My Guideline For Joining Twitter

There is a serious problem in our society. We have many different time wasting websites that have been invented since 2005 (my freshman year in college). First, there was You Tube, a website that allows one to watch a ton of random videos. For example, my first You Tube video was the infamous Denny Green "THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!" moment. Then, there was Facebook. Remember that hot girl in high school that you never talked to but you just liked staring at her? Well, if she knew you at all you can add her and you can relive those days. Personally, I use these two websites a ton, so I'm just as guilty as all of you. However, there is one website I will NEVER use. That would be Twitter.

Twitter is like a bunch of facebook statuses. People like to go on this site and post something clever to make people laugh. Actually, Twitter has become a better news source than ESPN or your local newspaper. Did the Mayor rail his secretary? You heard about it 3 hours before it was on the local paper's website thanks to Twitter. This is a great tool in that aspect. Also, some people use it as business. Instead of writing a full blown e-mail asking a person to lunch, send them a tweet. Another great use for the website.

However, my problem with it is the use of celebrities and professional athletes. Nobody can say anything to anyone's face anymore. Shaq doesn't like Dwight Howard, but don't tell him on the court. We wouldn't want to start a fight in the NBA where everybody is friends. I don't think there's a hockey player on Twitter and if there were, I don't think we'd ever see Todd Bertuzzi jumping on there and saying, "Derek Boogaard is a worthless @#$%! I'm gonna break his neck tonight!"

There are also athletes who tweet at inopportune times, such as Pistons F Charlie Villanueva. Villanueva tweeted during halftime in his locker room during a game. It's no wonder he sucks. He's worrying about what he's going to tweet rather than trying to win a basketball game. Not to mention, his tweet looked something like "In da loker room. Coach sez to step up." Apparently, this is the art of "chat" which my 12 year old sister has informed me about. Hey, Charlie! Did you ever go to a class at UConn? I would suggest word processing 101.

And then there's Chad Ochocinco. Ochocinco tweets about 90 times a day. Even Twitter's most religious followers get sick and tired of Chad tweeting that he's going to slam an energy drink or that he's got a kick ass celebration should he make it into the end zone. (It was pretty awesome when Chad was scoring every week, now since he just sits there and cries all the time, it's getting old.) We don't care. It's like Miley Cyrus saying that she's getting a latte or Ryan Seacrest giving us the latest Jon and Kate news. WE DON'T CARE!!!

Now, there is one way that I will join this craze. There is one person that I want to see on Twitter. He is the man who is a legend in the state of Idaho for his bar fights. This is a man who has a mullet that his own mother couldn't even love. That would be the man who will be looking to break Aaron Rodgers neck this season: Jared Allen.

Why would I not care about Ochocinco but instead be interested in Jared Allen? Well, this man is a quote machine. If you haven't seen it yet, this is Jared Allens comment about the "schism" in the Vikings locker room....

“I don’t know where this came from. Like I said, I don’t think anybody on this team knows what schism is, let alone could use it in a sentence. I thought it was an STD when I first heard it. And I was like whoa, we preach abstinence around these parts.”

Yup...then there was the quote about preseason...

"Preseason games are like going to prom with your sister, and I can't imagine that being much fun."

And when he first came to the Vikings...

"My main goal is to bury my helmet into Aaron Rodgers back."

Just for good measure, Jared Allen describing his mullet here

Well, there's one problem with this idea. Jared Allen doesn't know what Twitter is and said in a recent TV interview that he would never do it, just like a certain blogger. I guarantee you, if Jared Allen gets a Twitter account, I would like to sign up just to follow Jared Allen. This would be the most entertaining account in all of Twitter (well, next to mine should this sign of the apocalypse happen.) So, until then, I'm going to figure out how to search for people on Twitter because it's the most pointless and confusing thing in the world. So...go tweet about that.

