The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

(I have to tell y'all that I'm doing this under severe personal and physical distress right now.  I'll try and talk about it for the blog post tomorrow, if I'm able to even write about it.  But let's just get to the survey.)

#0: Wild (Last Week: -5).  OK, I don't want to poo-poo what the Wild were able to do this screening week.  The club went undefeated in their four games, and with Saturday's regular season-ending 3-1 win at The Bastard Winnipeg Jets (with soon-to-be Vegas Golden Knight Darcy Kuemper inbetween the pipes) they set franchise records for wins and points in a year.  They also assured themselves second place in the Central Division and, for the first time since 2007 (?) they get home-ice advantage for a series, specifically the first round against the St. Louis Blues.

But they don't get Positive Numbers for this.  First of all, this team was ticketed for the best record in the Western Conference before their slump in March.  (Chicago won the division, BTW, so that old monster will pop up for the Mild in the second round.)  Second of all those four teams the Mild beat last week were The Bastard Jets, The Bastard Quebec Nordiques (twice) and The Bastard Hartford Whalers.  Not only are they all stolen teams, none of them will be playing past this weekend.  The Mild beat them up good, but there are no shitty teams in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  Finally, even though momentum (or lack thereof) means very little in hockey, neither does home-ice.  All I can think of is that the Mild, under serial underachiever Bruce Boudreau, will squander what is the best season in franchise history, one that still feels underwhelming.  (Oh, and Zach Parise got hit in the face with a stick Saturday night.  Hope he's OK.)

Says here Blues in 6.  Book it.

#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -3).  The train keeps a-rollin' for this squad.  They sweep a doubleheader on South Dakota Tuesday at Cowles and by the quickest possible, mercy rules of five innings (8-0 and 12-0, by the way).  They added two more mercy rule (also five innings) games in a three-game sweep of Indiana at home this weekend (10-2 and 8-0).  Both games ended on Grand Slams.  Makes you wonder how Friday's 11-6 win went.  (BTW, those run rule games were played Saturday; Sunday's game was moved up because people think there's going to be rain today.  It's sunny as I type this.)  They should threaten their best-ever ranking of sixth this week, wherein they will host Northwestern over the weekend.

#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  OK, so this is really weird.  It goes without fail that weather disrupts significant portions of the U.'s season.  I don't remember, however, if anything happened quite like what happened Thursday and Friday.  I haven't been up to the local weather, let alone the weather on the East Coast.  But apparently a storm out east cancelled the flight of Rutgers, the Gophers' opponent this weekend at Siebert Field, and therefore Friday's game was not just postponed but outright cancelled.

They announced this Thursday; they also said that they were going to give more information about the other two games later.  That news came Friday; Rutgers still wasn't in the Twin Cities.  And since (I'm guessing) alternate plans were either too complicated or too expensive for the Scarlet Knights' budget, the other two games -- and thus the entire series -- was cancelled.  Damn.

So all I have to go on to update the status of this team are Tuesday's 7-1 rout of North Dakota St. that opened up play at Siebert for the year and Sunday's sweep-completing 9-4 win over Michigan St. in East Lansing.  (Remember that I did last week's survey so late into Sunday afternoon.  I officially published it before I checked the team's Twitter feed; it looks as though the survey went live just as the team was headed into the ninth inning.  Therefore it was possible that if I waited a tad longer, that victory over the Spartans would have counted for last week's WMNSS.  Just a note.)  That this team cancelled more games this week than they actually played is unusual, but not that unusual for this program.

They return the Bison's favor and play in Fargo Tuesday, then visit Indiana for an important three-game set ... assuming it is not cancelled due to weather.

#-3: Twins (Last Week: -6).  Well, for a start to a season the Twinks did pretty good!  They started off 2016, I think, going 0-7, but for 2017 they actually won four in a row to begin the year, including a three-game sweep of the Kansas City Royals.  They beat the White Sox in Chicago Friday, even though Saturday's 6-2 setback ensured the ballclub wouldn't go undefeated this year.  An encouraging early sign is that the offense which carried the Twins in 2015 is back, at least so far, including monster seventh innings in the three games vs. K.C.  Pitching is better, much better, but let's see how a non-descript arsenal with no power and suspect control will do over the course of half a calendar year.  Bottom line: It's a hell of a lot better than last year.  After finishing up this afternoon at Comiskey, they play a trio in Detroit starting on Tuesday, then come home for a three-game series versus those same Pale Hose.

