August 10, 2014. No, I dunno why it’s mostly dark. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) Getty Images
Weather: Poifect! Party cloudy, 78°
Opponent’s SB site: Purple RowTV: Twins TV. Radio: head sang “Fake Plastic Trees” and I like it
Tonight’s Rockies starter is Tomoyuki Sugano, who, as you can guess from the name, is not Swedish. A six-time All-Star with the Yomiuri Giants, he was eligible to play for an American team in 2020, but none wanted him. So Sugano re-signed with the Giants for a few more years, before playing for the Orioles last season and having a so-so 4.64 ERA (it’s at 4.31 this year). He throws a low-90s fastball and sinker/shuuto, plus a cutter, slider and split. It’s his offspeed stuff that’s best.
I’ve always thought of the Rockies as one of our sister teams, like the Mets. With the Mets, it’s because they came into the league one year after the Twins came here, and while they’ve had some stirring championship seasons, they’re generally overshadowed by their Bronx neighbors. (I mean, they spend a ton of money now, so that might change, but historically, the Mets were usually underdogs.)
With the Rockies, it’s because Coors Field is a popular road trip / short(ish) flight destination for visiting Twins fans, and a number of well-liked Twins have played for the Rockies. Take this bunch, from 2014: Jason Pridie, Matt Belisle, and Wilin Rosario.
OK, Pridie only played for the Twins in 11 games from 2008-2009, Matt Belisle managed to have a 9.13 ERA for the Twins in 2018, and Rosario (no relation to Eddie) never played with the Twins at all. But, for some reason, his BRef page has him in a Twins cap. He did play for Rochester in 2019, so presumably he was an invite to spring training that year. But why not have him in a Rockies hat? He was with the team for five seasons. Got fourth place in ROY voting in 2012. Huh. He was actually quite solid his one year in Rochester, too, with a .843 OPS. But, if you’ll remember, that year, the Twins were actually pretty good, and maybe didn’t have room on the roster for a gritty backup September guy. Who knows?
Anyways, I kid, I kid, the ex-Twins Rockies we all love are Michael Cuddyer, LaTroy Hawkins, and Justin Morneau, all of who were with the team in 2014. And all of whom had decent seasons. It didn’t help the Rockies any; they went 66-96 (while the Twins went 70-92). But they still drew the fifth-biggest crowd in the National League. (We were eighth-biggest in the AL.)
Maybe the Rockies’ ability to consistently draw huge crowds (partly because they’re the only MLB team in their geographical vicinity) makes them virtually the one American professional sports team that isn’t constantly gouging taxpayers for more money by threatening to leave. Their stadium lease runs until 2047. In 2017, the Rockies got a land deal to develop some property next to the stadium. In return, they re-upped the lease. So far, so customary. (Neil deMause, as always, has the details.)
But here’s the weird part; the Rockies didn’t ask to be given the land for cheap/free, or to pay no property taxes on it — that’s how these things usually go. They’re actually paying fair market value for the property, and they do pay property taxes on it. What the heck?
It’s possible the Rockies owners, the Monfort brothers (who inherited their dad’s meatpacking fortune) are simply happy to have ENOUGH money, and don’t feel the need to play “who’s got the biggest, hairiest luxury boxes” with all the other sports owners. I mean, it is possible that non-horrible rich people might, in theory, conceivably exist.
But, nah. I’m just guessing their business people went into negotiations in an Altered State and weren’t exactly thinking clearly. They were, shall we say…
Also, since 2017, they have mostly hovered around the middle of MLB in spending (although payroll dropped some in 2025 and dropped a ton this year). So, for the most part, the team hasn’t reacted to their “aah we coulda got so much more free money if we’d played hardball” situation by totally dumping on salaries. Maybe they are, now? I duuno.
Of course, the team’s also mostly stunk for the majority of its existence, and hasn’t won a real playoff game since 2009 (if you don’t count the expanded wild-card rounds as real playoff games, and I don’t). But the Twins have only won one such game since 2004, so we’re mostly in the same boat.
Finally, a story about a Willful Hound…
We do a fair amount of dogsitting. Mrs. James loves dogs, and I don’t mind ‘em. She’d prefer to own one, and I wouldn’t, so the compromise is we do monthly (or so) dogsitting.
As dog owners/lovers know, each dog has its own personality and own challenges. The dog we were sitting last week is extremely friendly to humans, and tolerates other dogs, so those aren’t problems.
The only problems are with what it likes to eat (a common challenge with dogs). This one likes to eat under-ripe fruits, like the raspberries and apples we currently have in the backyard. If she gets to eat a ton of these, she will have bad doggarrhea, so we don’t let her do it.
Sometimes, when she indicates she wants to go outside, it’s to tinkle or poop. Sometimes, it’s just to eat unripe fruit. You have to keep an eye on this.
By the end of this last 10-day stay, she’d fallen into a nice pattern. After dark, when Mrs. James is asleep and I’m winding my night down by watching a movie in the basement or reading and having some beers, the dog stays upstairs. When I go upstairs to use the restroom, I ask the dog if it wants to go outside. And if it does, it tinkles/poops and comes right back in. No problems!
But, things got weird Saturday night. I was downstairs watching a movie, and the dog actually came downstairs. Huh. That’s new. If it wanted to sit on a chair or something in the same room, that’s fine.
Nope, it was whining at me. So I went upstairs and let it outside. It went straight for the unripe fruit. I brought it inside, and went back downstairs.
Ten minutes later — same thing. It came downstairs, whined, I let it out, it tried to eat fruit. Ten minutes again — same thing.
Then, ten minutes after that, it came downstairs and just stared silently at me. “What?”, I asked.
Still staring at me, it squatted down and took a big ol’ giant dump on the basement floor.
I was thinking how to respond, kinda taken aback by surprise, when the dog then promptly turned around and gobbled up all the poop. Slurp slurp slurp! Then took one more look at me, then went upstairs, and that was that. No more contact for the rest of that night.
Now, some dog training experts like Steve Mann will tell you how a dog always/only reacts to stimuli and impulse. How, as this The Guardian article says, “‘Your dog is never “ignoring” you or “doing it on purpose.”’
I dunno. It felt very much like this dog was sending me a pretty direct message.
But, otherwise, this is a very nice dog.
