Swinging Bunts: Four out of Six

I have been spending a lot of time recently looking at newspaper reports from the 1920’s, and have to say that they really don’t make baseball writing like they used to. Here’s my Twins recap in the style of a 1920’s sportswriter:

TWINS FINAL GAME 5-3; TAKE 2 OF 3 FROM A GAME TEXAS TEAM; WILL COME HOME TOMORROW

Morneau’s Homerun in Third Helps Team

Twirler Bonser earns Third Victory with Win

Nathan Fans Mighty Sosa with Winning Run at the Plate in Final Inning

ARLINGTON, May 23 - Gardenhire’s men are at a time in the schedule when they need to win, and they fought valiantly in the ball game today to earn a 5-3 victory. At the end of the day, it came down to the bat of the mighty Sosa, who came to the plate against Nathan with two men on and two out in the bottom of the penultimate inning. The cheers in Texas were quited by Nathan, who fooled the slugger with a dancing slider, causing Sosa to take a gargantuan swing that hit only air, as the ball had sailed safely into the glove of the catcher.

The day started well for the local boys, who tallied five runs in the first four frames against Texas twirlers Tejada and Wilson. It was in the third when MVP Morneau’s prized bat smote Texas for the slugger’s 14th round tripper of the year, a pill that has yet to find land.

I don’t think I would cut it in 1920.

In all seriousness, it is good to see the Twins winning series again. Hopefully this will continue, particularly with the return of Joe Mauer looming.

One concern I have with this team moving forward, however, is the bullpen. It’s all fine and good to put your starters on a strict 100-pitch count when you have an all-world bullpen; but when your relief corps is only four deep due to injuries, it would be a nice to be able stretch the starters a bit. This is particularly true given that two of the five starters are prone to have very short outings on occasion.

The reason that I have been spending so much time in the NYT and Sporting News archives is for this very blog. Next week is “1924″ week here at CW. You won’t get any more of my attempts at capturing the verbose goodness of old sports writers. What you will find, starting tomorrow, is a recap of every game of the ‘24 series, plus several other posts themed around the franchise’s first World Championship team. It has been a lot of fun to research and write about a team that featured future Hall of Famers Walter Johnson, Goose Goslin, Sam Rice, and Bucky Harris; hopefully it will be as interesting to readers.

MLB released the 2007 post season schedule, and there are some major changes this year. Due to more off-days in between series, and one odd day added between games 4 and 5 of the LCS’s, the seventh game of the World Series is scheduled for November 1. I like the 162-game schedule, but if television is going to keep pushing the World Series later and later, I think it may be time for MLB to take a look at cutting back a bit, maybe back to the pre-1961 154-game schedule. I would prefer to wipe out the entire first round of the playoffs, but I am in the minority on that issue.

A great way to cut the games from the schedule would be to get rid of inter-league play. The idea seems to have run its course. I have tolerated it for several years based on baseball’s claim that it bumped attendance. A recent article in the Baseball Research Journal by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer, however, indicates that the percieved attendance spike created by inter-league play is actually a mirage, and, at this point, brings very few to the ballpark who would not have come otherwise.

Lest I sound too much like a traditionalist, I feel it fair to point out that I actually like the designated-hitter rule.

If you haven’t had a chance, make sure to check out the relatively new blog at TwinsCards.com. Aside from posts by an author familiar to CW readers, there is some fun material related to card collecting (particularly mistakes made on cards), and trivia!

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend (and check back for the first few games of the 1924 World Series)!