All About The Benjamins

By the end of a professional athlete's career, a man (or woman) can get pretty beat up. If you look at one of the most violent sports in the world, football, players have been in constant pain over the course of 10 seasons. They've been doing this for about 19 years through high school, college, and the professional ranks. They've played through small aches and pains and might barely be able to walk in a couple of seasons. They pretty much deserve every penny they get. That's why the way rookies act before coming into their respective leagues is pretty much a load of crap.

This has gotten absolutely out of control. In baseball, a team has to worry about a players signability rather than their talent. The case in point was Stephen Strasburg, the pitching prospect out of San Diego State. Negotiations with Strasburg went down to the wire, but the Washington Nationals were able to secure Strasburg. The problem is that it didn't come cheap. Strasburg signed a deal that will pay him 15 million over the next 4 seasons. The deal was negotiated by super agent Scott Boras. Boras also represented multiple clients that were selected in the top 10 such as Seattle Mariners prospect Dustin Ackley (9.5 million over 4 years) and San Diego Padres prospect Donovan Tate (9.2 million over 4 years) this is all without throwing a pitch or taking a swing in professional baseball.

Baseball is one of the most chaotic simply because it's a crap shoot. Twins fans will cringe over the mention of names such as B.J. Garbe, Adam Johnson, and Matt Moses. All were players who got paid straight out of the draft and flopped like fish in the minor leagues. Remember, before Denard Span's emergence into the Twins lineup, many thought that he would wind up being a bust.

However, the worst out of all professional sports is football. As I mentioned before, football players pay a ridiculous price for their careers. Most of these players are getting way overpaid before they even play a down. Here are the top 10 picks from last year's draft and their contracts (or lack thereof).

1. Detroit Lions: Matthew Stafford, QB, Georgia (6 years, 41.7 million guaranteed)

2. St. Louis Rams: Jason Smith, T, Baylor (6 yrs, 33 mil)

3. Kansas City Chiefs: Tyson Jackson, DE, LSU (5 yrs, 31 mil)

4. Seattle Seahawks: Aaron Curry, LB, Wake Forest (6 yrs, 34 mil)

5. New York Jets: Mark Sanchez, QB, USC (5 yrs, 28 million)

6. Cincinnati Bengals: Andre Smith, T, Alabama (Unsigned)

7. Oakland Raiders: Darrius Heyward-Bey, WR, Maryland (5 yrs, 23.5 mil)

8. Jacksonville Jaguars: Eugene Monroe, T, Virginia (5 yrs, terms not available)

9. Green Bay Packers: B.J. Raji, DT, Boston College (Terms not available)

10. San Francisco 49ers: Michael Crabtree, WR, Texas Tech (Unsigned)

As you can see, there's still two picks that have yet to be signed. The Bengals will probably get Andre Smith signed soon. The worst of this is Mr. Crabtree. Crabtree fell because some teams thought that he was a diva. He fell to the 10th pick and was taken by the 49ers. A lot of people found this preposterous, but then Crabtree started his monster holdout. Mel Kiper Jr. has done a lot of good things for the NFL draft, he may have done some harm here as Crabtree felt he should have been taken with the third pick in the draft. So he wants third pick money even though he was selected tenth. Let's make this clear, he's holding out WITHOUT playing a professional down.

This just needs to stop. For all the things I hate about the NBA, they did one thing right. Each pick has a slot value and teams can only go so much above their slot value. Picks sign and report to their teams, and they don't miss training camp or hold out for more money because they can't. Hopefully all pro sports adopt a system like this, but I don't think that this will happen soon.

The Big Gamble

In case you've been living under a rock for the past couple days, Brett Favre came out of retirement for the 30th time and signed with the Minnesota Vikings. Yup, those Minnesota Vikings. The same team that plays in the Metrodome, where Favre has a 6-10 career record. The same team who has fans that pretty much treated him like the devil for the past 16 years. Yet, after all this, Brett Favre will wear purple for the first time officially tonight when the Vikings host the Kansas City Chiefs.