#-4: United (Last Week: -1).  Lost last (Saturday) night at FC Dallas, 2-0.  Hey, at least they kept it under four Goals, right?  They play at the Houston Dynamo Saturday.

#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4).  OK, first of all I wondered why the Woofie Dogs were playing Portland at home Monday then playing at Golden State Tuesday.  I forgot that the Trail Blazers game was the rescheduled one from last month because of condensation rising up from underneath.  They won that game, albeit barely, 110-109.  But then they proceeded to lose the three pre-scheduled contests for the week, including the 21st and 22nd times they blew a double-digit lead.  Like I said last week, this team is young, but Tom Thibodeau has played enough of his young corps enough this year to make good, concrete conclusions about who these guys are and how they will play.  And it looks like this group, in its entirety, is a goddamn failure, especially on the defensive end.  Really, if this roster needs to be blown up, I can't totally disagree.  I mean it, it is that frustrating.

At least this week is the final week for this damned squad.  At The Team That Was Stolen From Us (Basketball Version), home to The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics, then at Houston to close out the regular season.

Addendum To: Vicious Hand Lovin', I Hope And Presume

Yeah, uh, no.  I drove downtown, went to the library to print something out, walked a good 20 minutes across downtown to just outside of the hotel, and texted ***e*, waiting for her to either text me the apartment number or for her to come down to let me in.


I kind of gave her 15, 20 minutes.  I got desperate enough that I texted *******y, the other girl presumably working that night.  I got no response from her, or from ***e*, and so I left, heartbroken but with my wallet $160 fuller.


Later that evening *******y finally got back to me and basically didn't know what I was talking about.  The next day ***e* got back to me and apologized because she fell asleep in the hotel room.  I still don't know what happened, nor what the plan was.  ***e* said *******y was there to work, but *******y said that she was bringing her kids over to stay for the night.


You know, a part of me thinks this is part of a ruse by, of all people, my parents.  ***e*, or
"***e*," texted me about this party from a brand-new number, but I didn't think anything of it because she changes her number often.  But now I think this was a dummy number set up by my folks because they know that I am a stripper hound.  They wanted to see if I would leave the house or something.  I haven't spoken to either girl yet, after all.  OK, this is a paranoid part of me.  But right now I have no idea what they're cooking up to get me.

Person At Work Pissing Me Off, #3: Chuckles (Scheduled Post)

I feel kind of bad for complaining about this person.  She seems to be a nice person.  But goddammit, she bothers me.

Why?  Once in a while she will chuckle.  All we're doing, as far as I can tell, is reading papers.  I have never laughed out loud at a single essay I've been reading.  Not a one.  And yet she's there chuckling once an hour.  Now she might be doing that whenever she calls over her immediate supervisor.  Once in a while I would look over at her to see what the hell she's laughing about and he's there standing behind her.  Maybe she is laughing at something he said.  But, well, whenever I have my immediate supervisor come look at something alongside me I have never even guffawed, so she's still terribly annoying in that case.

Is she as bad, or offensive, as Mr. Inside Voice or Coughing Fit Man?  No.  Both of them do their things way more often than Chuckles, and they are much, much louder.  But Mr. Inside Voice is in the middle of the room and Coughing Fit Man is near the front of the room.  I'm off to the side, near the back; I can hear both of them, clearly, but they're physically far from me.  But Chuckles is in the row behind me.  So even though her chuckles are quiet, I can hear every single one, clearly.  And the fact that I can hear something so quiet aggravates me even more.  It's like a secret only I can hear, even though I don't want to hear it at all.

Seriously, what the fuck is so funny that she has to laugh like that so goddamn often?  People who work here are weird.

What really gets me now?  I fear coming home.  Right now, I am typing this in the library.  Why?  Well, to blog post my thoughts, for one thing, and I do need to do some things that are better done with the faster connection of a library network.  But I want to forestall coming home and seeing My Fucking Father's fucking face.  He did say that he knew I wasn't going to listen to him, and I'm not.  But there really is no telling what faces me once I get home.  Will he have moved out my stuff?  Will Mother be at the front door with a pamphlet for an apartment she checked out today?  Fuck, I don't know.  And unfortunately, I'll have to find out soon.

