It's World Series time, so let's check out Game 4 of the 1926 World Series - New York Yankees at St. Louis Cardinals.
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Yankees slugger Babe Ruth was the first player in MLB history to hit three home runs in one World Series game.
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Over the past week, GOP Congressman Tom Emmer (MN-06) made headlines in his attempt to become House Speaker, a campaign which ultimately failed.
Then a few days later, Dem Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05) grabbed the spotlight for all the wrong reasons when she was one of 10 House members to vote against a resolution supporting Israel.
Then on Friday, yet another House rep from Minnesota made quite a splash.
Dean Phillips is running for president. If that was supposed to be a secret, the Minnesota Democratic congressman hasn't done the best job keeping it.
A "Dean Phillips for President" van was prominently parked in Concord on Thursday afternoon outside the building where Phillips will have to file for the New Hampshire presidential primary by a Friday deadline.
The vehicle appeared to be the same vintage 1960s "Government Repair Truck" that Phillips has driven around his congressional district for years.
A calendar in the New Hampshire Secretary of State's Office reviewed by the Star Tribune Thursday lists Phillips as set to file for the presidential primary Friday morning.
Phillips posted a statement on Twitter "X" Friday morning.
I am running for President as a Democrat in 2024.
My campaign will be about four main things.
First and foremost, it will be about the economy. We have to make life more affordable for the middle class, which is the issue that voters care about most. We need to bring down the cost of living and make life affordable again.
As part of making life more affordable, we have to celebrate success. America should be the most prosperous country in the world, and we need to be both pro-business and pro-worker to get there.
Second, it will be about safety. If people don’t feel safe in their communities, not much else matters. We have a drug crisis and a mental health crisis in this country; it’s taking a horrible toll on individual as well as their communities. We have to address it.
Third, my campaign will be about the generational change the country wants and policies that invest in our future, our young people.
And finally, it will be about listening to each other to get back to a less divisive political environment. There’s government reform that will help with this too—we need term limits, campaign finance reform, and things like bipartisan cabinets.
I promised my daughters when Trump won in 2016 that I’d stand up and do something about it, so I ran for Congress and am now on my third term.
I didn’t set out to enter this race. But it looks like on our current course, the Democrats will lose and Trump will be our President again. President Biden is a good man and someone I tremendously respect. I understand why other Democrats don’t want to run against him, and why we are here. This is a last-minute campaign, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and courage is an important value to me.
If President Biden is the Democratic nominee, we face an unacceptable risk of Trump being back in the White House. I know this campaign is a long shot, but that is why I think it is important and worth doing.
As I’ve been listening to voters the past few weeks, I’ve been really heartened by the support, and believe we can win both this primary and general election.
People know in their hearts that it’s time for a change. We can do this together. Everyone's Invited!
I continue to maintain that President Biden will not make it to 2024 simply because it's beyond obvious that he is neither physically nor mentally up for a campaign grind. If/when Biden steps aside, will Phillips have gained enough traction to be a suitable replacement? Time will tell.
One area where Phillips will have an undeniable advantage is with the Jewish population, specifically those who vote Democrat. A good number of those voters are becoming disaffected with the Dems' anti-Semitism problem, so much so that they're considering taking their votes elsewhere. Phillips, who himself is a member of the Jewish faith, has been unafraid from the beginning to call out members of his own party who expressed anti-Jewish sentiments. Indeed, this might not even be a salient issue were it not for the raging war in Israel, but here we are.
A majority of voters have expressed their dismay at a potential Biden-Trump rematch, but neither Democrats nor Republicans seems to be willing to move off their guy. However, both parties now have viable alternatives. It's definitely not too late.
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"Lewiston is a special place. It's a close-knit community with a long history of hard work, of persistence, of faith," (Gov. Janet) Mills said. "This city did not deserve this terrible assault on the citizens, on its peace of mind, on its sense of security. No city does, no state, no people, no words can truly or fully measure the grief of Maine people today. Our small state of just 1.3 million people has long been known as one of the safest states in the nation. This attack strikes at the very heart of who we are and the values we hold dear."
