Holiday Weekend Recap

Edging Ever Onward
The Twins have won seven of their last eight games and have gained two games on the Whine Sox. Cleveland continues to breathe down the Twins' collective neck, holding on just one game behind Minnesota.

Looking Forward
Scott Baker, a hot prospect and brief callup in a bullpen role, will offer the fans a glimpse of the (probable) future tonight as he makes his first major-league start in place of the (literally) stiff-necked Radke.

Lowering the Tone of the ASG
I don't like the All-Star Game. It bills itself as a game between the best players from each league, but invariably it is the most popular or the most recently and spectacularly successful, instead. Large-market teams send flocks of players (of whom few are truly deserving) courtesy of the sheer volume of voters they can command. The tie-game fiasco and the resulting dumb-as-bricks decision to tie home-field advantage in the World Series to the result of the ASG reduced it from farce to fiasco in my eyes. I didn't think it could sink any lower, really. And then they named Kenny Rogers to this year's AL All-Star Team.
Excuse me, does that 20-game suspension for repeatedly assaulting an innocent cameraman not include the All-Star game? 'Cause it should. Especially since "this one counts".