Twins Porn 4/13/13

In last week’s Twins Porn, I talked about my love for noon baseball games in the middle of the week, Jon Hamm’s baseball career, and a player who had a higher AVG than OBP over the course of a season. Today we’ll look at the greatness of George Brett’s brother and the minor league career of Die Hard’s Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson.

I suppose there are a few Twins items of note I could write up today: they won a couple of series to begin the season before being swept in another, injured pieces of the starting rotation, Aaron Hicks getting off to a putrid start to his MLB career. But all I can see outside right now is snow.

Although there was talk Friday that the Twins might postpone their game against the Mets Friday night until later in the season, there still has yet to be a game cancelled by snow at Target Field. There were four games at Met Stadium that were cancelled and, oddly enough, one Twins game at the Dome was cancelled due to snow.

We all remember when the Dome collapsed a little over two years ago, but that was in the middle of the winter. MLB baseball isn’t played in December. Well, at least not until the owners get a few more rounds of playoffs inserted into the schedule.

On April 14, 1983, heavy snows caused the roof of the Metrodome to tear and deflate, but that night’s game against the Angels had already been cancelled because the visitors weren’t able to fly in due to the storm. The latest in the season that a Twins home game has been cancelled due to snow? May 2, 1976.

Paul Gleason Played Baseball

Best known for his role as Assistant Principal Richard ‘Dick’ Vernon in the seminal teen movie The Breakfast Club, Paul Gleason was a star athlete before embarking on an acting career. He went to Florida State on a football scholarship, where he played on the same teams as Burt Reynolds and Robert Urich.

After leaving school, Gleason played parts of  two low minor league seasons in the Cleveland and Washington systems, before wrapping up his career with two games for the unaffiliated Rutherford County Owls in 1960. He hit a combined .079 in 39 plate appearances.

Friend and fellow college football player Jack Kerouac helped convince Gleason to pursue a career in acting, but his first big role didn’t come until 1976 when he played Dr. David Thornton on All My Children. Some dude named Matt posted on a soap opera message board in 2006 that Dr. Thornton was the ex-husband of Edna Thornton and the father of Dottie Thornton, the future first wife of Tad Martin. That’s great, Matt. Gleason is the bearded lothario at the top of this post who fantasizes all the time.

Ken Brett Was the Best Hitting Pitcher 

One of George Brett’s three brothers to play professional baseball, Ken Brett was drafted as the fourth overall player as a pitcher by the Red Sox, although most other teams projected him as an outfielder. He’s the youngest player to play in the World Series, pitching in two games as an eighteen year old against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1967.

Brett developed arm problems at a very young age, and was mostly a journeyman pitcher, suiting up for 10 clubs in 14 seasons in the majors, although he did make the All-Star team in 1974.

That year, Brett hit .310 in 43 games for the Pirates–16 of them as a pinch hitter–which was higher than all but two of the starting fielders on a team that won the division title. He once hit a home run in four consecutive pitching starts, and had a career .720 OPS with 10 HR as a pitcher. And here’s the kicker: Brett twice hit for himself in games he started as a pitcher, even after the DH rule was instituted.

Brett was signed by the Twins as a free agent on the last day of April, 1979 and released on June 4. He didn’t have a plate appearance during his brief time in Minnesota.

This Week’s Number: 19

That’s the number of RBI John Buck has so far this month after last night’s grand slam against the Twins. With April not yet half over, his previous high for RBI in a month was 17.

This Week’s Fact: This snow is ridiculous.

Paul Gleason isn’t the only actor mentioned in this post. Here’s Ken Brett on Fantasy Island in 1977 (in two parts):

It’s supposed to snow again tomorrow, so let’s hope we can get through this series, let alone come out of it with a win or two.

If you liked reading this, tweet it: traffic helps pay my bills. You can follow me here, and like us on Facebook here.