For better or worse, I've learned to tune out the gun grabbing ghouls who exploit these awful incidents in an effort to chalk up points for their agenda. Firearms attorney Kostas Moras reacted to prominent anti-gun group Giffords' attempts to politicize this tragedy.
What I resent most about the big gun control groups is that they take away our chance to gather our feelings and mourn in tragedies like this. Instead, we are forced to jump right to defensive posture to stop their ghoulish attacks on a civil right. They don't wait til the bodies are even cold, so neither can we.
Maine is a progun state, true enough. I'm sure they will capitalize on that fact in their upcoming big push to pass gun control in response to the shooting.
But the ideas they will push did not stop recent mass shootings in several of their favored states, including California this year and New York last year. Their platform is snake oil.
They like to accuse us of believing mass shootings are just "acceptable losses" for the right to bear arms.
No. Our rights are not negotiable, but regular mass shootings are unacceptable. Both are true. Do not misinterpret our rejection of gun control authoritarianism as tolerance for this status quo.
If anyone has at all paid attention to what happened in Israel less than three weeks ago, talks of banning any gun sales in the U.S. should be met with righteous mockery and ridicule. This is especially in light of the anti-gun Israeli government taking the steps to arm citizens against imminent terror attacks.
I will say that I find this incident quite concerning in a state like Maine, which is one of half the states in the country which has Constitutional Carry. While Maine citizens still need to pass a background check to obtain a firearm, the arduous process of acquiring a permit is lifted. While I admit I don't have all the facts, I find it difficult to believe that the gunman would have been able to kill and injure dozens of people had just a few folks in the areas where the shootings occurred been exercising their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Now, please don't misconstrue this as "victim blaming." No, I'm intending this as a cautionary tale of how an incident like this can happen even in a seemingly peaceful community. That and the average amount of time it takes first responders to arrive on scene gives a shooter ample time to commit mass casualties. But said casualties could be reduced significantly (if not nullified) if a citizen is carrying.
I've been pretty transparent on this site about my journey to becoming a staunch defender of the 2nd Amendment. As such, I am able to legitimately mourn those senselessly gunned down by a deranged individual while remaining vigilant over my right to defend myself. If anything, awful incidents such as this only fortify my beliefs.
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- Whenever a high profile incident occurs in which "progressives" believe can be used as a cudgel against the political right (i.e. the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA), they'll milk if for all it's worth. Even if right-of-center politicos unequivocally condemn such incidents, proggies will still weaponize them in an attempt to paint all Republicans as enablers.
Since the Hamas terror attack on Israel nearly three weeks ago, the virulent anti-Semitism has been coming from the left. And in what should be a surprise to no one, the left doesn't seem to hold their own to the same standard. Nevertheless, Noah Rothman at National Review correctly points out that thorough condemnations should be handed down.
Democrats must take stock of the challenge the pro-Hamas faction on the frontier of their coalition now represents. Casting this lot off into the wilderness cannot be a passive activity. It won’t be done though inference, by declining to name names and citing no infringing activities in particular. Democrats had the opportunity to throttle the rising antisemitic sentiments in their coalition in their infancy when Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib made it easy. Their routine contraventions of basic standards of decency were condemnable, and they should have been condemned. But a revolt within the party over the discomfort associated with censuring its own scuttled the enterprise, leaving Democrats to endorse a flaccid document that condemned hate in all its forms — not the very specific hate that took one discrete form.
That act of cowardice ensured that the Democrats’ task would be even more difficult the next time they were confronted with the antisemitism in their ranks. If Democrats pass on the opportunity again, the threat will only grow, and the challenge will seem even less surmountable down the road. But there can be no more ignoring this menace. Calling out anti-Jewish hate that manifests today in support for a barbarian horde that massacres women and children is an absolute imperative. It may be difficult. It may irritate the activists in the streets and the ideologues who populate cable-news sets. It may come at the cost of a few political careers. But the time has come for Democrats of good conscience to stand up and be counted. That, or float passively along with the mobs who plague America’s streets.