It's pretty amazing how most Viking fans have turned on a dime to worship Farve since the signing. For a guy that was hated so much, it was almost surreal to see a helicopter following him along I-94 as he made his way to Winter Park. Once there, Favre was greeted by a bunch of fans who looked like they were 13 year old girls watching the Beetles in concert. It didn't stop there, retailers are in a royal rumble to try and supply the incredible demand for Brett Favre jerseys, a thought that would have seemed like pure fantasy just three years ago to Minnesota fans. The jerseys are flying off the shelves and are going for 200 bucks on eBay.

However, I've decided to take a more cautious approach to this gamble by the Vikings. While most fans have been running up and down the streets of Minneapolis screaming "We're going to the Superbowl", blaring Will Smith's 1998 hit "Miami", and booking hotel rooms for the first weekend in February, I've thought of it like this. Brett Favre is so throwing his reputation on the line.

Let's talk about if he fails first because I'm a pessimist. If Favre fails, he automatically becomes the most villainous figure in Minnesota sports history. He soars over former North Stars owner Norm Green and people would have gigantic bonfires with their purple Favre jerseys. This would be amplified even more if the Vikings lost in the NFC championship game due to a Favre pick six against...oh...let's say the Green Bay Packers?

But, what if he succeeds. He flip flops roles in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Suddenly, Brett Favre's number 4 could be retired by the Vikings and...GASP!!! PUT INTO THE VIKINGS RING OF HONOR??? Favre becomes the Grand Marshall of parades and gets a key to the city. Favre is running around kissing babies and then decides to run for Minnesota Governor in 2010...and wins! In other words, the entire state of Minnesota becomes a bunch of hypocrites.

Yes, both extremes are on the line here. Favre's gamble is this. Fail, and be welcomed back with open arms by cheeseheads or succeed and be worshiped by Scandinavians.

A Public Service Announcement

To all the Green Bay Packer fans out there, I know what you're going through. Here, I found some music that expresses the way you feel right now...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-VfoeR3oLo

You may not think that I do, but, trust me, as a Minnesota fan, I am very experienced in horrific, heartbreaking shockers. I'm not just talking about every Sunday when the Vikings play, but Minnesota has had their share of people leaving. Kevin Garnett is a Celtic. Randy Moss is a Patriot. Joe Mauer may still become a Yankee. However, in your world this means nothing. But I know a thing or two about this.

The truth is that you have a remarkable opportunity in front of you. Have you ever heard a Vikings fan whine and cry about Brett Favre repeatedly? Well now you get to know what we've been going through for 16 years! Yup, now you can see how announcers will kiss Brett Favre's ass even after an interception. You can even laugh when he throws up one of those random passes in the fourth quarter that looks like a third grader threw it up and screamed "FIVE HUNDRED!!!" Also, have you ever wondered what it's like to be on the other end of a Brett Favre pick six? To be honest with you, if it happens at the right time, it can be purely orgasmic. Trust me on this.

I know what you're thinking. You think I'm a hypocrite. You may be right, but I get to have some fun with this too. What's it like to get preferential treatment from the referees in the fourth quarter? What is it like to enjoy a Brett Favre touchdown, etc. I mean this is my opportunity to know these answers as a sports reporter and I don't even have to put on a Packer jersey to do it!

The bottom line is this. I know you hate Brett Favre right now, and I don't blame you and I'm going to stop you because I still hate his guts even though he's my new quarterback. But, have some fun with this. Call Brett Favre a piece of crap. Go out and burn your Brett Favre jersey. Bring a sniper rifle to the Vikings/Packers game at Lambeau on November 1st. OK, that last one might have been a little bit extreme but anyways.

For the current situation we're in. We might as take a quote from a great football mind...

"ENJOY THE SEASON!!!" - Former Vikings Head Coach Mike Tice

Another Installment of "If Sports Were Like Pro Wrestling"

Setting: Monday Night Raw is in Green Bay, Wisconsin tonight. Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress is standing in the ring with QB Sage Rosenfels. Let's listen in.

