoy “Dick and Bert” in the booth.

If you’re looking for “dirt” on players, coaches, broadcasters or front office executives, you’re not going to find it in Bremer’s book. That’s not Bremer’s style.

But if you want to smile as he makes you feel like you’re there with him on the inside witnessing virtually every high, low and in-between moment of Twins baseball in the past four decades, you’re going to enjoy this book.

I know I did.

Game of Thrones – A DeadPOLL

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SPOILER ALERT! If you’re a fan of HBO’s Game of Thrones, but you aren’t caught up on what’s going on and don’t want SPOILERS, stop reading right now! (There, I warned you. What happens next is your own fault!)

If you’re here looking for my latest baseball articles, well, sorry. This isn’t related to baseball at all.

(Of course, if you really WANT to read my latest pieces on the Cedar Rapids Kernels you can click here to read my piece on outfielder Trey Cabbage and here to read my interview with pitching coach Virgil Vasquez. Both were posted at TwinsDaily.com.)

But THIS post is all Game of Thrones. If you’re one of those people tired of everyone talking about the HBO series, you should probably just move on now.

If you’re a GoT watcher, like I am, then you know that Episode 3 of Season 8 (the final season of the series) is scheduled for airing this Sunday and it’s gonna be brutal!

By now, we’re all used to seeing our favorite characters meet surprising, untimely, and usually vicious demises and with the battle on deck for this Sunday night, it’s clear we’re going to lose a few… or many… more of them. There are only three more episodes left to air after this week’s ultimate clash with the Night King’s legions of walking dead at Winterfell.

So, I say let’s have a little fun with their misery.

No, I’m not going to do a Deadpool. There are plenty of those out there, but I’m putting up a DeadPOLL!

Simply click the name of each GoT character that you believe will perish before the end of Episode 3 when, presumably after dispensing with the Night King, whoever remains turns their attention on Cersei Lannister. (And, perhaps, one another?)

This episode is scheduled to run an hour and twenty minutes and the word coming out is that it is the largest scale battle ever presented on TV or in any film.

So who’s going to buy the farm this week? (Sorry, that’s a Midwest term for what Jersey folk might call, “getting whacked,” if you didn’t know.)

Will it be Jon Snow (ne: Aegon Targaryen)? Just when he finds out he’s the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, will author George R. R. Martin and the show’s writers do him in?

Fans of GoT have believed for years that Martin secretly has it in for the popular Stark clan. Of course, Jon isn’t really a Stark now (or is he?), so maybe it will be the not-as-young-as-some-thought Arya. Would be a shame to kill off Sansa now that she’s found her inner Starkness. Hard for me to imagine Bran goes down right now, but never trust Martin to spare your favorite Stark!

Seems unlikely Daenerys Targaryen falls before she gets to go up against Cersei, doesn’t it? But you never know. And what about her dragons? Will either/both of the surviving not-undead dragons survive this battle?

Have either of the Lannister men, Tyrion or Jaime, run through their luck? I’m guessing at least one will need to deal with their sister before this is over, but both? Hmmmm. I’m not so sure.

Similarly, it would seem that Sandor Clegane (The Hound) has a confrontation with his brother, the Mountain, to get to before we’re done, so one would think he comes through this week’s carnage.

Now that Samwell Tarly has broken the news about Jon’s true identity, is there anything left for his character to do? What about Gilly and young Sam?

Other characters that you could argue have seen their character’s arc pretty much completed might be Bronn (though he has already survived longer than he had any right to), newly knighted Brienne of Tarth (not to mention her protégé Podrick Payne), the Mormonts (Joran and Lyanna), Grey Worm (though I’m suspecting Missandei will move on, for now), Theon Greyjoy (seriously, is anyone else shocked that this guy has survived this long?), Davos Seaworth (his arc seemed to run out some time ago, to be honest), or how about Tormuno Giantsbane and Deric Dondarrion (don’t know who they are? Don’t feel bad, I had to look them up. I just know them as, ‘that crazy red-haired wildling guy’ and, ‘the guy with the eye patch who only has one life left’)?

It seems obvious that the characters not currently at Winterfell aren’t in danger of seeing their paychecks end after this episode, so Cersei Lannister, Gregor Clegane (The Mountain), as well as Yara and Euron Greyjoy still have breath in them after this week. Then again, beware of what’s “obvious” when it comes to Martin’s imagination. Still, I’m going to leave them out of the poll for this week.

Finally, what about the Night King? I mean he HAS to be defeated, right… right? But who is he, really, and can he truly be killed?

But enough of my speculations. Tell me who YOU think gets their fire snuffed out in Episode 3. Click on all the character names you think will fall this week.

Which Game of Thrones Character(s) will die in Season 8, Episode 3's Battle at Winterfell?