This is no longer about how "REPUBLICANS POUNCE!!!!" on the Dems' fecklessness here, thus turning it in to an electoral advantage. Truth is, it won't much matter which political party has control if this kind of deplorable rhetoric is not openly abhorred by everyone.
- Mere hours after my Congressman was nominated by a plurality of House Republicans to be Speaker, he declined to move forward with his campaign.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) dropped out of the speaker race just a couple hours after winning the GOP nomination on Tuesday.
The news came after Emmer reportedly walked out of a GOP conference meeting as roughly two dozen Republicans refused to support him and former President Donald Trump unleashed a Truth Social post against his bid for the speakership.
Judge Michael Burns rejected a plea deal Monday that Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s office offered to one of the defendants in the 2019 murder of Steve Markey.
Moriarty announced a plea deal Aug. 4 for 20-year-old Husayn Braveheart, who was 15 in June 2019 when he and Jared Ohsman killed the 39-year-old Markey during an attempted carjacking in Northeast Minneapolis.
Under the deal, Braveheart pled guilty to one count of aiding and abetting second-degree intentional murder. In exchange, he was to serve up to one year in the workhouse and five years of probation with a suspended prison sentence of 21 years, meaning he would have only served time in prison if he violated the terms of his probation.
In a rare move, Burns rejected that deal in court Monday afternoon.
Given that Mr. Burns was appointed to this vacated position by then Gov. Mark Dayton in 2016 and then elected unopposed in 2018, I suspect he's quite liberal. So the fact the even he drew a line in the sand over Moriarty's plea deals would indicate the public and elected officials alike have grown weary of her shenanigans.
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Game 1 of the 2010 National League Division Series - Cincinnati Reds at Philadelphia Phillies.
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When you think postseason no-hitters, Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series is likely the first that comes to mind. But Roy Halladay's gem in that Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS is the only other playoff no-no thrown by one pitcher (In last year's World Series, four Houston Astros pitchers combined to no-hit the Philadelphia Phillies).
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No Vikings today, so hopefully more of y'all can tune in LIVE to my radio show The Closer. The 2-hour festivities get started at 1:00 PM Central Time.
In the first hour I'll discuss the continued depravity that are the anti-Israel sentiments (as well as blatant falsehoods) expressed by some in American media as well as Congress.
At 2:00, prominent 2nd Amendment activist Paige Roux will join the broadcast to discuss her SalemNOW docuseries Reloaded. We'll also chat about other firearms related issues, including her work in making the movement more appealing to Millennials and Gen Z.
So please call (651) 289-4488 if you'd like to weigh in on any of the topics we plan on addressing.
To be honest, I've been thoroughly avoiding the bullsh*t surrounding the U.S. House attempting to elect a new Speaker. Today's Republicans prefer to cause chaos and "own the libs" than to actually engage in substantive policy debates. Problem is they had no "Plan B" once Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted from his role.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) was nominated but dropped out before even a vote was taken, seeing firsthand how too many GOPers had personal agendas.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) endured three different votes (losing ground each round) before dropping his quest for the gavel.
Then on Friday evening, news broke of a familiar name looking to throw his proverbial hat in the ring.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer is the frontrunner in a massive field of candidates for speaker now that the House Republican Conference has ousted Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as their speaker designate.
Emmer nabbed an important endorsement right out of the gate. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy told us Friday afternoon that Emmer is “the right person for the job. He can unite the conference. He understands the dynamics of the conference. He also understands what it takes to win and keep a majority.”
Remember that McCarthy still has a big base of support in the conference.
