apple juice

In the first Champions League final televised by a U.S. over-the-air network, Inter followed its semifinal victory over Barcelona with another solid performance.

It was a great game, can’t wait for the world cup to begin. I let Emilia watch some of the game with me, and she was yelling “Kick!” “Goal!” “Big kick!” and cheering whenever they showed the crowd waving their flags and cheering.

Read more here: Champion’s League Final

wait, what? It’s on broadcast television!

1:45pm CDT today on FOX

I’m so excited for the world cup!

MinnPost – Pat Borzi: Twins won’t win championships without more championship players:

“It comes down to this: As a franchise, what do you aspire to be? If ‘world champion’ is your answer, you cannot tolerate or coddle role players who botch bunts, run the bases poorly and miss signs or cutoff men — brainless mistakes that cost you runs, and games, especially against the monsters of the American League East.

The cuddly, underdog designation used to be cute. Now, it’s old and annoying. It’s time to win. The Twins need fewer Muppets and more Huns, and this is the off-season to find them.”

even though it’s the hated and despised white sox… mark buerhle pitched a perfect game yesterday. pretty awesome. and check out this catch made by Dewayne Wise to save the game in the ninth

went to the twins game with matt and madeline, jason and nathan today. first one of the year, it’s hard to believe. i’m so excited about that new stadium, i think it’s just especially hard to head to the dome on such a beautiful night.

the real reason for our attendance though was to celebrate madeline’s visit to mpls and her first twins game. in honor of the occasion, a message was purchased by some stranger friends

great to finally get to a game and enjoy the sights, sounds and tastes of the game. (off my health diet again — it was dollar dog night)

Our first big snowstorm of the year finally arrived yesterday. Apparently, February is our least snowiest month?  I’m pretty sure that’s what Paul Douglas said yesterday, but they don’t keep archives of his sage wisdom over at the Star Tribune.

I love getting out to shovel the snow after a big storm. I take an almost guilty pleasure in suffering and sweating through the shoveling. I think perhaps it has something to do with the driveway at my childhood house. It was enormous! Well, enormous for a 7 year old trying to shovel. In the winter of 1983-84 here in Minneapolis, we received 100" of snow. I was 6 that year. Now we’re lucky to get 20".

February also means baseball. The Star Tribune has stepped into the present with blogs from some of their Twins reporters.

• La Velle E. Neal III – Twins Insider
• Joe Christensen – Around the Majors
• Howard Sinker – A Fan’s View

Baseball is the perfect sport for blogging, and having our local paper do it is even better. Obviously these guys have access and resources that mere mortals could never get, and as Aaron Gleeman said, their blogs will hopefully get filled with the little anecdotes that typically would’ve been tossed out of a story in the paper.

We’re a week in, and so far the writing has been fun and informal. I think the readers already know more about the personalities of the writers and the players than we have in the past. Keep it up!

There are quite a few fan blogs out there, I keep up with a couple of them, I mentioned Aaron Gleeman above. I really enjoy his statistical analysis. There is also Bat Girl, which is funny if you find butt shots and elaborate puppet and lego game reenactments funny. (I do.)

Well, it won’t be long before this snow is a memory and spring is upon us. But for now, I’m going to go out and enjoy it.

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