“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right
to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

- George Orwell

Tonight my thoughts are turning to violence.

No, not that I desire to wreak any such thing on anyone, it's just that there seems to be so much of it in the air. I mean, you've got Ben talking about being in tune with his Spidey-senses and calculating the most destructive way out of the scenario if the Girl Scouts in front of him on the street turn out to be a ninja hit squad in disguise (must be the weight-lifting and all the red meat he's eating); you've got Gino talking about he and his sister standing back to back to teach some rowdies a lesson; and you've got KingDavid in turn reminiscing over getting his own adolescent male ya-yas out and ending up in the principal's office.

I'm not dismayed or appalled. In fact, it all reminds me of a lesson my father taught me when he said, "You don't have to win, but you do have to fight."

And then I laugh as I remember the time somebody, and I can't remember who, thought it was a good idea to give my brother and I boxing gloves for Christmas when I was in my early teens. These weren't the big, pillowy 16-oz. gloves, either, where you had a better chance of suffocating from a punch in the face as being knocked out. No, these were 8-oz. demolition specials of bright red leather, packing a little padding and quite a wallop over the knuckles. I'm sure they were probably banned from toy stores about the same time as Jarts.

In those days we lived in a neighborhood full of boys and we marked the passing seasons by the games we played. Football in the fall, basketball all winter long (shoveling the snow off the asphalt driveways and turning our hands black in the dribbling), baseball or some mischief in the summer. One summer day of boredom and too many boys we remembered the gloves. Tired of whacking one another around, my brother and I brought them out for the group. It was actually pretty structured. We marked out the corners of the "ring" with lawn chairs in our back yard and matched opponents up by age and weight class. I was far from being the most graceful or athletic but I had a simple yet effective style: absorb the incoming shots as I waded into range and then, Whammo! The matches usually didn't last very long.

One of the younger boys, a wiry and athletic sort who was one of the fastest runners in the neighborhood, and also the biggest trash talker, was offended by my pugilistic style, or lack thereof. His name was Albert. He may have preferred just "Al" or "Bert" but he was the type where we just had to hang the full name on him. Anyway, his own matches in his "weight class" were marked by fancy footwork and flashy flurries, and he'd roll his eyes at me from the sidelines and talk about the "sweet science" as I'd stagger another opponent. He kept talking about how useless I'd be against someone who knew what they were doing. I suggested that, perhaps, he was thinking of himself? He said that, well, as a matter of fact, yes.

"Oh, come off it, Albert. I've got two years and 25 pounds on you."

"But you're slow. You'd never touch me."

And so it was on. Albert laced up and started circling, jumping in and out, throwing leather into my shoulders, or glancing off the top of my head. I turned as well, tracking him like the turret of a battleship surrounded by torpedo planes. A couple of my left jabs came back empty, touching only his laughter. He came in again, and this time I timed it and decided to see how the right hand might fare. Fairly well, actually, as my straight overhand going out met his forehead square as it was coming in. I could almost hear for myself the pinball bells that started ringing inside his head. His forward progress immediately reversed and he was flat on his back, somewhere in the middle of next week. And he wasn't moving.

Ho. Ly. Crap.

Nothing to do for it in that case but to invoke the Diety, or in this case, my mom. Actually, both of my parents were home at the time and my brother ran in and brought them out, no doubt trying to gasp out the hyperventilated words, "boxing", "Albert", "dead", and "It wasn't my fault." They came out briskly and with concern as Albert started to regain what little sense he had before he challenged me. I thought we were all going to get yelled at, but instead my parents were very concerned and solicitous of young Albert, touching his head, patting his shoulders, asking if he was all right, even bringing him a cold glass of lemonade. I'm sure they were thinking thoughts like, "We are going to be so sued," and "I'm going to bury those boxing gloves, preferably with my kid still in them."

Albert revived, and the last thing he wanted to do was let his parents know what happened. Actually, as far as he was concerned, the fewer people who learned what had happened the better. I like to think that it somehow made him a bit wiser, though he continued to be pretty much the same obnoxious kid as our sports seasons continued to turn. Maybe, just maybe though, it was a lesson that took a little time to reach the surface.

