Six Very Important Things this morning 9.02.2010

Can I tell you guys something?  I'm really tired.  See, when you have one kid, a baby, say, you can just sleep whenever that kid is asleep.  Babies need to be fed every 3 hours or so, which means they are up at all times of night, but you can just feed the kid, put it back to sleep, and then sleep yourself if need be.  Easy peasy.  But when you have a 2.5 year old on top of that, even one as awesome as Wonderbaby, that doesn't work because when the baby is alseep during the day, the toddler isn't.  And toddler's need attention.  Lots of it.   And they aren't afraid to demand it.   And you can try to ignore them, but when they realize they aren't getting the attention they want by asking for it they start doing things like writing on the wall in crayon or hitting the baby with a toy hammer until you look at them.  Because much like Paris Hilton a toddler believes that any attention is good attention, even when it's bad attention.  So yeah. 

I'm back at work, so this doesn't affect me as much as Mrs. W since I do most of my dealing with Baby Benny in the evenings or at night, but his curious habit of refusing to go to sleep after I get up to feed him at 5:30am is not exactly helpful to my brain waves.  Although I have ended up watching more Saved by the Bell lately.  That Zack, what a character!

Also let's hope that's the last time I compared Wonderbaby to Paris Hilton.  On to the important stuff, assuming I don't pass out.

1.  The Twins won another squeaker.  This time it was in the 10th and off the bat of Danny Valencia, in a game that ended up spoiling incredible pitching efforts from both Francisco Liriano and Max Scherzer.  Liriano pitched seven innings of shutout ball only to watch Crain and Guerrier blow his lead, while Scherzer was even more brilliant, throwing nine innings of four-hit ball, allowing just one run while striking out nine.  Not much more to follow up on with this one.  Just an all around amazingly pitched game, where the smallest error was going to make the difference.  The difference last night was that the Tigers' closer of the future is not the reliever of the present, and the Twins' third baseman of the future is suddenly the third baseman of right now.  Danny Valencia has been everything you could have hoped for and more.  Ideally he'll develop more power down the line, but I have no complaints right now.  Except for the fact that the Twins can't seem to pull away from Chicago.

2.  The god damn Indian bullpen is not helping things.  You know what would be super helpful to the Twins winning the division?  If the White Sox would freaking lose, but they can't lose because the Cleveland bullpen is even worse than Chicago's own bullpen (and that's saying a lot).  Carlos Carrasco, in his first start of the year and sixth all-time, put together a very solid outing and left in the 8th with a 4-2 lead.  Then Justin Germano conspires against me, giving up a monstrosity of a 3-run home run to Paul Konerko and the Sox win the stupid game.  This comes after the Cleveland pen gave up a 3-run game winner to Pierzynski the night before, and two nights after they let the Sox score four runs in the 11th inning to lose.  I would have guaranteed you Chicago had the worst bullpen in the division, but looks like it's not even close.  This is like being sure Jaws IV:  The Revenge is the worst movie of all-time, and then seeing Rudy.   

4.   Some people really like Rodney Williams.  According to the article from DraftExpress, Rodney is the #1 NBA prospect in the Big Ten.  Wow.  That is a huge statement, but in a lot of ways it makes sense.  There's is no doubt in my mind that he is the best athlete in the conference, and, as Shawn Respert or Ed O'Bannon will tell you, skill only get you so far.  To succeed in the NBA you need that kind of athleticism (yes, there are plenty of exceptions, but it's a good guideline).   As you'd guess, this lofty ranking of Williams is based on potential, much as expectations of the Gopher faithful are, because aside from the noted athleticism he didn't show all that much last year. 

Now, Tubby's system probably isn't the best for a player like Rodney (can you imagine him in an open offense like Washington or something), but I do believe he will be given every opportunity to improve where he needs to (ball-handling, mid-range game) and at the same time be able to use the skills he already has (jumping, dunking) and could very well end up as an unstoppable force, but I'd say it's up to him.  The potential is there, but will he end up as the next Scottie Pippen?  Scottie Hopson?  Travarus Bennett?  Jermaine Stanford?  Let's hope we at least get the next Vincent Grier, at a minimum, or someone failed.