  • Brienne of Tarth (9%, 15 Votes)
  • Grey Worm (9%, 14 Votes)
  • Joran Mormont (9%, 14 Votes)
  • Theon Greyjoy (8%, 13 Votes)
  • Deric Dondarrion (8%, 13 Votes)
  • Tormuno Giantsbane (7%, 11 Votes)
  • Davos Seaworth (6%, 10 Votes)
  • Podrick Payne (5%, 9 Votes)
  • One or both dragons (5%, 8 Votes)
  • Gendry (5%, 8 Votes)
  • Lyanna Mormont (4%, 7 Votes)
  • Jaime Lannister (4%, 7 Votes)
  • Bronn (4%, 6 Votes)
  • Night King (2%, 4 Votes)
  • Sandor Clegane (The Hound) (2%, 4 Votes)
  • Arya Stark (2%, 4 Votes)
  • Samwell Tarly (2%, 4 Votes)
  • Varys (2%, 3 Votes)
  • Tyrion Lannister (1%, 2 Votes)
  • Sam (child) (1%, 2 Votes)
  • Bran Stark (1%, 2 Votes)
  • Missandei (1%, 2 Votes)
  • Gilly (1%, 1 Votes)
  • Daenerys Targaryen (1%, 1 Votes)
  • Sansa Stark (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Jon Snow (Aegon Targaryen) (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 21

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Offseason Movies: “Without Limits”

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As I posted a couple days ago, I’m going to spend at least some of my winter working my way through some of the various sports movies that I own on DVD/Blu-Ray. You can find the entire list by clicking here.

So let’s start with a Donald Sutherland movie that is perhaps the most obscure title on the list.

Of course, the fact that Sutherland was in it doesn’t really narrow it down, I know. The guy has like 190 acting credits on his IMDB page, after all.

In 1998, Sutherland played Bill Bowerman, the famous track coach at the University of Oregon and a co-founder of Nike, in the film Without Limits.

Bowerman trained 31 Olympic athletes, 16 sub-four minute milers and his Oregon track team won four NCAA championships. Oh, he also achieved the rank of Major in the US Army and was awarded a Silver Star and four Bronze Stars during World War II. Throw in the whole co-founding Nike thing and one could make an argument that a movie about Bowerman’s career would be well worth making.

Maybe it would, but Without Limits is not that movie and Sutherland’s role is merely that of a supporting actor.

You may also recognize Monica Potter (Parenthood, Saw) in the primary supporting actress role in the movie.

On top of that, you’ll also see Matthew Lillard in this movie as one of the runners that Sutherland’s character is coaching. If you’ve watched every sports movie ever made, then you saw Lillard as Billy Brubaker opposite Freddie Prinze, Jr. as Ryan Dunne in 2001’s Summer Catch. Fortunately for Lillard, he didn’t have to rely on that movie to kick his acting career into gear for long. A year later, he starred as Shaggy in Scooby Doo and he’s ridden that wave ever since, acting in a sequel or two and doing voice work for pretty much every animated Scooby project, including video games.

It’s Billy Crudup, though, that has the starring role of Steve Prefontaine in Without Limits. Prefontaine was one of Bowerman’s star runners at Oregon and an Olympic runner at the infamous 1972 Munich Olympic Games. At one time or another, “Pre” held US records in seven distance events, from 2,000 meters to 10,000 meters.

Billy Crudup as Steve Prefontaine in “Without Limits” (1998)

Prefontaine was a bit of a cult hero when I was in high school, at least among my friends who ran track or were at least interested in Track & Field events in the Olympics. I was not such a person, but I had one particular friend that I can still remember going on and on about the guy.

Not only was Prefontaine one of the premier competitive runners in the world during the early 1970s, but he also was one of the most outspoken critics of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and has been often credited with being a pioneer of improved American athletes’ rights.

After competing in Munich, where he had a disappointing performance, Pre turned down $200,000 to turn professional and continued to train for the 1976 Montreal Olympics as a member of the Oregon Track Club. Two hundred grand may not sound like a lot, given what today’s athletes make, but in the early 1970s, that was a big chunk of change! For some perspective, Prefontaine and his teammates on the USA Track & Field team were reportedly getting nothing but a $3 per day food allowance.

Meanwhile, the fatcats running things for the AAU were taking deals from event promoters to assure that Prefontaine and others like fellow runner Frank Shorter only went head-to-head with their biggest international rivals in those competitions that paid the most money to the AAU and its executives.

Unfortunately (spoiler alert!), Pre would not make it to Montreal for the 1976 Olympics.

After a post-meet party in Eugene, Oregon, on May 29, 1975, Prefontaine’s MGB convertible crossed the center line on a winding stretch of road, hit a rock wall and flipped over, pinning him underneath. He was pronounced dead by the first medics on the scene of the accident.

Without Limits is not Oscar material. It’s certainly not Donald Sutherland’s most memorable role. Heck, for me it’s not even Billy Crudup’s most memorable role (When I see Crudup, his work as lead guitarist for the fictional band Stillwater in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous is what immediately comes to my mind), but if you’re into sports-related biopics about athletes that should never be forgotten, give Without Limits a look-see and let me know what you think.

Unsurprisingly, given how infrequently I’ve posted here lately, there was very little response to the question of which movie should be next in line. I’ll add the poll again here, just in case this gets a few more clicks.

The Next Sports Movie Topic

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Offseason Sports Movies

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What do we do between the end of the World Series and the date pitchers and catchers report for Major League Baseball’s spring training in February?

Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby was famously quoted as saying, “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

That sounds pretty close to what I do, too, but certainly we must be able to do a little better than that.

I don’t like to look out the window. It looks too cold. Instead, I give my television a heck of a workout.

I’m not an outdoor sports person and never have been. I play the occasional poker tournament. I’ve gone to two Cedar Rapids Roughriders hockey games this season (which is two more than I’ve been to over the past 3-4 years combined). But I’m just not big on being cold.

