Friday Links

Friday Linkers! I apologize for keeping the links from you for so long.  The Twins have been bad.  And not just bad, but downright awful.  They’re now the worst team, not only in the American League Central, but in the entire American League.  Only Houston, who is on pace to lose 4,924 games this year, is worse than the Twins in all of Major League Baseball.  But the night is darkest before dawn, Twins fans, so let this edition of the Friday Links be your guiding light.

(I’ve been away from the links for a while, so this edition is a little light, bear with me.)

The people over at Stadium Journey have visited and reviewed almost every stadium that houses the Minnesota Twins and their affiliates.  Their recent review of New Britain Stadium does a pretty good job of showcasing some of the fun that surrounds Minor League Baseball.

Michael Rand at the Star Tribune investigates the causes of Twins failure in 2011.  Chief among the reasons for failure?  The Curse of the Spruce Trees.  Read along for more penetrating analysis for the abysmal 2011 season.

Remember how I have an undergraduate degree in English and I love Shakespeare?  Here is another great article from Eno Sarris at FanGraphs, this one is about Nike Bats in College Baseball, Much Ado About Nothing?

Not everyone is as hip as the Hippest Hipster, but then again, how can we be sure that the Hippest Hipster really is the hippest?  Travel back in time to 1880 with the Worcester Ruby Legs to the first ever perfect game and see, what very well could be, the birth of Hipsterism!

Over at Reviewing the Brew, Lou Olsen is doing a review of the Greatest Brewers Mustaches of All-Time.  They’ve only made it through 3 of the top 5 (here, here, and here), but it is hard to imagine that even the best mustache in Brewer history could ever match up to Jeff King’s magical mustache from 1981 (via Dayn Perry over at NotGraphs).

I think we can all relate to that time of year when we get excited about building a gingerbread house.  So much excitement.  And so many questions!  What to build?  How big to build it?  Do I want to build for historical accuracy? Or futuristic imagination?  What am I going to do?!  Well, thanks to another strong investigative performance from Dayn Perry, I think we all have an idea about what we will be building this year, like Sandy Koufax’s 1965 perfect game!

I normally wouldn’t steer you towards anything White Sox related, especially not anything that showcased something POSITIVE about those White Sox, but in this case I’m making an exception.  Check out the OLD and NEW Comiskeys, side by side thanks to Flip Flop Fly Ballin’.

The 2012 Twins schedule is out, and I’m really excited about the Cubs, Phillies and Brewers all coming to Target Field for back to back to back series.  I’ve already requested vacation from work.  The Twins Geek does an excellent job breaking down the rest of the 2012 calendar.

Aaron Gleeman, who also publishes a Friday Links column of his own, has added another Twin to his list of Top 40 Minnesota Twins.  Checking in at #16 is, a guy who is often vastly underrated, Corey Koskie.

After yesterday’s loss to the Kansas City Royals, a game in which the Twins scored an uncharacteristically high 3 runs (THREE RUNS!!!!!!), I was thinking that this team is really awful, especially because they so seldom score as many as three runs (THREE RUNS!!!!!).  Twnzfan over at Twinkie Town must have been thinking the same thing, and then he went a step further and did some digging, and found that the Twins have scored two or less runs 60 times in 2011.  The results in those games, as you might have guessed, have been dreadful, click through for the entire story.

Nick Nelson, over at Nick’s Twins Blog, revisits the Joe Mauer’s mysterious leg injury.  You may remember how strange it was when the team announced Mauer’s initial injury as “bilateral leg weakness”, and Nick does a great job shedding new light on the situation.

I’ve linked to this before, but in case you were curious about WHY the Twins aren’t scoring runs in bunches, check out this Sports Brief from The Onion News Network.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!