Vicious Hand Lovin', I Hope And Presume (Scheduled Post)

After My Fucking Father's latest meltdown on me, I need a good HJ, even though I shouldn't be spending the money I'll need to spend.  But right now all I can think about it is getting the hell out of the house after eating dinner.

That wasn't a problem last (Wednesday) night, when I told my folks I would already be gone for the night.  What I really wanted to do was go down to IKEA and see if there are any boxes I could use (long story).  But at work in afternoon I got a text from, of all people, ***e*, who is expecting.  She's doing a party at a hotel downtown, and she has brought with her *******y, who, with ***e*, double-teamed me so many times ago ... even though the sex session wasn't that great and they were cleaning the house then, which they kind of botched.

Now, I don't have the money, I hate that she told me this the day of, and I am still wary about doing shit at hotels.  But I haven't seen her in a while, and Lord knows I could use the release.  And so, after blog-posting this scheduled for the overnight, I'll go over there and see her for the first time in ages.  Hopefully I won't be meeting the police there too.

P.S.: There are a slew of parties that keep getting scheduled in clumps as well as on the same day.  I should write more about that.  But let's just say that on Wednesday afternoon I was texted two more parties, one on Saturday and one on Friday.  That Friday party falls on the same day as another party I already knew about.  This is getting to be so much that I'm of a mind not to go to any of them.  I could catch a lot of hell for bypassing all of these, especially the one I knew about a week in advance, and instead going to one I heard about mere hours before.  I'll tell them I'm catching up with old friends.  Maybe that'll work.

Oh, Fuck You, Father (I Know I've Used This Title Before; Scheduled Post)

Oh, my fucking God.  I help My Fucking Father decrypt this home insurance claim tonight (well, Tuesday night) and afterwards he just goes off on me, talking about going back to school or finding a job.  And he pulls out the old shit he has about me -- not cleaning my room, waking up in the middle of the night, "not doing a schedule," whatever the fuck that means.  And then he did what I was afraid he'd do, namely passive-aggressively complain about not cleaning up the house when they went to Las Vegas for two weeks.  Man, I know it was too good to be true.

He also bitched about me leaving the house, so what did I do after that?  Leave the house.  I don't give a fuck if he warned me not to.  I had to, after that bullshit coming out of his mouth.  Piss on My Fucking Father, he doesn't live the life I live, and he doesn't have the anxieties I have.  I told Mother I was going to work out.  I should have told her I was going to a bar to get a drink.

Fucking asshole.

Person At Work Pissing Me Off, #2: Coughing Fit Man

This asshole is coughing so much I assumed that he'll keel over and drop dead one of these days.

Old white guy (they always are, aren't they?) has been coughing from Day One.  But this guy's coughs are not just incessant.  They are loud, throaty, guttural belches from the deep recesses of his stomach.  And it's not just one cough; he seems to cough up a lung, then cough up another one, then somehow a third, then finally his bladder before his fit is over.  And it's a series of these silence-shattering coughs every single time, several goddamn times an hour.

I doubt that I am the only one truly pissed about this guy.  I can't believe no one has done anything about this, including Father Time.  Like I said, a guy that coughs this loudly, this violently, this frequently and for this long should be dead by now.

March Madness Anti-Picks -- Round 6

Record, Round 5: 1-1
Overall Record: 20-26-1
Total Outlay, Round 5: $150.00
Total Winnings, Round 5: $190.90
Gain, Round 5: $40.90
Overall Gain: $530.48

You know what?  I feel really good, deeply gratified, that I nailed the South Carolina cover.  The 6 1/2-point spread makes me think that Gonzaga were heavy favorites to crush the Gamecocks.  But even though they pulled it out in the end (thanks to a 7-0 run and a key foul on Sindarius Thornwell when the Bulldogs were up by 3 late), they got within cover by closing a 16-point deficit in the second half with a 16-0 run.  Now, South Carolina didn't make this game close by what I thought they were going to do going in -- rebounding and turnovers, as was their Giant Killers CV going into the tournament.  Actually, looking at the box score, they did induce a dozen turnovers on the Zags while keeping theirs to only five.  But they did get outrebounded, 41-36, and Gonzaga hauled down 31 defensive rebounds while the 'Cocks only came up with 13 offensive rebounds.  Beating a team that's better than you on paper comes down to generating possessions, and South Carolina just didn't get enough to beat Gonzaga Saturday.  That's why I didn't get money on my $50 Moneyline bet.  But due to their offensive prowess, they covered, and since I bet more money that they would cover, I came out ahead for the national semifinals.

