Sunday, May 20, 2012

Ty Cobb looking back on his unsuccessful stint managing the Detroit Tigers naturally deflected all criticism saying "no manager who ever lived could beat the blame when his men fucked up" -
thankfully he's dead and thus unable to retract his statement proven wrong by a magical place called Twins Territory where hitting coaches, pitching coaches and 3rd base stop signs are offered up as sacrificial lambs by the masses yet their Field General remains beyond reproach. I'm not sure what spell the fan base is under which allows them to sleep at night because I've been haunted since the day of departure two months ago when Ron Gardenhire moved his troops North from Florida telling every passerby that this year's squad would be a team where no one was on scholarship then hammered his point home by auditioning every outfielder under the sun surely a shrewd move in February & March insane come April & May. Ladies and Gentlemen of the psych ward here we have a manager sporting a .222 postseason winning percentage coming off a 99 loss campaign getting off to a 10 -26 start who takes 2 months to notice a big pile of speed under his nose. Did he learn nothing from 2011 because I lived through it and clearly saw one freshman EARN a spot with the varsity, Ben Revere in 450 at bats hit .267 (I would have been ecstatic with .250 considering his defensive presence can lower pitching ERA's by .50), stole 34 bases (all 34 apparently undervalued by Gardenhire), and tracked down nearly every fly ball in his area code an obvious asset to any fan sitting in the upper deck who sees just how much green there is to be had at Target Field. I wish I was making this stuff up but it's a matter of public record that our manager tried covering that ground with Doumit, Plouffe, Parmalee, Cletus, Komatsu & Mastroianni through the middle of May before dragging his lazy eye back to the farm where Revere was raking inexplicable paralysis contributing to the deep dark 2012 hole in which we find ourselves, a hole still escapable given the sorry state of the A.L. Central but a hole nonetheless dug for us all by the hand of Ron Gardenhire.