Given Emmer is my Congressman, it's hard for me to be impartial about this. I've known him since 2010 when he was vying for (and eventually secured) the GOP nomination for MN Governor. He's been my House rep for more than 8-1/2 years and has been one of the most hands-on, engaged members of Congress I've had the pleasure of voting for.
Realistically though, I'm just ready for this nonsense to be over.
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- Those American politicos who identify as "progressive" are some of the most vapid, morally bankrupt individuals in the country. This has never been more apparent than when progs attempt to capture some sort of moral high ground, specifically their attempts to enact a "new tone" in the aftermath of the January 2011 Tucson, AZ shootings or trying to co-opt #MeToo. The motivation behind their actions had nothing to do with being virtuous and everything to do with attempting to politicize the issues against Republicans.
As we're learning in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks on Israelis, there's a significant anti-Semitism streak within today's leftists. And when some of these people are held to account upon letting their bigotry flags fly, suddenly their advocacy for "cancel culture" wanes tremendously. Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review weighs in.
For more than a decade now, our universities, our media, our HR departments, and our celebrities have terrorized us with a bunch of vicious dogmas that, it turns out, they never believed in for a moment. In the name of “diversity” and “inclusion” and “equity” and any other abstract concept that might plausibly be recruited to the obscurantists’ side, Americans were asked to subordinate their freedom, their conversations, and their consciences to the personal preferences of a handful of unelected arbiters of taste. And then, one terrible day in October, a real barbarity was staged, and, within a few hours of the rules being applied to its apologists, the whole enterprise was revealed to be a brittle sham. Who among us could have predicted that?
To be clear: I've often decried "cancel culture" as destructive movement showing an utter lack of grace. That said, there's a significant difference between "canceling" an adult who as a youth years earlier posted objectionable content on Twitter and university students/faculty at best minimizing or at worst justifying an unprovoked terrorist attack on a free country.
- Speaking of attempts to "cancel" someone with whom they disagree.......
Protesters disrupted Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s lecture at the University of Minnesota Law School on Monday.
“Not the court, not the state, the people must decide their fate,” a group of around eight protesters stood and chanted during Coney Barrett’s lecture.
About 10 protesters were removed from the event: pic.twitter.com/zRBgjHpYaM
— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) October 16, 2023
I hope to heck these weren't actual law students protesting. I mean, it's not too much to expect that actual law school attendees would know that "people deciding their fate" is how someone like Amy Coney Barrett attained a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
- While he's been significantly trailing Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has, in my view, run the best campaign of all Republican hopefuls - by setting the standard for competent governance.
The Governor signed an executive order on Thursday that enables the Florida Division of Emergency Management to bring Floridians home and transport supplies out to Israel. They. estimate some 20,000 U.S. citizens, including Floridians, are stranded in Israel.
The executive order directs the Flordia Division of Emergency Management to charter flights for Americans trying to get home. It also states, “There are more than 20,000 Americans, including Floridians in Israel who wish to return home but are unable to do so. The executive order allows the State of Floria to carry out logistical, rescue, and evacuation operations to keep its residents safe.”
After the vicious Hamas massacres last Saturday, Project Dynamo launched “Operation: Promised Land.”
For those who readily dismiss these actions as a mere publicity stunt, I'd suggest you look at the totality of DeSantis' tenure as Florida governor. His rational, calm presence successfully navigated the state through the COVID-19 pandemic as well as swift, efficient rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of multiple hurricanes.
The fact that so many Republicans tie their hopes to a crazed orange loser as opposed to someone who can swat away criticism with substance and decorum shows why the party has suffered "bigly" at the ballot box the past three election cycles.
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Decisive Game 5 of the 2015 American League Division Series - Texas Rangers at Toronto Blue Jays.
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With the score tied at 3 in the bottom of the 7th inning, two outs and two runners on base, Jays' slugger Jose Bautista crushed a Sam Dyson pitch into the left field seats to give the Jays a 6-3 lead. Bautista's reaction after the hit was dubbed "The Bat Flip heard 'round the world."