I know I could be writing. After all, my posts here at Knuckleballs have become so infrequent that I’m not even sure anyone who used to come around here to read my wit and wisdom will even bother to read this. But I do enjoy writing, it’s just that I find very little of interest to write about during the offseason – at least until the Twins’ front office decides to do something to assure that 2019 is not a repeat of 2018.

So, it’s binging on Netflix or Hulu… or I start working my way through the couple hundred or so DVD/Blu-Ray movies I’ve got laying around.

It occurred to me, while I was watching the Vikings lay an egg in Chicago Sunday night, that I could combine sports, writing and movie watching by starting a series of posts concerning the sports movies in my collection.

I did a quick inventory and found that I have over 30 movies with at least some manner of sports theme. Some of them pretty much everyone is familiar with (Bull Durham, Sandlot, for example), some are more obscure.

Some of them, admittedly, you really have to stretch the definition of “sports movie” to include it. I’m going a bit broadly, I know. It’s not like I included EVERY movie in which anyone competed at anything, though. After all, I didn’t let a few Quidditch matches influence me into including Harry Potter movies, did I? No, I didn’t (though the thought obviously crossed my mind).

So, here’s what I’m going to do: I’ll watch one of these movies every few days or so and then write something about it. I’m not sure it will really be a review. After all, if I didn’t like all of these movies, I probably wouldn’t have bought them or at least would have gotten rid of it by now.

But I’ll give the premise, why I like it, maybe a bit about the actors. Let’s just give it a whirl and see how this goes.

Here’s the list of sports movies I found sitting around.

Friday Night Lights
Remember the Titans
Semi-Tough
The Replacements
We Are Marshall
Leatherheads
Radio
The Express
Bull Durham
Eight Men Out
The Sandlot
Moneyball
42
61* 
Major League
The Rookie
Trouble With the Curve
Finding Forrester
Glory Road
Coach Carter
The Legend of Bagger Vance
Tin Cup
Caddyshack
The Greatest Game Ever Played
Miracle
Rocky Balboa
Creed
Secretariat
Seabiscuit
Without Limits
Molly’s Game
Meatballs

Yeah, that last one is a real stretch, I know. But the grand finale is a camp-Olympics with Bill Murray running the show for his camp of misfits. That’s sports, right? Anyway, it’s my list so it’s there.

That’s 32 titles. By my count, nine are baseball-related and eight are football. Only three with hoops as a foundation and can you believe I don’t own Hoosiers? I’ve never been as big a fan of Hoosiers as most people. I really should find a couple more basketball movies to add to the collection, though, because having one more golf movie than basketball just doesn’t seem right. Maybe I’ll pick up White Men Can’t Jump sometime.

Two movies about horseracing. Again, not your traditional “sport,” but if you can bet on it, it must be a sport. That same philosophy would include poker, thus allowing me to include Molly’s Game on list and you can’t go wrong with adding an extra Aaron Sorkin-written film.

Hoosiers is clearly not the only title missing from among the generally accepted “best sports movies” lists that get bandied about frequently. You won’t find Rudy or The Natural. Both were fine, but never among my favorites. I’ve got two movies on the list from the Rocky lineage, but neither of them are the original Rocky. No Bad News Bears. And, while admitting this might get me kicked out of Iowa, I don’t own Field of Dreams.

There are a few that I really thought I did own, but it turns out I don’t. I really like Chariots of Fire and thought I had that one. Maybe it was on VHS. I’m pretty sure I had Slap Shot on VHS, as well. I really thought I had A League of Their Own around here somewhere, but maybe I just thought so because I can’t seem to NOT watch it whenever I come across it while channel surfing.

Some of those that are on my list are better than others. Honestly, a couple of them I barely remember watching once.

But I’m willing to watch any and all of them again, if you will. I guess I’m willing to even if you aren’t.

Rather than do the obvious and start off with one of the movies that everyone knows and has seen a dozen times, I’m going to take a look at the list and try to work through them in reverse order based roughly on level of obscurity.

To that end, I’m going to start with what I would guess is possibly the most obscure movie on the list.

In a couple of days, I’ll post something on the movie Without Limits, which chronicles the too-brief career of runner Steve Prefontaine. Of some interest, perhaps, is that Without Limits is actually one of two separate movies made about “Pre’s” life within about a year of one another in the late 1990s.

If you want to express a preference for where I go from there, here’s your chance. The following five movies are likely among the next tier of “most obscure” titles on the list.

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Happy Birthday, Moneyball (and Damn You!)

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Happy birthday, Moneyball!

Yes, as Yahoo’s Jeff Passan alerted us via Twitter over breakfast this morning, Michael Lewis’ seminal baseball book, Moneyball, was released 15 years ago today.

I have to admit, I was picturing the entire SABR community simultaneously Skyping and toasting Lewis and his book, each member raising a glass of their favorite obscure local craft beer. It made me chuckle.

Moneyball’s birthday seems like a good day to discuss the state of baseball, today, given that Passan argues that the book, “set into motion the most significant changes in baseball since Jackie Robinson integrated the game in 1947.”

Wow, right?

So, let’s talk about the changes (and potential changes) to the game of baseball that we can could credit (blame?) Moneyball for.

Before we do that, though, a few personal recollections of Moneyball, the book.

I read it not too long after it came out. I didn’t rush out to buy it the day it was released or anything, but I’m pretty sure I read it within a few months of its release.