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So I have had a successful, albeit fake, run in this year's tournament.  (Wish I could say the same for the two pools I had real money on.)  Just checked the line on tonight's championship game.  North Carolina is a 1 1/2-point favorite over Gonzaga, and the Over/Under is 153.5.

But I'm not going to make a bet on this game.  I don't have a dog in it, and frankly, if I somehow manage to fall asleep before the game starts I'm not going to be too bent out of shape because I didn't think either of these teams were going to make it this far, so who cares?  But this is a good matchup between two #1 seeds who managed to pick their way to five wins, so it should be a good game.  And one that is too close to call.  So if I have an imaginary profit of over $500, thanks to my massive second- and third-round wins, I think I'll walk away a happy man and just enjoy the game.  I think I deserve it.

And for those of you who are betting on it, good luck!

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: United (Last Week: -3).  The thing about playing on average a game a week, like the Vikings do most of the time, is that you can either be unbeaten or winless for the week.  And since I usually compile the survey based on record (most of the time, not always), this team will either be on the top of the list or the bottom.  Well, for a long time it looked like it'll be on the bottom of the list by the way they've been playing.  Plus they are an expansion team, so there should be many weeks where they bring up the trunk of the WMNSS.


Nevertheless, I am going to honor MNUFC by putting them on the top spot (nothing above negative numbers though -- come on) for the week for their historic first-ever victory in top-flight American league soccer, winning last (Saturday) night, 4-2, over struggling Real Salt Lake.  It was really nice and, dare I say, a bit heart-rending to see a club, proud enough to be ashamed over conceding 18 goals and getting manhandled in three awful-looking losses to not only win, but win with some level of ease.  I recorded the end of the match; once the Loons cleared and sent the ball to midfield, the referee looked at his watch, put his whistle to his lips, and once he made it official, I truly felt TCF Bank Stadium breathe a sigh of relief.  I feel good for the guys (and Head Coach Adrian Heath, who was incredibly expressive after the game) celebrating on the pitch.  I feel for us supporters too, even though I see the song that apparently the club is going to play after victories, Oasis' "Wonderwall," in more of an ironic light than a genuine one.


Honestly, I was hoping going into the game that they wouldn't allow more than four goals.  Winning was not even in my mind; competence, especially on D, was what I was hoping for.  RSL sorely tested them, and ... well, I think they were average, maybe a bit below-average, for the game.  But going from crap to that is a hell of an improvement.  Brian Kallman, in particular, was doing work.


Nevertheless I didn't realize how out of sorts Salt Lake City, who canned their Head Coach, had an Interim HC on the pitch while the recently-named new HC (Mike Petke) was only looking from the press box, was.  After the Loons allowed an RSL goal early (again), RSL was all out of sorts, and it was MNUFC pressing for many parts of the game.  And that produced many dividends.  Christian Ramirez braced (meaning he scored twice -- I just learned that term!), the second of which was a howler by Salt Lake Goalkeeper (and USMNT backup) Nick Rimando failing to corral a ball out of the box with his feet.  But I was very impressed by the overall work of Midfielder Kevin Molino, who assisted twice and was chaining up the attack all match.


