Twins fans have fond memories of Lohs-hie, from going beserk with a bat on Gardy's office door to calling out Michael Cuddyer every time he misplayed a ball and *allegedly* cost Lohse a win.

We miss him!

Somewhere Gardy is cackling...

Will someone please restore some sanity - no, make that INTEGRITY - to organized sports?

Teaches a great lesson to all the youth that look up to star athletes - tell bald face lies with a straight face, even make tearful, angry denials and sue Conte for $25 million, but if and when you get caught, play the ignorance card and cut a plea deal.

What next?

GAME OF SHADOWS talked more about Track & Field almost than Bonds, and now I know why - the entire thing is crooked & everybody cheats.

R.I.P., Integrity in Sports.

Oh well, at least we still have honest politicians leading our country...

P.S. Go Rockies - I'm on the bandwagon officially!

Anyway it's time to show my true colors as the fan of the underdog and root on the high-flyin' Colorado Rockies. I've long admired Todd Helton's play at first base and I'm glad he at least will get a one-game taste of October baseball - hopefully more.

This was one of the best late Septembers in recent MLB memory, at least from the NL point of view. I still know almost zero about the D-Backs, Padres and Rockies, with all of them being on the Left Coast, so I'll be interested to see how they do in the postseason.

I can't stand big market teams - blame it on my Minny-sota roots! - so I'll be firmly rooting against the Yankees & Red Sox (though I'm sure FOX won't!). I'd love to see the Cubs make it to the World Series, if nothing else so the media can drag out all those Bartman clips and stories. Where is he these days anyway? Witness Protection? Poor guy.

I like Cleveland to get to the Series thanks to the 1-2 punch of C.C. and Carmona - they tortured our beloved Twins all season long.

From the NL, who knows? I'll be rooting Cubs or Rockies (if they make it through today) but really I'd even be happy to see Philly get there too - their fans have suffered forever.

On a side note, Bob Costas broke some news last night on NBC's Sunday Night Football telecast, pointing out that Philadelphia's fans once booed Santa Claus. (Is that the most overused reference of all time or what?)

Tradition continues here in 2007. Our 1 year old Alex makes it part of his morning routine to wait until his older brother (3 year old Jacob) is all settled in at the breakfast table and watching PBS Kids, and then Alex waltzes over to the TV and turns it off. He then stands there as his elder sibling goes bonkers, screaming "Turn it on! Turn it on!" And I swear Alex gets this little, taunting smile of satisfaction at driving his brother crazy.

The fact that 10 million votes were cast around the issue, and that this was the consensus, says all we need to know about how the public feels about Barry.

I'm beginning to wonder if the Rockies' recent tear here in September has more to do with Todd Helton's fierce facial hair than anything else. ;)

As a Twins backer I could only dream of a lineup where multiple hitters can top 30 homers and 100 RBI in the same season.

Also I love seeing the Little Team That Could rise up and make a run, a la the '87 Twins and countless other underdogs over the years.

So go Rockies! I don't know who any of your starting pitchers - or relievers - are, but you hate an awesome lineup of mashers and hitters going good, and hope it carries you into the postseason!

Here are some more pictures - these are from Gooseberry State Park, a really popular one up in northern Minnesota (about 2.5 hours north of the Twin Cities). It is amazing scenery and hikes.

You see, we talk about "Flashbulb" memories, and for me the O.J. Verdict is definitely one. So...

Do you remember where you were when the:
1. Space shuttle Challenger blew up in 1986?
2. O.J. Verdict was read in 1995?
3. Planes hit on 9/11/2001?

I was:
1. In the basement of St. Rose of Lima school in a 5th grade classroom - the principal (Mr. Skinner) came on over the intercom and announced it.
2. Dazed and confused after just waking up (I had been up until 2 a.m. or so putting our college paper - The Aquin - to bed), I was walking down the stairs of a two-story home at 1865 Grand Avenue when Joe Serrano - one of my college roommates - started yelling at the TV.
3. Eating a bowl of Cheerios and reading the sports page when my wife told me to come upstairs.