I enjoyed it. It didn’t cause an immediate seismic shift in my feelings concerning conventional baseball strategy, but I thought the points that A’s General Manager Billy Beane made were worth considering.

Sometime later, I remember reading that the film rights to the book had been purchased and I tried to imagine how anyone would be able to make a commercial movie out of a book about the application of statistical analysis to baseball. Yes, bringing Brad Pitt on to star as Beane would get a few fannies in the seats, but still.

It turned out my skepticism was well founded as Hollywood had some trouble coming up with a usable script. Then Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing,” “SportsNight,” “A Few Good Men,” et al) was reported to be taking on the task of doing re-writing the teleplay. At that point, I knew I would have to see the movie, not because I’m much of a Pitt fan, but because I’m a huge Sorkin fan.

Sorkin managed to fictionalize the underlying story enough to make it be entertaining without losing the underlying point of the book, in my opinion, but I know some feel otherwise. Regardless, by the time the movie came out to critical acclaim in 2011, most MLB teams were already subscribing to most of Beane’s philosophies, anyway.

Anyway, let’s get back to talking about changes to baseball that may be directly or indirectly traced to Moneyball and also a bit about what some see as inevitable future changes that we might as well blame Moneyball for, as well, while we’re at it.

Passan traces the current focus on “three true outcomes” to Moneyball, as well as defensive shifts, current bullpen usage and the significant spike in pitching velocity.

I’ll let you decide for yourselves whether Lewis’ book about Beane’s Oakland A’s is responsible for those and other changes. In truth the Moneyball reference is just something I’m using as a hook to get your attention (how’s that for honesty?). I just want to talk about the changes themselves, whether they’re good or bad for the game and what, if anything, should be done about them.

I also want to bring in topics that Jayson Stark brought up in his piece at The Athletic last week, specifically, expansion and resulting realignment.

Look, I’m kind of old school. I’m one of those “fat old white men” that are responsible for everything wrong with baseball (and the country in general, I suppose) according to… well… seemingly everyone  who ISN’T a fat old white man.

I’d have probably been perfectly happy if Major League Baseball still had the ten teams in each league that existed during my childhood in the 1960s. But I was fine with putting a team in Kansas City and thought their stadium was really cool the first time my family went to a game there. I still think so.

I was OK with the designated hitter rule. Maybe that was because it meant I got to see one of my boyhood heroes, Tony Oliva, extend his career a bit longer than his knees would have allowed had the Twins been required to find a defensive spot for him.

Divisional play and pre-World Series postseason games? Sure, no problem. After all, my Twins won the first couple of AL West titles in seasons that they would have otherwise had virtually no chance to prevent Baltimore from winning the pennant without a playoff system. Of course, they couldn’t prevent that outcome, anyway, as it turned out, but the Twins won SOMETHING anyway in 1969 and 1970,

I’d have probably appreciated that even more had I known it would be another 17 years before they’d do it again.

All of this is by way of pointing out that I have not been universally opposed to changes to the MLB game.

In fact, changes for the sake of making the game more competitive and to improve/broaden fan interest (aka “make more money”) is about as woven into the fabric of the game as any of the rules governing the game, so let’s just stop using “tradition” as an excuse for rejecting any and all suggestions concerning potential changes.

MLB has tried best-of-9 World Series. They’ve tried having two All-Star Games. Some changes worked better than others. Some changes took far too long to make (desegregation, for example).

So, let’s go down the list of changes Passan and Stark have written about and this one fat old white man will tell you what I think of each.

Defensive shifts: I’m pro shift. If you’ve got data, it would be stupid not to use it to prevent runs. I’m against adopting a rule requiring two infielders on each side of second base, but if baseball decides that’s what’s needed to bring more offense back into the game, I wouldn’t whine too loud about it.

I’d like to think, though, that hitters could and would make adjustments to beat the shifts, causing teams to shift less and, thus, correcting the trend over time.

That said, I’ve had people inside baseball that I respect tell me that making such an adjustment isn’t quite that simple. Maybe Wee Willie Keeler could, “keep my eyes clear and hit ‘em where they ain’t,” but it’s unlikely Keeler saw too many 95-100 mph fastballs in the 1890s.

I think if most fans had to step into the batters box to face a 95+ mph fastball, they’d wet themselves.

Hell, I wouldn’t want to try to CATCH a ball thrown at me that fast. Which is why I don’t often criticize a catcher who occasionally doesn’t get in position to block one of those throws that a pitcher doesn’t deliver on a straight line to the catcher’s mitt.

Pitching: Just a few years ago, I was talking to a couple of Twins pitching prospects who had spent time with the Cedar Rapids Kernels and I mentioned something about the scoreboard pitch speed indicator not working. One of them chuckled a little at the reference to what he somewhat derisively termed the “talent meter.”

That conversation took place at a time when pitch “velo” was starting to generate a lot of discussion.

Now, as Passan cites, the average fastball velocity in the big leagues has risen from 88.9 mph in 2003, when Moneyball was released, to 92.2 mph today.

If the young pitching coming through Cedar Rapids is any indication, that trend is not going to be reversing any time soon. It seems very rare to see any pitcher – starter or bullpen arm – who isn’t hitting at least 92 mph on that “talent meter.”

I was a pitcher (well, as long as my high school coach isn’t likely to read this, I’m going to continue claiming that, anyway), so I’ve tended to side with pitchers in just about any pitcher vs. hitter debate. But we are soon going to be watching games where the average fastball is going to be nearing 95 mph.