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It'll be a guest intensive broadcast on today's edition of my radio show The Closer. The 2-hour blitz gets started at 1:00 PM Central Time.
I said prior to this year's MLB postseason that it would be a tremendous burden lifted if my Minnesota Twins could win just one playoff game. Not series, but game. Thankfully that was taken care of Game 1 in the AL Wild Card Series vs. the Toronto Blue Jays. They then exorcised the playoff series demons with a win in Game 2 of that best of three matchup.
While I wasn't overly confident the Twins could topple the defending World Series champion Houston Astros in the Division Series, I felt it would be a good gauge of where the club stands. And after that resounding Game 2 victory in Houston to square the series, my pessimism pivoted to visions of a run to the World Series. But a mere 72 hours after Twins starting pitcher Pablo Lopez's dynamite performance in Game 2, the season ended with a resounding thud. A mere 6 hits and 28 strikeouts (Yup. Twenty Eight strikeouts) in the two home games combined brought those aforementioned visions to a halt. While the Twins finally overcame their postseason doldrums, one persistent flaw remained: the offense being downright...uh....offensive. The six runs they scored in Game 2 of the ALDS was the first time in twenty postseason games they scored more than 5 runs. This year's club had the deepest pitching staff arguably since the 1991 World Series run, and overall they were solid this postseason. However, when your lineup averages 3 runs and 12 strikeouts per game in the playoffs, you're not gonna win a lotta series even if you have a modern day 1-2 punch of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale.
So can this "run" be considered a stepping stone to something greater? Time will tell. But Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic believes a deeper run in future postseasons is absolutely plausible now that certain mental obstacles have been cleared.
(The Twins have) won in October, and they’ve given their fans some of the highs and lows that come with experiencing playoff baseball with your mind open and your guard down. There’s no longer reason to assume they can’t do it — and even more — again next season, which is such an essential part of fandom that Twins supporters had been deprived of completely.
“It was awesome,” Joe Ryan said. “The regular season feels like, I mean, I don’t want to discredit the big leagues or anything, but it just feels like a wash at this point, once you make the postseason. Like, this is what it’s all about. I think everyone’s energy is reignited and feels great and this is where you want to play the whole time. You just want to get back.”
Now that only losing in the playoffs is no longer inevitable, it’s safe to dream of winning. Games, series and even championships. That belief is the lifeblood of sports fandom, and now it’s flowing again through Twins fans’ veins thanks to López, Julien, Royce Lewis, Carlos Correa, Jhoan Duran and other players who showed that the October lights don’t always have to be too bright.
“The team is hungry in a way that I don’t think we probably even were before,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You get a taste of something like this, you show this to people, what this looks like, what it is. We’re not that far from playing in the World Series.”
Exactly how far away is certainly up for debate. There will be plenty of time to analyze and discuss what comes next for the Twins. For now, though, the most valuable development from the 2023 season might have been changing what a modern Twins fan believes is possible in October and ending the soul-crushing notion that everything should be viewed through the lens of playoff ineptitude.
Despite the Twins' ineptitude in Games 3 and 4 of the ALDS, Target Field was filled beyond capacity with fans ready to believe again. Though the home crowd had very little to cheer about in those two games, I'm told the atmosphere inside the stadium was absolutely electric. Also, the first year of significant rule changes (i.e. a pitch clock and no more infield shifts) dramatically reduced game times to where fans started to show up to the ballpark again. MLB has been woefully behind the NFL and NBA in marketing to fans that diehards like myself feared the sport was dying. But not only has it come back, there's a chance it's appealing to a younger generation.
All those factors would suggest that the future is bright for the Minnesota Twins franchise as well as Major League Baseball.
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Like many Americans, I'm deeply disturbed and just flat out aggrieved over the accounts/images/videos emerging from Israel. It's been less than a week since Hamas sprung a surprise attack on the country, yet the carnage Israelis have suffered has been on par with multiple 9/11s if you consider the per capita death toll. As such, the Israeli government is gearing up for full scale war, one which they have no intention of losing.
