The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -3).  On Thursday, the same day the Minnesota Senate passed the conference committee bill for a new Vikings stadium, thereby virtually assuring that the ViQueens would get the new home they've wanted for about a decade, the Twinks illustrated the danger, indeed the folly, of giving a professional sports team the new building they've bitched about for for years and promised would guarantee successful teams.

Toronto beat the Twinks 6-2.  This is what happened:

• Yunel Escobar scored from second on a grounder to third.  Alexi Casilla made the forceout, but he fell and didn't notice Escobar streaking around third.  Suffice it to say that professional teams would never let that happen.
• Edwin Encarnacion popped up right in front of home plate.  Both Catcher Ryan Doumit and the Starting Pitcher, Jason Marquis, got under it, but neither of them caught it.  A run scored.
• Josh Willingham could have scored from third on a ground ball, but Trevor Plouffe just put his head down and ran to second, straight into the ball and the tag.  The double play was completed before Willingham crossed home plate.
• Doumit couldn't hold on to a strike.  The ball skipped out to the right, but Doumit just stood up and looked at his feet.  The Blue Jay, whoever the fuck he was, went all the way from first to third before Doumit found the ball.

The Twinks were booed off the field after the game.  Serves them right.  They should've gotten Target Field taken away from them.

Don't forget Monday.  Jered Weaver of the Angels was pitching, the first time since he hurled a no-hitter ... against the Twinks.  How little fans regard this team that there was actual talk/fear that Weaver would be the second pitcher ever to throw back-to-back no-hitters, and the first to do it against the same squad.  Some of us just flat out believed it was going to happen.  Thankfully a Twink made a hit in the third inning.  They still lost that game, though.

And still, with all that, this club tops the WMNSS.  They lost five games, most of them in completely give-up fashion, but they did win three times, including this afternoon to salvage a split with Toronto.  My God, Minnesota is Loserville, USA again.

This week is Two-Fer Week, the time of the season where teams play two-game series, for reasons I still don't know why.  The Twinks finish their nine-game homestand Monday and Tuesday against American League Central Division-leading Cleveland, then they visit Detroit for a pair, then they start interleague play at Milwaukee for the weekend.

#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  Awful.  They were swept this weekend at Nebraska.  All three games were losses by a single run.  Kick to the balls, man.

Only a series-salvaging win at home against Penn St. last Sunday prevented the Goofs from going winless this screening week.  Nevertheless they sit at 10-11 in the conference and in danger of missing the B1G Tournament.  (They currently sit 7th in the standings; if the regular season ended now, they would not make it.)  This week, to finish out their regular season, they visit the team that is currently 8th, Illinois.  The Fighting Illini have an outside chance of making the tournament, but since they're only one game worse than the Goofs in the standings, this series should be very close.

#-Infinity: Swarm (Last Week: 0).  I intended to go to last night's Western Conference Championship Game.  That day I volunteered to be an extra in a student film, where I ran into a friend of mine who is an extra a lot.  He is also a huge sports fan, as well as an avid scalper.  He sold me one of his season tickets, first row, right on the glass, and with access to The Ice Lodge, the downstairs, season ticket-holders-only bar that offered free beer, wine, pop and popcorn.  Thanks, by the way.

Too bad I was there for the most pathetic performance in Smarm history.  They not only got lost to the Edmonton Rush, they were introduced to a little bit of prison sex, 15-3.

15-3?  There are two ways to look at it.  If you've ever been to an indoor lacrosse game, one of the first things you'll notice is that the goaltender is dressed up like a box for a huge TV.  The fucker has so much padding on it's a wonder how he can walk around before his heart gives out from all the weight.  Meanwhile, the goal he's protecting seems much smaller than a hockey goal.  That should mean that no one can score in box lacrosse.  And yet it happens.

Unfortunately, last night it happened for only one team, the wrong one.  That brings up the other way to look at it: If goals are scored in spite of the big goalie and small goal, how in the fuck did the score come up so unbalanced?  I have never seen as big of a rout in a Major League Lacrosse game ever.  I've never seen a team score as few as three goals ever.  I've never seen a team score only once in three quarters, even if my eyes say that has to be the case, ever.  And I have never seen a team get completely shut out of a quarter ever, like the Smarm were in the second.  An absolute fucking embarrassment, made more shameful by the lack of answers for such a "performance."

I still don't know what the fuck happened.  I got there late because I my folks decided to surprise me by saying we were having Mother's Day dinner last night instead of today.  Five minutes were gone, but the Smarm were only down 2-1.  But then the Rush scored two goals, both stoppable.  Goaltender Ryan Kirk, despite being a rookie, should have made the saves.

And then with the score 4-1 I saw a couple breakaways.  Now the defense is failing.  Kirk was pulled for Kent (is it Kent?  Who cares) Carlson (is it Carlson?  Who cares), but he was just as much of a sieve as Kirk was.  Too many times Rush players were fed on pick-and-rolls close to the goal, and with a second to size up the shot, both Carlson and Kirk (was he put back in the game?  Who cares) guessed wrong and allowed the ball to get past them.

The nadir came at the end of the first half.  With the shot and game clocks virtually identical, typical box lacrosse strategy dictates that you pull the goalie for an extra attacker.  The Smarm did just that.  But they failed to score; more damning, they turned the ball over with time left on the clock.  Players were caught napping, because Edmonton threw the ball down to the open net for another goal, making it a 11-1 game at halftime.  Despite the Pollyanna-ish hopes of the vendor, the game was over by then.  I have never seen a team come back from that many goals down.

I got so pissed off that I actually stood up and booed the team.  I never do that.  I've wanted to do that a lot, but this is the first time I had the balls to do it, so made I was that this team decided to not care about playing when it mattered most, in front of their fans in a game whose winner would be playing for the title.  (And to rub salt in the wound, they allowed Edmonton to score on an empty-netter again to end the third quarter.)

Smarm Captain Andrew Suitor was just as pissed as I was.  Early in the fourth, knowing they were going to lose, he picked a huge fight with an opposing Rush player.  He was given a game misconduct and a shower of high fives as he was sent to the showers.  I understand Suitor's frustration, but hey, I'm just a paying customer; what the fuck did you do (or not do) in this loss?  You wanted to kick someone's ass because your asses were getting kicked.  Suitor tried to pick a fight with other Rush players as he left the field; if they were smart, they should've just told Suitor, "Scoreboard."

This team had a lot of rookies, and so they were picked to be the one team of the nine in the league not to make the playoffs.  They also switched coaches in the middle of the season, too.  So in that respect, this finish was a success.  But this was a shit performance -- almost Twins-like.  They shit themselves when they had a chance to host the title game next weekend.  And they lost to a team that was below .500, and will still be below .500 even if they win next week's Champion's Cup game at Rochester Saturday night.  Bottom line: Every team's ultimate goal should be to win the championship.  The Smarm did not do that, and therefore they failed.

After the game my friend and I were hanging out In The Ice Lodge.  I don't know him that well, but I had never pegged him to be that into sports.  But he was slowly getting more and more pissed off reflecting on the putrid Smarm loss.  He said he'd be OK if they lost 11-10.  Not me; close or blowout, if my team loses, I'd be mighty pissed off.  But honestly, I wasn't that mad last night.  Why?  I was enjoying the fact I had free beer and wine.  Don't know if I'll ever get to go down there again.  Besides, seeing the Smarm suck shit is a damn good reason to drink.