It was a valuable part of my education, I know that. Those scrambling episodes in boyhood gave me some useful and — in the grand scheme — not too painful lessons. I learned that life sometimes comes at you pretty fast, and that you're going to have to take some shots, but if you keep your feet and keep moving in you're eventually going to get your chance.

And when you do — Whammo!

A group of us from church got together this morning for something we consider pretty sacred: target shooting. There were about a dozen of us that showed up over the course of the morning and early afternoon and we rented 3 lanes. I got to shoot my pastor's semi-automatic, my brother-in-law's target pistol and a couple of .22 bolt-actions, one with a scope. I didn't bring my rifle because I was dropping my truck off at Tires Plus for an oil change on the way and I didn't want to wait around in their parking lot holding a gun while waiting for my ride in these oh-so-sensitive days.

I hadn't been shooting for a couple of years so I was looking forward to it. When I first got into a lane today I opened the rifle case and started to load the magazine with longs. I'm always pretty careful and intent when I'm handling live ammunition, especially with a gun I'm not familiar with. I'd carefully thumbed about three shells into the clip when the guy in the lane next to me, unseen behind the partition, suddenly opened up with a Desert Eagle, with about the same feel and effect on me as if I'd had defibulator paddles placed on my chest. After double-checking the status of my peewadding and that I hadn't just blown my hand off, I took a cleansing breath and finished my task, ready to make a little noise of my own. Sure, the little snapping sound of the .22 following the Desert Eagle was like a chihuahua yipping after the mastiff had walked well down the street, but it was still fun.

My first grouping was fairly close together but high and left; after a few adjustments I started working my way into the black. One of the young men in our group had the same rifle, but with a scope on it. "A scope?" I asked. "I suppose you take cream in your coffee, too." Nevertheless, I had to give it a try. I ran the target out to 50 feet and the guy told me I needed to aim just a little left of the bullseye. I did a few of these and saw that the gun actually was shooting true, so I adjusted. After reeling the target back in I was told that the young man was shooting from 25 feet, not 50. Since the pre-printed targets on that sheet were already pretty perforated, we stuck a black dot on the lower part of the sheet between two previous targets. This dot had a yellow film inside that would show up when it was hit. I ran the target out to 25 feet, looked through the scope fired another 10 shots, working the bolt between each. Here's the result:



Their are nine holes in the dot and one down below. (The larger target directly above is the one I shot at from 50 feet). Okay, so it was only 25 feet and with a scope. If someone were to break into my home with malicious intent and stood still 25 feet in front of me, he'd be in trouble.

I moved down to the pistol lanes, and that was a lot of fun. That darn bullseye can be pretty elusive with a handgun, but one of the fathers there and I had a pretty good competition going. I was kind of handicapped while going through one magazine, though. There was a guy in the lane next to me with a 9mm semi-automatic who was practicing for his Conceal and Carry permit, and I kept getting hit in the head with his spent cartridges as they ejected out of his gun. Call it battle conditions, I guess.

It was amazing at how quickly we disposed of about 1000 rounds of ammunition (I bought 200 rounds myself for the people who's guns I used). It was, literally, a blast. I can't wait to get out again. Maybe we'll even challenge another church to a little contest!

It so happens that I have recently become a VIP to The Wilds Golf Club, earning me and a guest an invitation to play in their special VIP outing. Now it gets your attention to be told that you are a VIP, but what really perked my interest was that the golf would be free, and that they were going to feed me as well.

In addition, the invitation came a few weeks ago when Minnesota was still clutched in the icy grip of a relentless winter, so the thought of spring and the opportunity to play free golf at a very nice club on April 28 was impossible to decline.

Then April 28 dawned this morning with Minnesota still clutched in the icy grip of a relentless winter.

"High today of 42 degrees, with winds 10 to 15 mph out of the north, present temperature 32," said the guy on the radio this morning. I can't even begin to spell the sound I made when I heard that, but FREE GOLF is FREE GOLF, no matter what it costs so I layered up, eschewed my typical broad-brimmed straw hat in favor of a woolen cabby, grabbed my clubs and a handful of Heat-Pak pocket warmers and set off for Prior Lake.

Arriving at The Wilds I changed into my golf shoes, first shaking the sand out of them from the three days of golf I endured in Arizona back in March. (I was striking the ball well for the most part those days, but had trouble getting the ball to stop in the green places where I wanted it to stop. After rolling into about my 90th sandtrap my partner commiserated, saying, "It's target golf." I muttered something about having a WalMart game.)