Conventional wisdom says there really shouldn't be a lotta moral confusion over this one. Terrorists allegedly backed by a collection (i.e. Iranian mullahs) whose long stated goal has been to wipe Israel off the map would make it quite plain which side has the moral high ground.
But when a certain collective (**koff** The "Squad" **koff**) is so deeply rooted in the worldview of being anti-Israel, they can't even bring themselves to state the obvious that Israeli citizens being kidnapped, battered and murdered is utterly abhorrent.
Heck, even a normally gaslighting, demagogic Biden spokeswoman called them out.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre turned up the heat on members of the far-left "Squad" during Tuesday's press briefing, blasting their comments on the war between Israel and Hamas as "wrong," "repugnant," and "disgraceful."
"I've seen some of those statements this weekend, and we're going to continue to be very clear. We believe they're wrong, we believe they're repugnant, and we believe they're disgraceful," Jean-Pierre said when asked for the administration's reaction to comments made by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo.
"Our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds, hundreds of Israelis. There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here. There are not two sides," she added.
Here in Minnesota, Democrat leadership is in damage control mode upon some of their political allies clearly staking out the anti-Israel position.
"From the river to the sea" is a chant used by extremists to support the destruction of Israel. It is appalling to embrace this rhetoric in this statement, which also doesn't even acknowledge the slaughter of Israeli & American civilians. This is disgusting @TwinCitiesDSA. https://t.co/bb5V4XB5cS
— Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) October 10, 2023
FYI, all Minneapolis City Council seats are up for election next month. It's more than plausible that the majority of that body could be comprised of members backed by the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America).
Sadly, there are self-proclaimed righties who have been conspicuous with their silence over what has occurred in Israel. Erick Erickson noticed this, too.
The antisemitism of the progressive movement is extreme and disgusting. Pay attention to that.
But also pay attention to how silent people like Candace Owens have been. She’s routinely dabbled in questionable views of both Israel and Jews. Her Twitter feed is rather quiet right now as conservatives unite to support Israel. She’s mostly resorted to just retweeting others who themselves want Israeli restraint.
For a woman of strong opinions, those of you on the right should note just how quiet she is.
And then you should look at Andrew Tate, who is fully pro-Hamas and anti-Israel. You should consider that this is not a new view of his, but it is now more notable given Hamas’s atrocities.
You should remember who platformed him, who elevated him, and who thought he was a voice of reason and sanity and you should walk away from them and him.
Or consider Nick Fuentes and how many in the conservative movement once embraced him and how some still do.
Friends, the left’s antisemitism is loud and proud at this moment. But what is equally loud is the silence of some on the right who are antisemites and silent now about these atrocities. Their silence is damning. It’s not just those above, but many others.
I don't deny that there are Palestinian residents who are innocent and thus want nothing to do with a brutal war about to take place. My heart breaks at the thought that they will be caught in the literal crossfire of this conflict, resulting in even more senseless casualties. But I do I know that if Palestinian-backed Hamas were to engage in an immediate cease fire, this war would be over. But they won't for the simple reason that mutually assured destruction seems to be more a goal than an unfortunate circumstance of full scale war.
All that said, if I were to believe God's Word (and I do), Israel will be just fine.
Zechariah 12:1-5 pic.twitter.com/r87lRJuhdh
— Brad Carlson (@Brad_Carlson) October 7, 2023
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Game 1 of the 1997 American League Division Series - Cleveland Indians at New York Yankees.
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Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera notched his first ever postseason save in this game. It was the first of a whopping 42, a record not likely to ever be broken.
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The (college) kids are not alright.
A new poll from the Buckley Institute surveyed students at four-year colleges—and the results are deeply alarming. Young Americans are turning their backs on basic American principles of free speech, tolerance, and due process, in a way that's so drastic it genuinely endangers the future of our political order. And this disintegration is only accelerating.