You can’t tell me that pitch velocity alone isn’t largely responsible for less hitting and, thus, the proliferation of the three true outcomes – a strikeout, a walk or a home run (if you DO get your bat on one of those things squarely, it’s likely to travel some distance).

That gets us to…

Pace of Play: The “three true outcomes” thing is what’s slowing the game down. Not much you can say will change my opinion of that. Two of those three outcomes take a long time to accomplish and can get pretty tedious. That is not good for baseball.

Changing the rules to require just three balls for a walk and two strikes for a strikeout would speed things up, but would just get to those two potential boring outcomes faster. Likewise, changing the rules to make the strike zone bigger or smaller would also just get to one of those outcomes sooner. No thanks.

No, the increase in velocity has shifted the advantage to the pitcher too far. We need something to bring more doubles and triples into the game.

Here’s what I think: Let’s move the rubber back a foot. Maybe it would only take six inches. I dunno. Someone smarter than me could figure out the right distance. But give the hitters just a little more time for their brains to send the communication to their bodies concerning whether or not to swing.

Right now, hitters are just guessing. I was taught by my coach-father to read the spin on the ball, identify the pitch, then make the decision concerning whether to swing or not.

There is no way a human can take the time to do that on a 95 mph fastball. They have no choice but to guess.

But 60 ‘ 6” is what the distance has always been! We can’t change that!

Of course we can. Baseball lowered the mound in the 60s. Why? Because the then-current-height gave pitchers too much of an advantage and hardly anyone was able to hit .300. Sound familiar?

Personally, I think it’s the one rule change that could get more action back into the game while minimizing all other aspects of the game. Just do it, already.

Umpiring: Implement the technology to call balls and strikes electronically. I’ve had it with strike zones that change from umpire to umpire, from pitcher to pitcher and even based on count. (Take a look at the differences between what’s called a strike on 0-2 counts vs. 3-0 counts. It’s absurd and there is NO justifiable reason for it.)

We’ve given the umpires and their union long enough to get it right. Maybe it comes back to the velocity thing, again. It’s tough to accurately judge where today’s fastballs are crossing the plate. Fine, but that’s an argument for using technology, not for defending an outmoded system.

When the game was invented, the best technology available to determine a strike from a ball might have been to put a guy behind the catcher to make that call. That is no longer the case. Make every pitcher and every hitter use the same strike zone.

Expansion and realignment: It’s hard to believe that, in less than two decades, we’ve gone from Bud Selig pushing contraction to Rob Manfred strongly considering expansion.

I’m not really convinced there are two more communities in North America that would successfully support a MLB franchise. I’ve looked at Stark’s list of potential cities and I’m not optimistic about any of them. They are:

Portland
Charlotte
Nashville
Montreal
San Antonio/Austin
Las Vegas
Mexico City

Frankly, I find more reasons why teams might NOT succeed in each of those locations than why they would, but if baseball becomes convinced, I would say, “go for it.”

32 teams are better than 30. It just is. The scheduling issue alone makes this true.

I kind of liked intrer-league scheduling when it was first introduced. Now, not so much. There’s just no way to make scheduling a handful of inter-league games fair for everyone. It screws up competitive balance and that’s not a good thing.

Stark writes that eventually we’ll see an alignment based on geography. Well, maybe most of us fat old white men will be dead by then, but our kids will see it.

I’m good with that. Adopt the designated hitter across the board and give us eight four-team divisions (four divisions in each league).

Stark throws out a couple of possible scenarios for realignment. There are problems with both, but they’re starting points.

One has the Twins with the Cubs, White Sox and Brewers. The other, which tries to largely keep the current AL and NL intact, lumps Minnesota with the Tigers, White Sox and Indians. Not ideal, perhaps, but I understand they can’t build a system with, “what is best for Twins fans?” as it’s starting point, so I wouldn’t get bent out of shape with either alignment.

In the end, here’s where I come down:

I would love for some of my grandkids and their kids to love baseball as much as I do. Whatever it takes to make that happen, I’ll try to be open to.

If some of the changes are hard to swallow, I’ll simply do what I always do – blame someone else.

Damn you, Moneyball. (See how easy that is?)

Reviewing “42” and Honoring Jackie Robinson

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Margaret Mead is credited with saying, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Those who gave us the film 42 have provided a reminder of that truism, as they told the story of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey and how, together, they put an end to the “unwritten rule” that kept African-American ballplayers from playing Major League Baseball before 1947.

Let’s get this much out of the way right up front: It’s a very good movie. It was well written. It was well acted. The computer generated images of all of the old ballparks portrayed in the film were pretty amazing, really. The baseball scenes themselves were good, if perhaps not great.

(L-r) HARRISON FORD as Branch Rickey and CHADWICK BOSEMAN as Jackie Robinson in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ drama “42,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
HARRISON FORD as Branch Rickey and CHADWICK BOSEMAN as Jackie Robinson in “42”

The movie starts out with one of those, “This motion picture is based on a true story,” statements. You know what I’m talking about, right? It’s essentially a disclaimer that film makers use at the outset of movies that are about real people or real events, but it really means, “This movie is based on a true story, but not everything said or everything portrayed actually happened. You see, to get a lot of people to spend their money to see this movie, we’ve had to dramatize some things to make the real story more exciting. We hope you understand and maybe even end up believing the scenes in this movie were exactly what really happened.”