Also, do we really WANT to know if players are cheating? I remember when Big Mac did his 70 thing in 1998 w/Sosa and the AP reporter snooped in his locker and found Andro and we (the sporting public) more or less wanted it to go away so we could watch the Great HR Chase of '98.

Just thinking out loud...

Terry Ryan has always been a tough nut to crack - he would have made a good CIA operative during the Cold War, he's so good and not tipping his hand.

But this is no question a huge blow to the Twins, who have built their entire being on having the best scouting and player development system in MLB. The Twins are almost always exclusively home grown in terms of top talent, and then when those guys get too good at the MLB level Pohlad cuts 'em loose. And more up-and-coming young players come in to fill those spots.

Ryan has been the mastermind behind it all and he's also the guy who was savvy enough to add Johan Santana as a Rule V pick, and to ship AJ to the Giants for Joe Nathan, Boof and Francisco Liriano.

We'll miss him, that's for dang sure.

I'm curious to find out why Ryan is quitting his post, though. I'll find out soon enough - apparently there is a 2 p.m. Central press conference.

Keillor is a fascinating guy and one of the greatest storytellers alive right now. During the interview I asked him how he comes up with all his Lake Wobegone stories and he started riffing on a desk in his office:

"All of the stories come out of some little germ of real life. You don’t really need much at all. I mean here’s a desk, which is a piece of carpentry that was made for me by a cabinet maker in New York City. I even now forget his name. He made it in a shop down on the lower East Side and he delivered it to me in 1989. So this is going on 20 years for this for this old desk. And then a row of drawers on the back of it. You could make a story out of this in Lake Wobegone. Somebody who works with wood made this, and like most people who work with wood, this person would be a mystery to others. I just think that’s one of the greatest gifts, to be able to make things out of wood. My father was very good with his hands. He would have admired this desk. He would have looked at it, looked at the underside of it, and seen how it was put together. Somehow there’s a story in this piece of furniture."

Keillor's voice is mesmerizing, and that is why listening to him talk about a piece of furniture is fascinating.

The full story isn't coming out until November and I'll update this space when it does with links/etc.

Meantime you can check out some audio I gathered during the interview. It features GK talking about his life, faith and more and is on my "Faith & Fastballs" page at my web site.

My favorite clip would have to be the story of how Keillor tried to use an unfinished novel as collateral to secure a bank loan. If that loan officer would have only known!

Last thing, and this is for my good friend Dave Bateson, a huge fan of Keillor's politics. Here's GK's take on several political figures, past and present:

"Paul Wellstone was a wrestler and he had the body of a wrestler. He was always bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. I used to run into him in the airport sometimes. And he would see me coming and he’d come towards me, bouncing up and down. And he would be poking at me with his index finger. And he always had something urgent he wanted to tell you. I admired that in him. I also admired the fact that when he went into restaurants, he always went into the kitchen and shook hands with the people who cooked the meals and the dishwashers."

"George W. Bush – I think of Amherst and Yale and I think of a young man who felt so terribly out of place in both places. And who suffered through his adolescense and his college years. He really was an unhappy young man at Yale. Surrounded by all those very vocal, articulate, left wing people. Terribly, terribly unhappy there. And I feel sorry for him."

"Barak Obama – the great white hope, really. The great white hope of liberals. The wish that this man would turn out to be somebody. So many people just are not sure yet, but they really want him to succeed. They’re waiting and hoping. And in the meantime he’s running a very credible, remarkable, respectable campaign for president. For a first-term senator from Illinois without much of a record it’s pretty amazing."

"Jesse Ventura has gone off into retirement. One hears different stories about him. But he has sort of disappeared. And I feel sorry about him. I think he could have turned into a remarkable populist governor of Minnesota. But he was much too thin skinned. He was his own worst enemy, as he himself said. He made good appointments as commissioners and so forth. Nobody really disagrees with that. he was a lot better than people expected, and he wasn’t quite as good as he could have been."

This week I played back an interview I did with Herm for Faith & Fastballs on KTIS AM radio.

It's easy to want to root for somebody like Herm Edwards because after talking with him you realize he knows what really matters during our time here on this planet.