4.  This leaked all day, but it's now official.  The Big Ten announced the division splits as they'll breakdown when Nebraska joins in 2011:  the Gophers, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, Michigan, and Michigan State in one with Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin in the other.  Each school will also have a dedicated rival in the other division they will play each year, with Minnesota matching up against Wisconsin and, of course, Michigan/Ohio State hooking up every year.  It was also announced that the division names would be announced at a later date, and with the way the teams are broken up I don't really see how they could do geographic names, so maybe it will be legends of the Big Ten.  Like the Bo and Woody divisions, or the Foggie and Fleetwood.  Thompson and Darkins?

And although this is mostly about football so that's what's being focused on, but if they keep the division system (no guarantee) there is some interesting things at work here.  In the Gophers' division, they'd be the second or third best program from a historical perspective, and the clear #2 from a "recent history" perspective.  The division would also have the current three worst programs, and two of three perennial doormats (with apologies to Northwestern who admittedly are much better lately).  Basically it stacks up heavily in the Gophers' favor and should make NCAA bids easier to come by in the future if they go with this (and lord knows the Gophers need the help).  Since the division are so skewed when it comes to hoops, with one loaded and one crappy, I doubt they'll adopt the system, but we can always hope.  Hey, a bid is a bid, no matter what kind of breaks the schedule gives you.  And I'm only referring to basketball there, not football, Mr. Music City Bowl.

5.  Hopefully this will surpass the Gopher scandal.  You know how whenever there is ever any kind of academic fraud at an institution of higher learning, whether rumored or proven, the article always has to bring up the Clem Haskins frame job as the "worst ever example of academic fraud"?  Well North Carolina and Butch Davis are doing their best to get the Gophers knocked out of that top spot, with the latest allegations that Davis's nanny or former tutor (depending on the report, and either way it sounds like porn) was writing papers for the football team.  And there's definitely something here, because apparently the entire starting defense was playing with the scout team at practice today, and the Russ Archambeau of this situation, D-lineman Marvin Austin, has been suspended indefinitely along with a couple other starters, and a starting cornerback has been kicked off the team.

I say he's the Russ Archambeau because he's the one who tipped off the NCAA, but unlike Swift Bird, who was just a whiny bitch with a grudge, Austin is just an idiot with a Twitter account who posted pictures of a brand new fancy watch, fancy pants douche sunglasses, and talked about bottle service at clubs.  Not a big deal for a college kid, but for a future NFL player still in college whose other tweets talk about how broke he is, it drew the eye of the NCAA Fascists and has turned into possibly the biggest academic fraud ever.

And thank god.  I'm sick of seeing the Gophers mentioned over and over whenever anything like this happens.  I hope that nanny tutor school girl nurse lifeguard wrote every paper for every sport at UNC for the last five years. 

6.  College Football starts tonight.  You are probably aware, seeing as how your beloved Gophers are traveling to Murfreesboro, TN to take on the hated Blue Raiders of Middle Tennessee State.  If you recall, your favorite football team was a 4.5 point underdog to this Sun Belt Juggernaut, but then stud QB and sweet name haver Dwight Dasher was ruled ineligible, and now the Gophers are a 2.5 point favorite.  Does this seem fishy to anybody else?  I was lead to believe in the very little reading I did on the game that Dasher was a super stud of Major Harris proportions and the main/only reason MTSU was a dangerous team.  Yet the line only moved to 2.5 in Minnesota's favor, which probably means the game is actually a pick 'em.  Which means the Gophers are dead.  D-E-A-D.  You heard it here first.

If you're looking for a preview of the game, you're in the wrong place, but let me recommend the always outstanding Daily Gopher, who you probably read anyway and who recently absorbed the Gopher Football blog.  There is more info there about the Gophers and MTSU and Gophers vs. MTSU than any sane person could possibly want or need.

More importantly, the Gopher basketball team begins their Canadian trip tonight, and you can watch the game on the web at SportsCanada.tv.  I'm going to try, but no promises.  Stupid wiener kids.


Well that certainly was a lot of words.  Apparently not writing often enough just causes some sort of word backup, so when I do write it all just comes pouring out.  Like that pipe full of crap that Andy Dufresne burst open with that rock.

And yes, I'm serious, Rudy is the worst movie of all-time.  If you disagree, you are a sentimental idiot who probably loved The Notebook as well.