Forget that brown smear on Kenny Rogers’ hand during this year’s postseason. Joe Niekro was the subject of the best ball-doctoring story. On Aug. 2, 1987, with the pennant race heating up, Niekro was caught with a nail file in his pocket. “In his pocket” is a stretch actually. When the umpire asked him what [...]

Check out this Star Tribune blog’s flashback to an 1896 Minneapolis Journal story about Nicollet Park, home of the Minneapolis Millers baseball team. The article announces a “surprise” in the selection of the park’s location, which was expected to be in the Kenwood area. Instead, the park was built at the intersection of Lake and [...]

When the Minnesota Twins 2006 season came to a close, I was riding shotgun in a hybrid vehicle rolling silently down Interstate 94, about an hour outside the Twin Cities. I missed the first 90 minutes of the radio broadcast; the death rattle of this year’s remarkable team would be unbearable. It’s tough to hear [...]

So, the last couple of days have been a little rough. The Twins have dropped the first two games of the playoffs at home. Now the series moves to Oakland for games on Friday and Saturday. A single win puts the A’s over the top. It’s been tough to watch these games. Take Torii Hunter’s [...]

I am growing a playoff beard. I will not shave until the Twins have run their course in the playoffs. This may not have been a wise decision, as my attempts to grow facial hair in the past failed terribly. At the moment, my patchy stubble makes me look merely filthy rather than rugged or [...]

I almost didn’t go to last night’s game. It was the middle game of a seven-game home stand. I was a bit tired. The Twins had already bested the Royals. And come on: just because I have season tickets doesn’t mean I have to go to every home game, right? Then I thought back to [...]

Listen, Joe Nathan. Just because you’re one of the best closers in baseball, and because you have a soul patch, and because you endorse those delicious ice cream sandwiches available from Metrodome concessions doesn’t mean you can continue to make the ninth inning a collective heart attack for Twins fans. Joe Nathan entered the game [...]

At 110 years old, Silas Simmons is perhaps the oldest person to have played organized baseball. He played for a negro league from 1912 to at least 1929, the New York Times reports. He is also the only Tampa Bay Devil Rays fan ever. (Officially, the oldest former major leaguer is Rollie Stiles, 99, of [...]

I was 11 years old when the 1987 Minnesota Twins made a remarkable journey through the postseason. In the months after the team’s World Series victory, I watched a slapdash documentary called “Twins Win!” over and over in my dad’s living room. Doing so burned several images in my mind. If memory serves: 1. When [...]

In today’s Star Tribune, Patrick Reusse explains how Kirby Puckett’s legacy of hard work has propelled the Minnesota Twins this season: There has been an insistence for two decades with the Twins that the game would be played by running hard to first base, and by concentrating as much on fielding as hitting, and by [...]