Again, this came against a Real Salt Lake team that is going through some things.  But hell, a win is a win.  Also, defensive reinforcements came in Friday via a pretty sizable trade and transaction with the Colorado Rapids.  The details are still murky to me, but in short, the Loons traded away Mohammed Saeid, Josh Gatt and an International Spot to the Rapids for MF (and Captain) Sam Cronin and Defender Marc Burch.  This at first seemed like a desperation move, one to put a bandage (if not a tourniquet) on the United defensive backline.  But I then heard that Colorado fans were in an uproar over this.  Turns out the deal can be seen as more equitable.  Minnesota needed the cavalry to come to their D.  What's in it for the Rapids is long-term.  Apparently they have depth and youth in midfield and defense, and moving those two, both of whom are in their thirties, allows them to start playing their youngsters.  If that doesn't work, they can go international for another player from the Loons' International Spot.  Finally, United is apparently paying for much, if not all, of Gatt's contract.  Colorado is looking towards the playoffs, and this move gives them space and money in which to find a missing piece as soon as they figure out what that piece is.


Nevertheless, for United, a not-terrible performance defensively, coupled with two more good players, hopefully ends their terrible form from before Saturday.  We'll see if the side has turned a corner Saturday when they visit Dallas.


#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1).  Without fail, Mother Nature is wreaking havoc with the U.'s schedule.  They beat Kansas in Lawrence, 5-2, Tuesday, but rain cancelled Wednesday's game.  They were then to start a three-game series at Michigan St. Friday, but rain made playing conditions so bad that they decided to play two yesterday (Saturday).  Luckily, however, they won both games, so believe it or not, this team is so far undefeated in Big Ten play at 5-0.  (They are currently leading comfortably in the top of the ninth as of press time; I don't think this game will be completed by the time I finish publish this survey, so the result of Sunday's game will count towards next screening week's survey.)  I don't know if this team will thus be ranked, or even if they're good.  But being undefeated in the B1G is a hell of a lot better than being winless.


This week they open up play at Siebert Field.  There is a single game against North Dakota St. Tuesday, then they host Rutgers for three starting on Friday afternoon.

#-3: Gopher softball (Last Week: -2).  Before heading into this weekend's series versus Illinois in Champaign, they rose to their highest ranking in program history, sixth.  This trio would serve as a test, for the Fighting Illini went into the weekend on a nine-game winning streak, countered by Minnesota's seven-game winning streak.


And it appears as though the Gophers got the better of the Illini.  Sort of.  They won two-of-three, mercy-ruling Illinois in five, 12-0, on Friday and shutting them out today (Sunday), 4-0.  But those two doughnuts sandwich a puzzling 4-3 loss where they leading heading into the bottom of the fifth inning 3-0 and lost in game-ending fashion, 4-3.  And the losing Pitcher was -- egads! Sara Groenewegen.  So they're going to slip out of sixth.  What the hell happened?


This week they finally play at home.  The first foe is South Dakota and they play a doubleheader Tuesday.  This weekend brings Indiana for a three-game set.


#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5).  A 2-1 week where they were finally eliminated from playoff consideration.  The axe officially swung last (Saturday) night, when, for the 20th time this season, the Woofie Dogs led an opponent (Sacramento in this case) by double digits and lost.  Coupled with a win by, uh, Portland, I think, and the Wolves are now out.  They did grind out a victory at Indiana and got revenge from another come-from-ahead loss against the Lakers, but, alas, they'll be sitting home for the postseason.  And I thought they had a chance to win 50 games this year.  They've reached 30, but that's cold comfort.


Britt Robson of MinnPost has been obsessively scrutinizing this squad from the start of the year.  But the most thorough (and frightening) diagnosis of this team comes from Rob Mahoney of SI.com.  He points out that Head Coach and de facto General Manager Tom Thibodeau has done what has to do and played as much of his young talent together as much as possible this year.  The burn and PT are obviously great; the number of wins, not so much.  But Mahoney has gone through the advanced metrics and notes that things simply have not turned around, especially on the defensive end.  The players have showed brilliance, but at other points the Timberpuppies have been very wanting, especially Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins on the defensive end.  What's even more troubling is that, even with the season-ending injury to Zach LaVine, a season's worth of data is good enough to make some solid conclusions.  And if that is the case, all this amassing of talent still isn't good enough to compete in the NBA, let alone win a championship.  If they have sucked this long and still reap results this lackluster, what the fuck do you do now?