Childress: Sage, I stand here tonight like a proud father. You've done a good job over the offseason and you really worked hard. And I could not be happier to name you as my new starting quarterback.

J.R.: That's a load of crap. Childress has been recruiting Brett Favre all offseason. What a slimeball.

[Childress hands the microphone over to Sage]

Sage: Coach, I just want to thank you. I haven't had the opportunity to start anywhere I go, but you actually trust me. Miami wanted to start Jay Fiedler over me. Houston got Matt Schaub. But you, you actually forked over enough trust in me to lead your super secret offense filled with one yard pass plays that we will use on 3rd and 5. Just thank you so much.

J.R.: He's walking right into it, King. He must be drinking that purple kool-aid!

[Childress raises Sage's hand as the fans stare on quietly. Hey, this is Green Bay after all. Suddenly, the lights go out and a spotlight is on the stage. A man in a cloak comes out and slowly walks into the ring and stares at Sage. Sage becomes angry.]

Sage: YOU SON OF A BI...

[Before he can spit it out, Childress gives him a low blow and starts wailing on Sage.]

J.R.: WHAT THE HELL??? BRAD CHILDRESS IS PUMMELING HIS QUARTERBACK!!!

[Chilly grabs a steel chair and starts bashing a prone Sage Rosenfels. The crowd goes nuts. Again, this is in Green Bay.]

Childress: You really thought I was going to let you start. You played against a third string defense last night. You could mess up a wet dream for God sake! I've found someone to replace you. The man in this cloak right here. Show yourself!

[The man slowly removes his hood and...]

Brett Favre: IT'S ME GREEN BAY!!! IT WAS ME ALL ALONG GREEN BAY!!!

J.R.: THIS IS JUST SICK!

[The fans are outraged. They throw beer, popcorn, even a dead cow into the ring. Some guy in the nosebleeds has a shotgun. This is bad...]

Favre: YOU BOUGHT IT!!! YOU ALL BOUGHT IT!!! You didn't think that I would just sit at home and drive my tractor did you. I'm back! And Ted Thompson, I'm coming for you!

[The boos continue to rain down on Favre and Childress until Ted Thompson hits the stage. The boos get louder because he's the idiot who let Brett Favre go.]

Thompson: Brett, you don't want to do this. This is Green Bay. This is the Packers. We love you. We all love you. Don't sacrifice these fans after all that they've done for you.

Favre: Really, they turned their back on me! [More boos] They're cheering for Aaron Rodgers for God sake. I can be the only Packer quarterback but you just don't get it. They're all hypocrites. I am their savior! I'm going to a place where I can be worshipped some more!

Thompson: I didn't want to do this Brett, but you've left me no choice. The Green Bay Packers announce the signing of...JOHN RANDLE!!!

J.R.: OH MY GOD!!! JOHN RANDLE IS HERE IN GREEN BAY!!! HE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE TONIGHT!!!

[John Randle comes out donning a Packer jersey and his face painted in green and gold. He rushes down to the ring. Randle and Favre start slugging it out. Randle gets the upper hand and throws him out of the ring. The crowd is going crazy. More dead cows are thrown...wait one of them is just a fat female Wisconsinite. Mass chaos has ensued.]

Randle: FAVRE! THIS SUNDAY...SUMMERSLAM...YOU...ME....INSIDE A STEEL CAGE!!!

J.R.: WHAT A SLOBBERKNOCKER! THERE WILL BE NO ESCAPE FOR BRETT FAVRE THIS SUNDAY!!!

[Childress and Favre look on terrified as Randle plays to the crowd...]

See, now isn't that more entertaining than watching Brett Favre's limo drive down I-94? I think so.

Just Shut Up

Well, you know it's a bad day when yours truly is motivated to write not one, but TWO blog posts in the same day. After two plus weeks of silence on the blog, I thought I should write about something else interesting I heard earlier today. The Eastern Sports Propaganda Network has received a report from Fox Sports Jay Glaser that several players on the Vikings said that Brett Favre will return to the Vikings and play in the third preseason game. Sigh...