As soon as I see the “based on a true story” disclaimer, I resign myself to what’s to come… overly dramatic fictionalized scenes that might have possibly happened, but probably didn’t, to the real people being portrayed.

But in the case of 42 I couldn’t help but come away with a very different sense.

Rather than adding drama to Jackie Robinson’s story, I think the film makers actually sanitized it more than a bit.

Sure, there are scenes depicting Robinson having to deal with Jim Crow laws… being unable to eat, sleep and even go to the toilet in places reserved for “Whites Only.” There are scenes making it clear many of his Dodger team mates didn’t want him on the team to start the 1947 season. There are scenes depicting the kind of racial verbal abuse he had to take from opponents. The movie shows Robinson getting hit by a pitch… once (it happened nine times in his rookie year). There are allusions made to death threats.

But I don’t for a moment believe that the scenes depicting the abuse Robinson and his family received even scratched the surface of what they actually were forced to endure. Maybe the film makers couldn’t go in to all of that in-depth and do so within the limits of a two-hour movie. Then again, had they told the whole story, I’m not sure audiences could have stomached it.

The purpose of the movie was to inspire us… to remind us of what a truly unique and special man Robinson was. Robinson (and Rickey, too, for that matter) certainly warranted us being reminded of the courage it took to break baseball’s color barrier and the role that doing so arguably played in furthering the cause of civil rights in this country.

I haven’t read a single quote from a current professional ballplayer who has seen the movie that hasn’t been highly positive. Most include a reference to the movie reminding them of all that Robinson did to make it possible for today’s players to do what they love to do.

Those are the emotions the film makers wanted to induce in their audiences, no doubt.

The history of racism in our country is, to put it mildly, shameful. Few people alive today remember what it must have been like for Negro League ballplayers before MLB integrated or what it was like for Robinson and others who were on the leading edge of baseball’s integration. Not many today even remember how absurdly people of color were treated in this country in the 1960s… a couple of decades after Jackie first wore a Dodgers uniform.

Few of us remember what Jackie Robinson and those who followed him likely had to deal with. Many of those who do remember, especially those with complexions like mine, often don’t particularly want to be reminded.

So the makers of 42 had to walk a bit of a tightrope. Tell Robinson’s story in a manner that gives him his due… that reminds movie-goers of all ages how courageous he was and how much today’s generations owe to him… that tells the story of the prejudice that he and those that followed him had to overcome, but without dwelling too much in to the horrid details of the underpinnings of that prejudice. They needed to make African-Americans (and all of us, really) proud of Robinson, without making white America too uncomfortable with our own history. In all of this, I believe they succeeded.

So… if you haven’t seen 42 yet, do so. It’s a wonderful movie. Robinson’s story is inspiring and those who made this movie make sure you will leave the theater appropriately inspired. It’s the story of a small group of people, including Robinson and Rickey, who believed there were things being done wrong in this country and set out to try to do something about it.

The movie does a nice job of helping to explain why all of Major League Baseball honors Robinson by retiring his number 42, except for one game every April when every player on every team wears the number on his back.

That’s a nice, symbolic gesture. But we can do better.

Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey made sure they left this world a better place than it was when they entered it.  If we truly want to honor Jackie Robinson, we’ll all make sure that someday the same can be said of each of us.

– JC

Knuckleballs Read Too

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I’ve had this idea for a while, but I’ve been so busy settling into a new job (not so new now; I started it in mid-July) that it wasn’t quite ready when the off-season began, as I had planned.

But now the idea is ready for you. The idea? Off-season baseball book reading group. This whole past year or so has been a difficult one for me for various reasons, and I’ve become a bit disconnected from baseball. As I look forward to reconnecting in 2013 (including the first time I might just be able to attend spring training!), I thought it might be fun to start the process by reading a few baseball books this winter, and I’d love for you to join me.

I’ve set up a group over at Goodreads.com, with a thread set up where you can nominate books you’d like to read this off-season. I’ll put up a poll next weekend, we’ll have a week to vote, then a week for everyone to find a copy of the first book we choose. The plan will be to start reading our first book about December 1.

Questions or concerns? Please let me know here, at the Goodreads group, or by email (see “Contact Us” page).

Hope to see you at Goodreads!

Butterflies With Hiccups – Iowa Style

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I’m taking advantage of a bit of extra free time I have this afternoon to do another post of random news items (if you use a very generous definition of the word “news”), most of it with an Iowa connection today.

I played hooky this afternoon and watched the Twins and White Sox. True, I had to deal with the Comcast broadcast out of Chicago due to the MLB blackout rules and that means listening to Hawk Harrelson, but that’s what the mute button is for, right? I hear he left the broadcast booth in the 7th inning of the Twins 18-9 blowout of the Sox on Tuesday night and I have to admit I wish I had witnessed that.

As this MLB season winds down, I’m rooting for two things: First, as many of you know, I’m a bit of an Orioles fan, so I still have a team in contention. I still think the Birds are doing it with smoke and mirrors, but I really don’t care how they get the job done, I just want them to beat the Yankees over in the AL East and get in to the playoffs. (Admit it, you wouldn’t mind seeing JJ Hardy and Lew Ford in the playoffs, either.) Second, I’m hoping that the White Sox end up on the outside of the playoffs looking in AND that they finish just close enough that their losses to the Twins this year account for their failure to qualify.