They're going to get yet another lottery pick this year, but at some point, just like with the Lynx up until 2011, there has to be enough talent to produce.  At some point you have no choice but to assume that the talent is there and think if the personalities are the problem.  Is it Wiggins, who has been much more deficient on defense than Towns?  Could it be Thibs himself, who has ridden these guys so hard for so long that they've already tuned him out?  Guys, the talent is there to be a good, playoff team.  If not now, when?


The Wolves finish a three-game homestand against Portland on Monday, head off to the Bay Area to face Golden State the next night (huh?), then continue a four-game road trip with a back-to-back against those same Trail Blazers and Utah.

#-5: Wild (Last Week: -4).  Alright, so the Mild locked up (more like backed into) a playoff spot the week before.  But my goddamn, this team still isn't right.  They finished the screening week 1-3, the most foreboding was yesterday (Saturday) afternoon's 3-0 embarrassment at Nashville, the Mild's putative first-round opponent in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  (Aside: The Timberwolves and Wild have played on the same days six times in the past two weeks.  They both lost twice on the same day and won only once on the same day.  Seriously, when both teams lose on the same day/night, it reinforces the feeling that #MinnesotaIsLoservilleUSA.)  I see so many people wearing Wild gear these days.  I was just at Maplewood Mall today, and there were more than one person wearing Wild stuff.  And I'm like, "Why?  They're playing horribly right now and they're going to be one-and-done in the playoffs."  I don't know how this team has captured the imaginations of so many people here.  They suck right now, and it's not getting better.


This is the final week of the regular season, and for the fourth straight week they play a Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule: Home to Colorado and Carolina (the latter in which they will warm up in North Stars jerseys -- YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), then they finish up the regular season at the same Bastard Quebec Nordiques and The Bastard Winnipeg Jets.

#-6: Twins (Re-Entry!).  They don't start the 2017 year until tomorrow (Monday), but already the knives are out.  Sports Illustrated got scouts' takes on each team in Major League Baseball; they granted anonymity in exchange for complete candor.  And uniformly, the scouts say that the Twinks suck and will stink it up this season.  The most ominous comment is the last one: "This team has a chance to be the worst in the league."  You mean for the second year in a row?


But hey, outdoor baseball!

March Madness Anti-Picks -- Round 5

Record, Round 4: 1-1
Overall Record: 19-25-1
Total Outlay, Round 4: $100.00
Total Winnings, Round 4: $95.45
Loss, Round 4: $4.55
Overall Gain: $489.58

First of all, this will be my last time bitching about my bracket.  Going from 13-of-16 to 0-for-4, losing all two key picks late (Wisconsin and Kentucky) will do that to you.  I still am asking myself why in the hell do I continue to think I can actually win money thinking I've got this tournament solved, when I never do?  Hell, I still can't pick the Final Four teams!

Why?  Because when I make fake picks, I do alright.  My second and third rounds were fantastic, which is the reason why I have so much bankroll.  The Regional Finals were a hiccup.  I never should have thought that South Carolina was going to beat Florida by preventing them from scoring; although it is not characteristic of them, the Gamecocks have scored so much that 70 is the fewest number of points they have scored in their four games of The Big Dance.  And while that damn dagger by North Carolina ended any real money I could make, I was still assured that I would win money on the Wildcats +2 1/2.  I lost money in Round 4 only because of the vigorish -- $4.55.

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I don't have to make bets.  If I were in Vegas I had this profit, I would just leave and enjoy the money I made.  But one of the National Semifinals is too good for me to pass up:

1) South Carolina +6 1/2 (One final underdog to play, maybe, because the advanced metrics demand it.  In fact, this particular matchup appears in a recent edition of ESPN The Magazine.  In their annual (and increasingly shrinking) Giant Killers piece, Gonzaga is targeted as the type of team that can be exploited due to its generic nature, specifically their lack of excellence on the glass and when it comes to keeping possession of the ball.  The story names a team that can take advantage of those relative weaknesses: South Carolina.  The Bulldogs are still favored to win, so the Gamecocks will have to get rebounds and turn the ball over in order to win.  But the ability for them to do those two things is there, at least based on the personalities and statistics of the two teams before the tournament.  And I feel as though the Gamecocks are going to pull that off.  So I will bet on this game both Against The Spread ...) $100

2) South Carolina M/L +228 (... and Straight-Up) $50

Good luck!