The Buckley Institute has conducted this poll for nine years, yet this year, for the first time ever, more students support shouting down speakers they disagree with than oppose this kind of mob censorship. In another first, a whopping 51 percent of students support speech codes, a drastic shift from last year, when a plurality opposed speech codes.
What's more, 46 percent of students now believe that "offensive" opinions should get other students reported to the university administration. Oh, and more than 50 percent of students literally believe certain topics should be "banned" from being debated on campus.
There's also an alarming violent twist to the censoriousness rising among Gen Z college students. A whopping 45 percent of students told pollsters it is justified to use physical violence to prevent people from expressing "hate speech" or making "racially charged comments." This radical, un-American idea is only becoming more popular: Back in 2017, for example, only 30 percent of students supported this same proposition.
See the pattern yet?
Indeed I do.
Today's young adults have been convinced that they are under zero obligation to be exposed to a worldview or basic ideals that may fly in the face of their deeply held beliefs. As such, it's inevitable one's intellect will atrophy when it's never used to form a rebuttal to rhetoric which they find objectionable. Why I'm old enough to remember when students were willing participants in spirited debates with their college professors, an exercise the profs themselves welcomed. Not only did such discourse assist in the learning process, it was invaluable in helping students form their worldview. This idea that today's college kids will tuck tail and run to an administrator at even the slightest perception of a "microagression" doesn't bode well for America's standing on a world stage over the next several decades.
In short, we've expedited the notion that the movie Idiocracy is actually a documentary.
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It was 19 years ago on this date that the Minnesota Twins last won a postseason game.....until this past Tuesday.
It was 21 years ago tomorrow that the Minnesota Twins last won a postseason series.....until yesterday.
With a two-game sweep over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Wildcard Series, the Twins move on to the ALDS against the defending champion Houston Astros. Game One will take place this Saturday. And the way this Twins club has been rolling since early September (they lost only one series in the final month of the regular season), it's not outlandish to suggest that they can win this series.
I'm old enough to remember the magical run of the 1987 World Series champion Twins and how the lack of expectations were something they fed off. I mean, they limped into the ALCS that year with a paltry 85 wins against a juggernaut Detroit Tigers club who won 98 games. Nevertheless, the Twins obliterated the Tigers 4 games to 1 in what longtime Twin Cities sports scribe (and uber baseball fan) Patrick Reusse has described as the franchise's most dominant postseason performance in their history.
I know the Twins have played just two games thus far this postseason, but early on I'm getting the same vibes I felt back in '87. And it's hard to ignore some of the parallels.
In 1987, Twins third baseman Gary Gaetti homered in his first two postseason plate appearances.
Couldn’t have asked for better results here, Royce. 😍#WeBelieveinTC pic.twitter.com/NGL7q4RZiI
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) October 4, 2023
Now, let's talk potential series pivoting moments. In the 1987 ALCS, the Twins squandered a golden opportunity to go up 3-0 in the series when Detroit's Pat Sheridan slugged a 2-run home run in the bottom of the 8th inning in Game 3 to give the Tigers a 7-6 lead. They'd go on to win the game by that same score.
Our own version of Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) October 4, 2023
(tag, you’re out!) pic.twitter.com/jrPLVmT5zb
Blue Jays slugger Bo Bichette, who had already collected four hits in the first 1-1/2 games of the series, was at the plate when that play occurred. As a base runner you just can't take that big a lead when one of your top hitters is up and is the go-ahead run. Instead the Twins got through the fifth still up 2-0, which ended up being the final score, thus capping the sweep.
Am I saying this year's Twins team is destined to a make run similar to their 1987 counterparts? Again, we're only two games into this postseason, so a larger sample size is in order. But with both the playoff game and postseason series losing streaks behind them, the Twins' focus can completely shift to this year's quest. And the best part? The team which dealt the Twins 13 of their 18 consecutive playoff losses will pose absolutely no threat in this year's postseason. That alone should be cause for some calm in the midst of tense October baseball.