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Miguel Sano

Speaking of playoffs, I’m driving over to Clinton IA this evening to catch game one of the best-of-three playoff series between the Twins’ Midwest League (Class A) affiliate Beloit Snappers and the Clinton LumberKings (Seattle’s affiliate). Clinton finished the MWL regular season on a 10-game winning streak (the last three of which came against my Cedar Rapids Kernels). I saw all three of the Clinton-CR games this past weekend and I think Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario and their Beloit teammates have their work cut out for them. Either way, at least I’ll get to check off another MWL ballpark with my visit to Beloit tonight.

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There’s nothing really new on the Twins’ affiliation front for 2013. Now that the minor league regular season is over, teams that are interested in exploring new affiliation options (both MLB teams and minor league teams) can notify the MLB Commissioner’s Office or the president of minor league baseball of such. The teams are not allowed to state publicly that they’ve submitted that notification, however.

The powers-that-be will provide a list of potential affiliates to those teams by September 15. Then, and only then, are the various MLB and MiLB clubs able to start negotiating possible new partnerships with one another.

There was a new article posted online at the website of one of the local CR TV stations (KCRG) this week, but it really didn’t tell us much we didn’t already know. KCRG is owned by the same company (SourceMedia) as the Cedar Rapids Gazette and the report was written by the Gazette writer, Jeff Johnson, that covers the Kernels beat. Johnson has written about the affiliation issue a couple of times already this season and I think he has a pretty solid sense of what’s about to happen.

I’m optimistic, at this point, that I’ll be watching future Twins play baseball at Perfect Game Field here in Cedar Rapids for the next few summers, but the Kernels Directors (essentially, the team’s “owners”) still have a few questions they should be asking the Twins (such as, “Are you planning on buying a MWL team and moving it to St. Paul in a couple of years?”) before anyone is going to sign a deal. As soon as I hear more, I’ll post something, but I don’t expect to hear a lot before the end of September.

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Since this is an Iowa-centered post on a baseball-centered blog, I thought I would mention this little piece of news, as well.

How many of you have seen the movie “Field of Dreams”? Everyone? I thought so.

How many of you have visited the site near Dyersville, in Eastern Iowa, where the movie was filmed? Did you even know the site has been a mini-tourist attraction, complete with cornfield-bordered baseball field, pretty much ever since the movie was released? No? Well now there’s going to be even more of a reason for you to visit, especially if you have kids who play baseball or softball.

Go the Distance Baseball LLC plans to build a $38 million youth baseball/softball complex at the Field of Dreams site. The complex will include 24 ballfields of varying sizes (over and above the original field, which apparently won’t be altered).  The company received approval of a $16.5 million sales tax rebate from the Iowa Legislature & Governor last spring and now have a $5.1 million property tax rebate from the Dyersville City Council, as well.

New Field of Dreams complex (from their Facebook page)

Here’s the artist’s rendering of the site:

Sounds like Ray Kinsella is hearing more voices, doesn’t it? He and his tractor are going to be kept awfully busy plowing under all those other fields. Almost makes me want to get back in to coaching youth baseball. Almost.

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This is rivalry week down here in Iowa. It’s the week of the annual Iowa – Iowa State football game, which I know is of very little interest to much of anyone outside our state’s borders. But it’s a big deal here. It’s in Iowa City this year, which means that’s where I’ll be spending most of my Saturday.

I’m a Hawkeye season ticket holder, but I’m not “anti-ISU” like a lot of people are. I went to high school over in central Iowa, about 40 miles from Iowa State’s campus in Ames. My parents were even ISU season ticket holders for a few years (back in the days when Johnny Majors coached the Cyclones), so I saw a game or two back then. I enjoy taking jabs at my ISU-fan friends and co-workers, but I really don’t mind them having some success on the football field from time to time.

But not this Saturday.

The trophy case in the Iowa football complex that is built to hold the various traveling trophies that the Hawkeyes play for is empty at the moment, with all three of them currently in the possession of various rivals. It’s time the Cy-Hawk Trophy resumes its rightful place in Iowa City.

It may feel a bit lonely for a while, but come September 29, after the Gophers have been sent packing, Floyd of Rosedale will be there to keep it company.

– JC

Butterflies With Hiccups

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“Like butterflies with hiccups” is our tagline at Knuckleballs and today it’s a pretty appropriate heading for the following post.

I seem to find myself in a “very little to say about several unrelated things” situation a lot lately. Maybe I’ll make this a quasi-regular thing here. Or maybe this will be a one-time thing. Anyway, there are a few things I’ve read here and there that I feel inclined to comment about. Most are baseball related, but not all.

The Twins

Will Nick Blackburn be at Twins Spring Training in 2013?

On Monday, the Twins outrighted both Nick Blackburn and Tsuyoshi Nishioka, meaning they both cleared waivers and were removed from the Twins’ 40-man roster. Arguably, they were among the last remaining “scholarship” players on the Twins roster and clearly Terry Ryan finally had seen enough of both of them. I certainly won’t be surprised to see both players invited to Spring Training next year and given opportunities to regain spots with the Twins. Then again, I won’t be surprised NOT to see them in Ft. Myers, either.

