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Some Ramblings
Published 3:04pm Thursday, November 10, 2011There has been a lot going on in sports lately and it has been all over the place. So I will touch on a few things with a little “Rambling”.
-I suppose the biggest news in sports on a national level is the firing of Joe Paterno atPennState. I feel really bad for the guy to have his illustrious career end like this. I don’t know all the details so I maybe shouldn’t comment on it, but the way it sounds Paterno did mention to his higher ups about the incident so I assume he is being fired for not reporting it to the police, which the higher ups should have done, and then for not following up. This also happened 10 years ago so why hasn’t it been brought up before now? I don’t know and if Paterno is guilty of something then ok he should be fired, but it still is a little sad.
-Another item making the national news is the kidnapping of former Twin and now National catcher Wilson Ramos. He lives inVenezuelaand this seems to be a common occurrence there with rich people and especially rich athletes. I’m not sure they have ever found anyone that was kidnapped dead yet and I hope that will be the case this time as well. It’s a real strange world out there.
-Locally the big news has been the Viking Stadium issue. I say just get it done. I know with the economy the way it is money for millionaires and their stadium isn’t a popular thing. But let’s face it; the vast majority of people in the state are sports fans especially when the home team is winning. Once it is built very few people will care where the money came from anymore.
-Speaking of the Vikings, they made the right move by inserting Christian Ponder at quarterback. At least for this fan it has made the game more interesting to watch again. You gotta love Jerald Allen for the way he is playing too. He makes the defense interesting to watch as well.
-The Wild are on a streak!! They started the season with a great opening game then muddled through for awhile and now have been playing very well including defeating the Red Wings twice within a week. Backstrom and Harding have plugged up the net and they seem to be feeding off each others success like Fernandez and Roloson did a few years ago. I still think they are working on the chemistry a little and when they get that down I think they make the playoffs.
-I end with the biggest local sports news of the week with the firing of Twins GM Billy Smith. I think Smith tried real hard but he just didn’t seem to know baseball talent and maybe listened to the wrong people, whatever, the Twins just aren’t the team and organization they were a few years ago. Few of his player moves were good and the worst may have taken place this season. First he let J.J. Hardy go and then signed the Japanese player Nishioka. Hardy goes on to have a great year and Nishioka was a complete bust. The next bad move of the year for me was the non moves at the trading deadline. The Twins were out of it and they had some free agents out there that other teams wanted and he didn’t do anything and now we face losing these guys and get nothing in return except draft picks.
So now the Twins hire Terry Ryan back and it will be interesting to see what “Trader” Ryan has up his sleeve. If nothing else, Ryan is noted as one of the shrewdest traders in baseball and usually makes out with the better of any deal he has made. Under Smith the Twins lost “Twins Baseball” that everyone admired. It will be interesting if Ryan can bring that back and how long will it take.
Ramblings! I love ramblings. You have a nice smattering of topics. Nice to see a post again from you, Tom. I was starting to think you like your Grant County Herald readers better than you like us.
Penn State mess – I say leave the coverage to the talking heads of the “news” shows and keep it off the sports shows, except as to how it impacts Nittany football. JMHO.
Ponder – He’s a lot more fun to watch than McNabb. But to be fair, he’s not performing up to McNabb level – Ponder has completed about 50% of his passes, McNabb about 60%. Ponder’s interception rate is more than twice McNabb’s, and his QB Rating is 69.8 compared to McNabb’s 82.9 rating. Ponder has rushed for 1 more yard. Nevertheless, I think giving Ponder the starting job was probably the right move because the team seems to play better with him at QB. The defense doesn’t suck as much as it did earlier in the season when McNabb was the starter. For whatever reason. JMHO.
Wild – Not interested.
Firing Wild Bill Smith – I regret that he had to go. Now that he’s out the door, a lot of his moves are being roundly criticized. Its easy with hindsight to say a gutsy move was stupid, but I’m only putting stock in the those that said so at the time. Like Tom said at the time that trading Hardy was dumb. He was right. I don’t remember many saying at the time that the Santana trade was bad. Smith’s courage to make bold moves was refreshing, and some of his more controversial moves just didn’t work out. I’m sure that Ryan and others in the front office signed off on a lot of the moves. I wouldn’t hang Smith for high risk high reward moves that didn’t work out. And while the high minors seemed to lack for impact talent, I think the long view will be that Smith injected a lot of quality talent into the minors, which is now just getting to high A and double A. The one reason I think he had to go was Nishioka. What kind of evaluation process would conclude that he should be in the majors? And that the Twins should stake so much on that move being right when it was so demonstrably wrong. The incompetence of that one move is stunningly sufficient to cost him his job. Regretably.
The Return of Terry Ryan – All reports are that he has the eye of the tiger. The only bad part of this is that no one will trade with the Twins now.
And another thing. Delmon. At the time of the Delmon trade the consensus was that it was a very good trade for the Twins. Everyone thought Delomon was a blue chipper. Had he developed as expected by everyone, we may not be having this discussion.
It has been a very “newsy” time for sports. I’ll ramble with you.
Penn State – what a mess. Sounds like some people better be roasted. JoPa doesn’t seem like the one though. Maybe he missed it some but after listening to people who know him best, he shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence as the miserable creep Sandusky. He seems like a genuine good guy. He also hasn’t been given the opportunity for innocence until proven guilty. It was a long time ago. Maybe people should wait just a little longer until the facts are out, not conjecture.
Wild – Ditto to Tracy
Ponder – I see hope. He seems worth being given a good chance. Tracy is being cruel to compare him to McNabb. There was no hope with McNabb regardless of stats. Last night’s Packer game sure reinforces how far the Vikes have fallen. I harp on the importance of line play but although our d-line is pretty fair, our o-line is very bad right now. Ponder will improve greatly when he is graced with quality offensive linemen. Our d-backs are awful too! LSU’s d-backs are better than ours right now. Alabama’s too!
Twins changes – Something had to change, Smith is a good place to start. Now to get to the job of fixing the middle infield and putting some major league hitters at the plate.
Ramos – did you see the guy had 15 home runs last year! We traded him for a guy we are going to just let go. Bad deal. Glad they got him back alive. Reminds a guy of what a great country we live in.