Back. To the Future

Hey sports fans. Remember me? Well, I'm back and badder than ever. Badder than toddler grammar. I'm Color Me Badder.

Pooh has been admirably holding down the creative fort here lately, but with the arbitrary benchmark created by some long-forgotten Roman having recently passed, I figure it's time for a founding father to finally chime in during the long off-season.


I know that the potential gyro(ball) sandwich marketing opportunities in Boston have never been more rampant, and that Zito's overhand curve swooshes and swashbuckles with million-dollar ferocity, but the price tag on starting pitching this off-season has been shocking and the single biggest story of this winter of our discontent (halloffamefbidrugscandal what now?). They are Tiffany Crystal. And I'm sitting here trying to take back the Silva my sister got me for Chrismtas to Kohl's to get a refund on the sale price, while searching for parts on ebay for original discontinued Radke models. You know, the one with real tears?


While I can't help but think that the contract negotiation in San Fran involved an errant zero or two which no proofreader or lawyer caught, it causes great fear to the baseballing part of my brain. Here we sit, Twins fans, on the precipice of the most hope-ridden season in recent (or all) Twins history. With an impending outdoor (they can play baseball outside?) stadium, and an F-bomb repacking his warhead with enriched slideronium, the near future of the Republic of Twin is Rayban bright. Even while Terry Ryan (rightfully) does his best Rip (Van Winkle, not Torn or Hamilton) impersonation. And yet I sit here with a profound dread.

How much would Johan Santana be worth on the open market right now?

If this question, and others like it (with the names Morneau and Mauer subtly substituted) don't cause you fear, perhaps you're too busy fearing fear itself, or the reaper. Or maybe I underestimate the importance of luck and timing in major league sports. Maybe I have been buying hope options in great big piles, hoping to backdate them to 1991 prices (thanks for the tip Steve Jobs!). Or maybe I'm finally starting to realize what being a small-market team really feels like, after so many years of just thinking it meant you had to really, really suck. All the time.

(Ir)regardless, I feel....a great big....something...on the horizon. And it's almost here.