Arizona was literally and metaphorically miles away as I leaned into the wind walking toward the driving range to "warm up" — all the while hoping that I wouldn't have the opportunity to accidentally touch my tongue to the steel shafts of my irons. I had on thick socks (inside my golf shoes), long pants, a golf shirt, a long-sleeved, high-collared golf sweater, a mid-weight jacket, a golf glove and my leather winter gloves. I distributed heat-paks to the rest of my foursome and put one pak in my right coat pocket. That felt so good. In these conditions it's also important to keep your balls warm, so I considered unzipping my golf bag and putting a pak in the golf ball pocket. One good thing, I realized, about playing in weather like today is that I wouldn't have to expose my fingers unnecessarily to pluck grass and toss it into the air to determine wind direction; today I merely needed to look up and make note of which direction the snow flurries were heading.

With such extra protection and unexpected advantages we actually weren't too uncomfortable, though as we stood on one tee-box exposed to the wind whipping across Mystic Lake I suddenly heard Gordon Lightfoot in my head singing about the gales of November. Given the conditions, we actually played better than I would have expected even if the weather had been ideal. We were playing a Scramble and our group managed a very respectable 3-under for the 18 with only one bogey. We also finished in a very brisk 4 hours, mainly because we certainly weren't spending a lot of time lining up putts. Not bad at all.

I wish I could say it was due to superior ball striking, but the reality was that while the weather may have been against us, fortune was with us for the most part. The shot of the day came when we faced a 140 yard shot, to a green below our feet, from a downhill lie in the short rough. My usual playing partner led off and skulled an 8-iron that skidded down the slope, disappeared into a gully between us and the green...and then reappeared a few moments later climbing up out of the gully and onto the green before staggering, exhausted, to a stop six feet from the flag. It was a canny shot that expertly took the wind out of play. We happily converted for another birdie.

Now that I'm back safe at home and feeling has returned to my fingertips as I type, I am eager to play again and I can't wait for summer. I hear it's going to be on a Thursday this year!

Ben, the Mall Diva and I doubled up with two victories at Keegan's tonight, scoring an amazing 47 out of 50 points in the two games including a perfect 25 for 25 in the second game.

In the first game our team name was, appropriately, Victory Pants. The second game we went with one of the Diva's off-the-wall concoctions: Belgian Underwinks. We more appropriately could have been called Deja Vu All Over Again, and not just because we won for the second time that night. We aced it because Terry Keegan read the exact same quiz as he did in game 2 back on April 3. We won with 22 points that time; this time it was merely a matter of remembering the answers to the three questions we missed the first time around. (Hey, it's still trivia knowledge - there's no rule about how you learned that trivia in the first place!)

I may seem a bit distracted the next few days. You see, I've got a large LCD TV. I've got HD. I've got DirectTV. And I've got an itchy trigger-thumb on my remote.

DirectTV is featuring four full-time channels devoted to the Masters the next four days. One channel is dedicated to the main broadcast feed of the tournament; a second channel to the day's highlights. A third channel is devoted exclusively to "Amen Corner" while the fourth focuses solely on Holes 15 and 16. In case I can't decide which one to watch, I can WATCH ALL FOUR AT THE SAME TIME on one screen, plus have access to several interactive features that will let me pull up additional information!

Let it snow all weekend, I don't care.

This weekend was the first one since the Super Bowl where I had the opportunity or inclination to park my butt in front of the TV to watch some sports. My butt didn't necessarily stay there, though.

Friday night, for example, I didn't turn the set on until pretty late in the evening. I did some quick channel-surfing and came across the Big Ten channel with six minutes left in the Gophers-Indiana game in the Big Ten Men's Tournament. I hadn't watched much of the Gophs this season, but I knew the names of the players and that senior center Spencer Tollackson was out of the game with a sprained ankle. Given the team's history in recent years and the fact they were missing their big man, I was surprised to see that the Gophers were leading. Not-so-surprisingly, they went into epileptic chicken mode, letting the Hoosiers hang around and eventually take the lead with 1.5 seconds left. The way they put Indiana at the foul-line twice with less than five seconds left was shocking only if you hadn't once watched the football team mishandle a punt snap a couple of years ago to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the closing seconds of a conference game.