Ok, where should I begin with this? Let's talk about Brett Favre. Mr. Favre has been wishy washy about this whole thing since it surfaced in June. Brett loves Chilly, Chilly loves Brett, Brett loves Bevell (does he do anything by the way?), etc. Brett Favre is a loveable guy in football circles...I guess. When it comes to Brett Favre's perspective, it reminds me of one of my adventures at Harriet Bishop Elementary School in Rochester, Minnesota.

It was a nice day and we were going to do some arts and crafts. I was kind of...well...a psycho back in first grade so my first grade teacher, Ms. Bendit, gave me some options. Why? I don't know. The first option was to color a fire truck and go over it with some blue ink for the sky. The second option was to read some books. I was one of the few kids that could read at the time and to be honest, I liked to read Goosebumps, the R.L. Stien series. (Don't lie, I know you read them too when you were little!) So, I took the latter. I read a couple chapters and then it hit me.

That fire truck thing was awesome. I was amazed that the ink didn't go over the crayon that my fellow classmates had scribbled on the paper. It turned out to be a fire truck with a blue sky and suddenly I wanted one. I yelled, I screamed, I cried, I even turned green. I was thrown into another classroom simply because I wouldn't have dealt with myself either if I was in Ms. Bendit's position. The teacher next door was about to put me through a table, and the rest of the classroom gave their best WTF look. I was calmed only when a big fire truck showed up and everything was back to normal.

The lesson learned? Make a decision and stand by it. Sure, it sucks to watch the Vikings running around having fun and (hopefully) winning games. It sucked to watch all my friends get their nice piece of artwork to hang on the fridge too. But, leave us alone. Quite frankly, we don't need Brett Favre. It'd be nice, but at this point, he didn't go through training camp, he still has to learn a new offense no matter how similar it was in Green Bay, and, oh yeah, he's 40 years old. If the NFL had a Cash for Clunkers program, you could probably cash in Brett Favre for a nice rebate.

As for the other side of the coin. If you're a Vikings player, if you're a Vikings coach, if you're a Vikings hot dog vendor take a cue from my childhood hero, The Rock. Know your role and shut your mouth!!! Honestly, every one says "This is dead and it's not a distraction" but why are you going to Jay Glaser and talking about it. If I'm Sage Rosenfels (who should win the starting job at this point...) I'm putting a bounty on this guys head and kicking his ass unless it's like Adrian Peterson or something.

Honestly, everyone involved should just put this behind them. I don't care if he has purple jelly on his toast or if he takes a purple dump. One other item is that all these reports has come from the Hattiesburg paper. So what's to say that Favre's camp isn't just feeding them crap so that it strokes his ego? I think that we should just start to ignore this. It's starting to get annoying.

Funeral For A Friend

Dearly beloved. (Is that how they start these things?) We are gathered here today to pay our final respects to an underachieving baseball team. Some may find this incredibly negative. Some may find this incredibly sacreligious. However, it's time to put our favorite baseball team to rest. For they do not know the amount of suffering they have caused to their fans by blowing 10 run leads, having starts that last as long as Mike Fetters stint with the Twins a couple years ago (that was about 3 innings, FYI). Yes, it's time to move on and look forward to a sport that a lot of us have been craving since February: Football.

However, to know where we are. We must look back at where we've came from. This season wasn't supposed to be like this. We were supposed to win the AL Central easily and maybe get a slight nudge from the Cleveland Indians. Well, both teams fell flat on their face, but still. One of the comforting thoughts from losing the one game playoff to the Chicago White Sox last year was that we were so young and had so much to gain.

