Twinkies again

In 1982, the Minnesota Twins had a line-up largely comprised of talented AAA players who were put into the Major Leagues in sort of a trial-by-fire.  They showed a lot of pop in their bats and other forms of promise, but still lost 102 games. One of the young players was Tom Brunansky, who hit 20 home runs and struck out 102 times, while batting .272.

Pretty respectable with a lot of upside.

This year's version of a AAA team in Minneapolis is going to finish with fewer than 100 losses, and similarly show some promise and pop in their bats.  "Bruno" is their hitting coach, which would seem to be the right kind of guy to bring these guys to a true Major League level (as Bert Blyleven might say, several times each evening).

The two troubling differences this year are:

1) Many of this year's "AAA" players are not 21-22 years old like the '82 squad
2) This years squad has struck out 1369 times through 157 games, compared with 887 for the whole 1982 season

That's a concerning number, and while it's too soon to tell, it concerns me that perhaps Bruno isn't the guy for the job.  They aren't just striking out a lot; they are doing it ugly. Cookies taken for called strike three. Ugly attempts at check swings on pitches two feet from the strike zone. Swinging horribly late on fastballs.

And worst of all, missing perfectly grooved fastballs by more than an inch or two.

That's about 8.5 strikeouts per game.  That means the average starting pitcher they face would be on pace to strikeout well over 200 batters in a season just by facing the Twins.  Average. And unlike the 1982 Twins, there's not one 20 home run hitter in the bunch this year.

Bruno probably deserves a second year, but I can't help but think they aren't learning much from him.

The joke in '82 was that the Twins set an all-time home attendance record for a AAA club.  This year's club has shattered that mark as well, but no one is laughing.

Fortified Candy Bars redux

I mentioned my favorite protein bar in a post earlier this year.  I take them traveling, so I packed some for my trip to the USSSA Worlds in Orlando, FL last weekend.  Never mind how we did, I'm here to write about the protein bars.

When I ran out of the bars I brought, I picked up some more at the Publix in Kissimmee.  Or maybe it was the Walmart.  No, I think it was Publix.

Anyway, I noticed it seemed to have a much darker color than I was used to, and was dryer and tougher to chew. I'm guessing it was closer to the expiration date than what I had been used to.

When I came back, I remembered a similar experience when I bought some of those bars on clearance at the local GNC a couple weeks ago.  Lo and behold, I found the wrapper to one of those.  The photos below show the wrapper of the "clearance" bar, and the freshly-opened bar I just purchased at the local Walmart earlier this week.

The difference in freshness was obvious.  I wish I could show you how the older bar looked. (Well, "wish" is putting it a bit strong; "would like to but can't" is more accurate.) Their expiration dates, excuse me, "sell by" dates, are a year apart.

I saw a teaser on CBS This Morning about sell-by, use-by, or make-banana-bread-by dates and what they really mean, if anything (teasing an old bit, apparently).  I didn't get the least bit ill from eating the old bar, but eating it was nowhere near as enjoyable as the fresh one I bought this week.

Generally speaking,  that is what companies will tell you the dates are meant for.  You don't have to pour out that expired-yesterday milk (sniff it first), nor the bread (check for mold, though), or toss out that MetRx bar.  Just don't blame the company if it isn't as good as you expected.

Uncle Rico has nothing on me

"Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind."
-Uncle Rico, in Napoleon Dynamite


If you've seen the movie, you get the to recognize the reference to Uncle Rico filming himself throwing football passes against an imaginary defense, then watching it later for his own entertainment, sure that he was destined for greatness were it not for the lack of ability in his high school coach to recognize the greatness.

Had Uncle Rico played slowpitch softball, he might be the kind of guy Jim Rome ranted about in his Softball Guy bit. Closer to Rome's Softball Guy was yours truly, at least to some degree, many years ago.  Perhaps today I am still about 10% of Softball Guy, as I still try to prove something to myself, that being that had I not skipped a grade, and had Little League moved the birthday cutoff from August 1 to May 1 much sooner than they did (my birthday is May 3), I might have at least had a chance to play varsity baseball and at some level in college.

I don't think I would have been Derek Jeter in the World Series, but I did work hard in my adult years to prove that I could become a decent player, even if only at the slowpitch level.  So even at 47, I take practice and workouts very seriously, trying to improve despite Father Time being against me.

Below is a video I took of myself hitting softballs off a tee, not to reflect on mythical "Glory Days," but to analyze, critique, and improve from.  This clip is from a shot that went about 350 feet, not wind-aided, and with regulation equipment.  I've hit a few in the same conditions up to 390 feet, which is nice, except timing a pitch, even a slow pitch, makes those types of shots less frequent.

This week, my team travels to Florida for the USSSA Class D Worlds Tournament, where no home runs are allowed.  So I'll have to work on keeping the ball down and placing it. But I still include trying to hit the ball as far as I can in my workout regimen, because just as with lifting weights or running competitively, if you want objective feedback, you ave to be able to measure it somehow. 

While I'd rather be playing at a level where home runs are allowed and not have to try so hard to keep the ball in the park, at my age, just playing with younger guys who did get to play varsity, even some college, and having them actually want me as part of the time, is rewarding enough. It's also a great tune-up for the competitive senior "circuit," which is just a few seasons away.

Why, when I lose my car keys, I blame pro wrestling

I happened to flip the TV to some pro wrestling the other day, and watched about 5 minutes of it out of curiosity.  For a guy who once was obsessed with Verne Gagne's All-Star Wrestling as a kid,  I wonder why I just can't be bothered by it anymore.

I'd rather Google and YouTube old stories and clips of old-school wrestling. The other night, I found myself reading up on some of the more tragic tales of wrestling, such as the alarming amount of wrestlers who die young, and some individual stories, like Buck Zum Hofe and his problems.

Then there was the story of Verne himself, about how he killed a fellow nursing home resident, without knowing what he had done because of his dementia. A little more Googling and I found stories of old-time wrestlers suffering from Alzheimer's-like conditions.  I can't help but think that's a trend that won't go away.

The old-school wrestlers didn't take nearly as many bumps as those today, and the chair-shots of yesteryear were pulled quite a bit by the givers - not the case at all today.  But the old-schoolers wrestled on more nights, and many had longer-lasting careers.

It got me to worry a little.  I took some bumps in my day.  Having wrestled for about 1 1/2 years, plus all of the training, it's probably over a thousand.  My trainer, in my opinion, made us take too many bumps at workout.  I learned to take a good back bump; it bothered me that he'd make us go through a bunch in each session.  I was quite good at not hitting my head on the mat from a back bump, yet I left many a workout with a headache.

I've also suffered two non-diagnosed concussions in my youth.  How do I know they were concussions if they were non-diagnosed? Well, one of them because I nearly lost consciousness, and the other because I actually did.  I also took a nap right after the latter, not knowing then that this is the last thing you want to do after getting knocked out. A quick Google search confirms that these qualify as concussions, despite the nasty argument my ex-wife once drew me into because I had the audacity to claim that I knew these were concussions despite not having seen a doctor in either case.

But I digress. The point of all this is that someday I may indeed suffer from dementia or Alzheimer's-like symptoms, or Alzheimer's itself.  My 95-year-old grandmother doesn't recognize me, and my 99-year-old grandfather's mind was clearly deteriorating over his last few years.

Whether that process will happen to me, and whether it will happen at a younger age because of the concussions and head-bumps, I do not know.  I guess I'm hoping it's like smoking, where a couple of years of smoking over the course of a lifetime probably isn't going to kill you young.

But every now and then, when I have a "senior moment" at my age of 47, the thought does occur.