Puckett’s Pond’s Best of 2011

I hate to toot our own horn, but Puckett’s Pond wrote a lot of great content in 2011. I’m sure you religiously read and re-read every single word we published. But just in case you didn’t, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite posts from the year past. If you still haven’t picked a New Year’s resolution, maybe you should consider resolving to read our site every day. It’s good for your health! You can start with these gems of internet-sports-journalism.

Since April I have been writing for the Pond, and I took over as Editor back in September. Of all that I wrote in 2011, my personal favorite is this story about One Hit Wonders, where I compared Twins who were successful for one season to forgotten musicians. I’m also proud of my “Bill Smith on Trial” piece (despite all the rumors, my writing was not responsible for Smith being fired). Both of them are a little gimmicky, I admit. But I had fun writing them, so I hope some of you found them amusing as well.

Eric Pleiss is our Senior Staff Writer. That doesn’t mean he is old; it means that he is one of our most productive contributors. He’s also a budding poet – or at least I gathered that from this post he wrote back in April. After the season, Eric decided he was being too negative. So he turned it around and wrote this list of reasons to be excited about the Twins’ future. In fact, he got so positive he had to stretch the list into two parts.

Staff Writer Paul Pleiss (yes, he and Eric are related) wrote about how great Twitter was for following baseball news, and recommended a few great people to follow. That article had a pretty hopeful tone because it was written during that brief period in the summer when the Twins were actually winning. A couple months later things weren’t looking so rosy for the Twins. Paul was quite relieved at the end of the season, and he stayed positive by giving us a list of things to look forward to.

The newest Pond writer is Christian Engels. He brought us a pleasant look back at the five greatest moments of a departed Twin.

For the first half of the year, Wally Fish was the Lead Writer for Puckett’s Pond. Wally, who was also a contributor to Fansided’s Royals site, moved on to bigger and better things, and he now writes for Seedlings to Stars, our prospect/minor league site. Before he left, though, he provided us an encyclopedia’s worth of good reading:

• Remember the Scott Diamond trade? Wally was not amused. Given Diamond’s lackluster performance in 2011, he was probably onto something.
• After the season started, Wally gave us a detailed analysis of some of Francisco Liriano‘s more erratic stretches.
• Wally left us in August with a two part series on former Twins players who have moved on to other teams.

Some other Pond writers who left us:

• Josh Hill wrote about Jim Thome‘s 600th homer
• Adam Krueger wrote for the Pond until September. After the Twins KO’d Madison Bumgarner in San Francisco, he compared the effort to a boxing match. Sadly, Joe Frazier, who featured in the headline, passed away several months later.
• Back in March, Erin Moore mused on Michael Cuddyer‘s clubhouse personality, a subject that became even more poignant several months later, when Cuddyer left via free agency.
• Steve Fetch had covered the Twins since 2009 before he left in March. His last post for Puckett’s Pond predicted that Denard Span would improve in 2011. Span did improve – until concussion symptoms derailed his progress.

2011 was a bad year for the Twins, but it was a good year for Puckett’s Pond. I hope that 2012 will be a great year for both. Whatever happens, we’ll be sure to write about it on a daily basis, providing our readers with something entertaining and/or informative to read about the Twins.