For example, no starter last year was over the age of 26. The Twins relied on a rotation of Francisco Liriano, Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey, and Glen Perkins and it worked...until September. Remember just how bad Glen Perkins was in September. His ERA was about 12. Nick Blackburn picked up four losses in the month of September and we all cringed when his name was mentioned as being the starter for game 163. Kevin Slowey took a line drive off his wrist in the final home game against the White Sox (Which still remains the best Twins game I've ever been to, but regardless.), an seemingly harmless injury which flared up in July and cost Slowey the rest of the year. All of these warning signs were ignored, and the Twins showed up for spring training with a lot of optimism.

What's even more disheartening for the Twins is that there were things that went right for the team. Yeah, it's not showing up in the box score, but the Twins actually made moves to hint that they wanted to be a competitive baseball team. They signed Joe Crede in March. While Crede hasn't hit for average, he did add pop to the 3rd baseman position. It was nice having Crede at times this season, but next year we'll see a young prospect, Danny Valencia (.296 avg, 6 HR, 32 RBI in 48 games at Rochester), take over and hopefully we'll see a more Twin-like performance as Crede has not been willing to play through any sort of pain, which contradicts past Twins like Brad Radke, who in 2006 pitched with a torn labrum in his shoulder from June til October.

The Twins also made a trade for SS Orlando Cabrera. Yeah, they could have done better, but Cabrera has been great for the Twins since his arrival. Not only has Cabrera hit about .300 since joining the Twins, but he's been a mentor for struggling Twins Carlos Gomez and Alexei Casilla. (Speaking of those two, I don't think too many people expected this big of a dropoff for those two in March but anyways.) They didn't give up too much for him, and he's paid off.

But, this season was more about failures and wasted opportunities than victories. The Twins have only been able to win 4 games in a row, and their best extended stretch of baseball is 6 out of 7. That's not a sign of a playoff team in Major League Baseball. The most disheartening fact about this is that the Twins are wasting monster seasons in the middle of their lineup. Joe Mauer has a career-high 22 home runs and (don't look know) is flirting with .400 again. Justin Morneau has 28 bombs, but again has tailed off in the second half. Jason Kubel is putting together a solid season and it looks as if he's finally back after completely destroying his knee in 2004. Alas, all of this has not lead to victories.

The worst part of all this is that it could even get worse the next couple of seasons. The Chicago White Sox got better with the additions of Jake Peavy and Alex Rios. While Peavy is hurt and Rios is underachieving this season, I think that they're great moves for the future. Even if the White Sox don't win the division this year, they have Peavy locked up until 2012 and Rios locked up until 2014.

The Twins also continue to be cheap despite the fact that they're moving into a new shiny stadium next season (NOTE: If you haven't driven by Target Field in Minneapolis yet, do it. You can't see much, but this thing is going to be sweet.) This is essentially the case in signing first round pick Kyle Gibson out of Missouri. Gibson was supposed to be a top 10 pick until he suffered a stress fracture in his forearm. A lot of scouts thought this was an elbow problem so he free falled to 22 where the Twins snapped him up. Gibson was 11-3 with a 3.21 ERA in his junior year at Mizzou and according to the Star Tribune, the sides are a million dollars apart. Billy, do you see your rotation right now? SIGN HIM!!! OVERPAY HIM!!! You did it with Nick Punto didn't you? (LNP is getting paid more than Orlando Hudson is right now, btw. This sucks.)

The Twins also apparently have Jarrod Washburn on their radar for free agency next winter. Washburn, despite battling with the Twins in a division race, Washburn said that he would love to play for the Twins next season. When you have a staff without an ace, it seems like a no-brainer to pick up the guy who's got one of the lowest ERA's in the American League. But, will the Twins shell out the money to do it.

So in closing, thanks for the bad memories 2009 Minnesota Twins. I know we've had some good ones, like the cycles from Jason Kubel and Michael "Master of the Solo Home Run" Cuddyer, but overall...this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. We'll pay you one last visit as you play your last game in the Big Inflatable Toilet in early October and then we'll put you to rest...that is until the Vikings choke this winter but anyways....