My favorite site.

Being three states away from my beloved Twins, I have to read blogs and scour MLB sites to get all the info I need. Luckily I live in the internet age, and it's never been easier to follow a team from far away.

I can't tell you how excited I am for Target Field next year. I don't know when I'll first get to go there, but the fact that it's being built is enough for me. I'm so excited that I daily check the webcams and this site. I'm happy to know that there are many others out there who suddenly find themselves as stadium geeks as well.

Fielding

There's nothing about 1910s baseball that has anything to do with ABBA. Nonetheless, "Take a Chance on Me" will forever be linked in my mind with this picture. It's been in my head for days. I can't get it out. I keep walking around with a really cheesy grin on my face, talking with a vaguely European accent. It's terrible. These pictures, however, not so terrible. Part of my "do it again until you get it right" scheme.

Batter 1

I'm going to keep at this one picture until I get it to the style I'm happy with. Maybe I won't do the next one so late at night.

Sepia and crimson inks with watercolor.

Thrower and Portrait

More old baseball photos turned illo.


Of somebody very sad. Maybe I'm working out a subconscious fear of blindness. Who knows.

Pitcher

1. I confess to you that I've done most of my work on Moleskines because I like the ego stroking that comes with extra views, comments, and favorites on flickr.

2. Baseball as a subject pulls me into itself. I can't and won't stop with baseball illos.

3. It's about time for Ashton Kutcher to stop popping up on my screen all the time.

4. I'm so done with record heat and driest months on record. Bring on the fall.

Turner

It was only eleven days, but it felt like forever. There were a couple points where I just plain forgot what my process normally was. I think the work benefited from this, however. It feels really good to get back to what I love to do.

The Mitchell Report.

Mike Greenberg said this morning that the Mitchell Report, released yesterday, has "rocked baseball." Nope.

The steroid thing may have on the whole, but this report is next to nothing. It's a really expensive way for baseball to say, "yeah there was a problem, our bad." It won't affect the product on the field, or the number of fans in the stands, or who eventually gets into the Hall of Fame.

The only thing that this report changes is that baseball players have now become Santa Claus. Your children will believe in them until such time as someone tells them the truth. They'll take a few minutes to digest, and go on with enjoying the season anyway.

The Vick scandal, the NBA ref scandal, the MLB steroid scandal, these things don't matter to us in the long run. We're tied to our sports and one scandalous thing cannot take down what are essentially very lucrative businesses. A hockey strike, ironically, almost did take down a sport. (Don't believe the NHL is dead. We'll all be back on board with them as soon as we figure out they're the sport of the interwebnetlinkcom.)

I'll miss it.

I'm really psyched for the 2010 opening of the new Twins' stadium. That said, I still love the Metrodome, if only because of how loud it gets. This footage is from eight days ago, when Justin Morneau hit a walk-off homer to beat the Brewers. If you've ever been in the Metrodome, watch this and see if you don't get a chill.

"Game of the Week."

I've been ranting about this at work a bit today, but I want to make my perturbation known worldwide. I found a couple hours to sit in front of some televised sports on Saturday, the perfect remedy for a rainy, gloomy afternoon. There were three sports on: golf, horse racing, and baseball.

I watched a bit of golf. It was fine I suppose, despite it being the 3rd round of a non-major, and despite Tiger being off his game a bit. (I did see him tear off a 190-yard 6-iron from the fairway rough, I couldn't hit a 6-iron 190 to save my life from a freaking tee. Yeah yeah yeah, Tiger's superhuman, let's keep it moving.) I turned over to FOX for the game of the week and was met by the Seattle Mariners at the New York Yankees.

[Just keep breathing, everything comes to an end...]

Let's forget the fact that because Denver is only 40 miles away, I get a fair bit of crappy NL-west matchups. I can deal with that. And I suppose I can even put up with some crappy AL-west matchups too, which often come up. But why is it that every single other game on non-cable television has to feature the [long string of expletives] Yankees?!?! Did the FOX executives not realize that the one game they got to show this week featured two losing teams?!

In the words of Pearl the Landlord, "I'm tired of this crap."

So rather than have my proverbial head bashed in by the insufferable Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, I decided to watch the Kentucky Derby. That's right, I picked a 4-hour program of people talking about horses over a Major League Baseball game. And I'd do it again. I caught the top of the 8th, luckily the only part of the game that made any difference. The Yankees pitcher had a perfect game going with only five batters to go, only to lose the perfect game, the no-hitter, and the shutout when a Seattle player launched one into the right field bleachers. There. You just learned everything you could ever want to know about that game with one simple sentence.

There were only two redeeming qualities to the brief period of time I forced myself to behold the travesty that is 21st-century broadcast baseball. 1) When the perfect game was broken up you could almost hear Joe Buck's heart breaking, and 2) The near-historic pitcher's last name was Wang. Don't judge me. That's a funny name.

It's not like FOX couldn't have found a different game to put on. How about Boston at Minnesota? The team with the best record in baseball against last year's Cy Young winner? Nah, that'd never sell. Jerks. Luckily, next week I get Oakland at Texas. Yee-haw, an AL-west craptacular showdown. I can't wait. It almost makes me want to read a book. But that would only make me more bored.

That's it from here. Enjoy your Monday and remember: Celery may be a fine conduit for ranch dressing, but it ain't like you really need it.

Let's congratulate some people, shall we?

OH HOW I HAVE a few random, unconnected things to talk about.

Congrats to the Twins for overcoming a shaky Johan Santana performance to beat the Orioles last night. I didn't realize how much I missed baseball until yesterday. It provides literally endless fodder day in and day out through October. No other sport is quite like it. No American sport anyway, I'm not quite sure how cricket goes about its business.

Congrats to Billy Ray Cyrus for being the worst dancing celebrity I have ever seen. My sample pool is a little small for that kind of judgement, as last night was the first episode of Dancing With the Stars I've ever sat down and watched, but HOLY CANOLI was Cyrus bad. You would think a musician would have more natural rhythm and wouldn't have to count to themselves visibly while they dance. Oh wait, he plays country music. I guess he doesn't necessarily qualify as a "musician." Side congrats to Heather Mills, for riding her sympathy votes all the way to the top. Did you know she has a fake leg?!?!

Congrats to my wife for bringing me to new levels of shame. How? By waking up at 5 AM on her spring break. Nothing makes you feel lazier than sleeping in past your wife while she's on vacation and you're not. For an encore, my gardening exploits go unrewarded while she's got beet plants shooting up like mad. I'm not bitter.

Herb Carneal.

YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE I'm very excited about the new baseball season. Very. But it's kind of a bittersweet day to be a Twins fan. Herb Carneal passed away.

I remember so well his voice on the radio when I was a kid. He had a classic way of calling a game, letting you know what was happening on the field without any fluff. He's as big a part of my childhood obsession with baseball as Kirby Puckett or my first glove. Here's my favorite quote from the article from Ernie Harwell:

"He was smooth, laid back, down the middle and very pleasant to listen to," Harwell said Sunday. "It was like you were an old friend and sitting around with him, maybe with his shoes off and a cigar or bottle of beer and just enjoying his company and in turn enjoying the ballgame."

He will be missed.