Buckle up!
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Not only did the Twins snap the 18 game postseason losing streak... they are now one win away from their first postseason series victory since 2002! Enjoy the final call from @CoryProvus... @Twins go for the sweep tomorrow afternoon! pic.twitter.com/p89XVjk63S
— TwinsRadio (@TwinsRadio) October 4, 2023
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I'm gonna say that this generation of Twins fans have their own version of Kirby Puckett in the person of Royce Lewis.
Welcome to the Land of 10,000 Rakes. 🎣🎣 #WeBelieveinTC pic.twitter.com/S6yZF97skG
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) October 3, 2023
Royce is thriving. 😍#WeBelieveinTC pic.twitter.com/46mVsLguHW
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) October 3, 2023
Just a little trivia: Lewis is the third player in MLB history to homer in his first two postseason plate appearances. The other two were the Twins' Gary Gaetti in 1987 and Tampa Bay Rays' third baseman Evan Longoria in 2008. FYI, both those players' respective teams made it to the World Series.
Given he missed the final two weeks of the regular season with a pulled hamstring, Lewis was far from a certainty to be ready for the playoffs. To give the Twins an early jolt seemed to help them settle in the rest of the way.
Having witnessed the entirety of this losing streak, I've learned to never be overconfident at any point. Heck, even cautious optimism can be a stretch. But I will say that I began to have a pretty good feeling about Game 1 when the Twins official Twitter "X" account posted this about four hours before first pitch:
🇻🇪🇻🇪🇻🇪 pic.twitter.com/7K0YNJrN0D
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) October 3, 2023
That's Game 1 starting pitcher Pablo Lopez donning the jersey of his boyhood idol (and fellow Venezuelan) Johan Santana, who was the winning pitcher the last time the Twins won a playoff game prior to Tuesday. I can't explain the vibes that gave off, but it felt as though there was a wink from the proverbial baseball gods as if to say everything would be alright.
Now that talk of the longest playoff losing streak in the history of North American professional sports is over, how 'bout the boys get focused on winning their first postseason series since the 2002 ALDS? And who better for the Twins to have start Game 2 than Sonny Gray as he opposes former Twin Jose Berrios? If we remember anything about Berrios in his tenure with the Twins, he had a tendency to get a little too amped up in big games to the point where he got knocked around pretty good. It would go a long way if the Twins can put up a crooked number early, especially with Gray having sported the second best ERA in the American League this season.
Keep it rollin', boys!
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We just completed the final weekend of the MLB regular season, so let's take a look back at the next to last day of the 2003 campaign.
Minnesota Twins at Detroit Tigers - September 27, 2003.
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A couple things this game. First, the Tigers avoided the record for most losses in a regular season (120, set by the 1962 New York Mets) with the win (they would also prevail the next day to finish 2003 at 43-119). And secondly, it was the final game in the 25-year career of lefty reliever Jesse Orosco. In fact, Orosco's final career pitch resulted in a swinging strikeout of Tigers batter Warren Morris. However, the ball got by the catcher which allowed the winning run to score from third base. Basically, Orosco's career ended on a "walk off wild pitch."
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It's October already?!?!? We'll get the fourth quarter of 2023 started off right with today's edition of my radio show The Closer. The 2-hour bonanza gets started at 1:00 PM Central Time.
In the first hour I'll discuss the latest in the 2024 presidential race. It would appear American voters are making a suicide pact since we look to be going down the road of another Biden-Trump matchup.
Then in the 2:00 hour, I welcome to the broadcast Jaime Kokaisel, Anthony Mahmood and Ryan Clarke, all three of whom are running for school board in the South Washington County district.
So please call (651) 289-4488 if you'd like to weigh in on any of the topics we plan on addressing.