With 42 games remaining on their schedule, through Monday night, the Twins are 51-70. That means, in order to improve on their 99-loss record of a year ago, they need to go 13-28 from here on out. A bit more than half of their remaining games are against teams that currently still have some playoff hopes, so winning 1/3 of their remaining games may not be as easy at you’d think it should be. Factor in that the final month’s games will pretty much all include line ups with at least one “September call-up” and the task of avoiding 100 losses gets’ trickier yet.

Still, I’m looking forward to seeing some of the Rochester and New Britain players show us what they can do in a Twins uniform. It will at least give me some reason to pay attention to the games, which I admittedly have struggled to muster much interest in doing lately.

The Playoffs

Way before MLB announced its new playoff structure, with 2 wild cards playing a single “play in” game in each league, I was on record here of liking that format. I’ve certainly seen nothing so far this year to change my opinion. I understand that some people (in particular, managers and players) aren’t as enthusiastic about it as I am. But even in expressing their dislike for it, they actually make the exact case FOR the new format. In one of Jayson Stark’s recent pieces over at ESPN.com, he related the following quotes from the Braves’ Chipper Jones:

“I’m not a big advocate of playing 162 games for a one-game playoff,” Jones told Rumblings. “You could easily see two teams in the same division have the two best records in the league, and one of them has the luxury of waiting a couple of days to play a best-three-out-of-five [series], while the other one has that one-game playoff. And I don’t see that as fair.

“It’s basically a Game 7, right off the gut,” Jones went on. “It’s win or go home — and three other teams [in that league] get to sit back and watch it. So that’s why, at least for the guys in this clubhouse, we’re putting the utmost emphasis on every game from here on out. For us, these are must-win games the rest of the way, because we don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket, for that one game.”

Exactly, Chipper!

Winning your division SHOULD mean something. It should give you an advantage over a team that just happens to make the playoffs as a wild card for no other reason than that there happens to be an odd number of divisions in each league.

We’re already seeing writers speculate “what if” scenarios where managers may have to decide whether to use a Justin Verlander or Jared Weaver in the wild card game. Unlike many recent years, we won’t be seeing every playoff manager spend the final two weeks more concerned about setting his rotation than winning baseball games.

I have read that the new format meant there weren’t enough “sellers” at the non-waiver trade deadline for all of the potential playoff teams to pick from to help fortify their rosters. Gosh, I guess more teams will just have to try to win primarily with the players that they had on their rosters during the first four months of the season. Such a shame. #sarcasm

Keith Law on Miguel Sano

ESPN’s Keith Law got the attention of many of us who pay close attention to the Twins’ farm system last week when he Tweeted that he would be in Beloit over the weekend to watch the Twins’ prospects there. We were all anxious to find out what he had to say about Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario, et al.

Law’s Monday post requires ESPN Insider membership to read, so we certainly will respect ESPN’s copyright to the material and not paste all of what he had to say here. In a nutshell, however, Law was impressed with Sano’s offensive talent and potential, but called Sano out for what he termed his “obvious disdain” for playing defense. He went on to compare Sano’s enthusiasm for defense to that of his own daughter’s enthusiasm for cleaning her room. Ouch.

Miguel Sano

Then again, Law admittedly only watched one game on the Friday night of that weekend.

I have nothing against Keith Law and he may be a pretty good judge of baseball talent. That said, I believe if you’re going to call in to question a young player’s work ethic (which he certainly did in this case), you should provide a little more information concerning the basis for doing so. Was it body language? Did he lollygag around the infield? Did Law speak to coaches, team mates, scouts or front office types?

I’ve seen Sano play 6-7 times this year and will see him some more this weekend. His defensive skills are not good at 3B. This is not news. But if there’s cause to question his work ethic and his interest in improving those skills, that IS news… and I’d be interested in knowing the basis for that conclusion (giving Law benefit of the doubt enough to assume it’s not based on seeing Sano play one game).

Joe Poz on JoePa

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m a big Joe Posnanski fan. I may have also mentioned at some point that I’ve never been a huge Joe Paterno fan (even before the Sandusky s**t hit the fan).

If you also happen to follow Poz, you are probably aware that at the time of Paterno’s abrupt dismissal as Penn State’s football coach last November, Posnanski had pretty much moved his family to Happy Valley and was spending the better part of a year shadowing Paterno, his family and the Penn State football program as he researched an authorized biography he was writing on JoePa. Talk about finding yourself in the eye of a hurricane!

In the days and weeks that followed Paterno’s dismissal and, ultimately, his death, Posnanski kept almost completely mum on the subject of the coach. Frankly, I wasn’t even sure if the plans for the book were even going forward. However, now we know.

The book, cleverly entitled Paterno, hits bookstores today (August 21) and excerpts have been in GQ (and on GQ.com) in the days ahead of the book’s release.

I can’t help but feel Posnanski’s in a no-win situation in terms of the public’s response. Based on the excerpts I read, I’m pretty sure that Paterno’s family and defenders will object to much of what’s written and will probably feel betrayed for having allowed Posnanski inside their “circle.” I’m even more convinced that the anti-Paterno crowd will accuse Posnanski of going too soft on Paterno.

That’s enough for today. Maybe I’ll post some sort of “review” after I’ve read Paterno. Almost certainly, I’ll be posting something (a bunch of pictures, if nothing else) during or after the Snappers four-game series with my home town Cedar Rapids Kernels this weekend (the series runs Saturday through Tuesday). Until then, someone let me know if the Twins do anything noteworthy, ok?

– JC