Friday night, anyway, I had noticed that freshman shooting specialist and ESPY-winner (for famously hitting a last-second, game-winning shot from the seat of his pants in high school) Blake Hoffarber wasn't in the game. Not having followed the team closely I didn't know if it was because of other deficiencies in his game, but when Tubby Smith called timeout and sent Hoffarber in with less than two seconds left I figured there was no way you could ask the kid to come off the bench cold and take a shot to win the game. Absurd. So there I was, sprawled on the couch as the long throw-in crossed mid-court and went into a tangle of arms and bodies, only to deflect into Hoffarber's hands with just enough time for him to turn and shot-put a left-handed shot at the rim — where it disappeared along with the breath of every Hoosier fan in the Fieldhouse. As for myself, I found myself totally and automatically levitated from the couch while a loud "D'oh!" was yanked uncontrollably from my lips. It was a magical and exciting moment and I had witnessed it with my own eyes!

Then this afternoon I turned on Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Invitational shortly after Tiger Woods had separated himself from the other leaders on the front nine. I stuck with the event through the afternoon as Tiger looked as if he was going to run away with it until he inexplicably took a page from my game and three-putted from six feet on number 10. The rest of the tournament was tense as several people stayed in contention until finally a relatively unknown pro forged a tie with the Great One and headed for the scorer's tent as Tiger prepared to assault Bay Hill's challenging finishing hole, ultimately leaving himself with a 25-foot downhill slider of a putt to win the tournament. This time I was on the edge of the couch, both feet on the floor, elbows on knees, leaning forward toward the set as the putt started on its long, slow, curving patch before dropping into the cup in much the same way my briefcase hits the floor when I come home from a long day's work.

Rather than levitating, however, I flopped backwards, hands on my forehead at what I'd just seen, nearly unnerved by the fact that someone like Tiger Woods now strides the earth.

For all the excesses and scandals in pro and "amateur" sports these days that can leave you jaded, it's great to not only remember but experience the sheer drama and unscripted displays of skill and will that ultimately make our games so compelling.

As I noted last week, I was playing in the championship game for my fantasy football league, and that following the game I would be retiring from this pastime.

My toughest lineup decision going into the game was whether to start LenDale White or Brandon Jacobs to complement Ryan Grant (and who would ever have imagined that sentence back on draft night in August?). The fact that I was in the championship game itself could almost qualify for "News of the Weird" since my first three draft picks (picking 9th in a 10-man league) had been Travis Henry, Steve Smith and Jacobs; people who follow the fantasy game will know that this was not an auspicious beginning considering the way season played out. I felt a certain sentimentality toward Jacobs because I had predicted such great things for him at the beginning of the year, but I thought I detected a true death stink over the Giants team and feared he might go down the tubes with his squad, so I started White. And then Jacobs scored 18 points in our scoring format, sitting on my bench. This type of thing is one of the interesting agonies of playing this game and, perhaps, one of the quandaries I will not miss.

I thought it would be an ironic farewell to the game if I lost, but it turned out that my opponents (a two-owner team) were "enjoying" those interesting agonies in spades, as nearly every lineup move they made — based on solid reason and intuition (and pretty much the same moves I would have made)— blew up in their faces. My seven starters, even without Jacobs, scored 59 points. Their six "bench" players totaled 61, while their starters managed just 29.

I could say, "I love it when a plan comes together," but it's more of a sense of relief than sweet victory. I retire now with back-to-back championships under my belt, some satisfaction, and a healthy curiousity as to what comes next.

I started playing Fantasy Football in 1984, back when Cliff Charpentier's fantasy season preview was the Bible of preparation, even though it was little more than a compilation of players ranked by the previous season's statistics. We tried to track our scores from tantalizing snippets on the evening news and had to run outside early Monday morning to grab the newspaper in order to check the box-scores by hand to find out if we'd won or lost. Walter Payton was my first-ever first-round draft pick and I finished out of the money that year.

Things have changed a lot since then. Fantasy Football is a billion dollar business and every channel with a football game but Fox runs continuous individual player stat lines across the bottom of the screen to help you keep track. Not that it's necessary, because there are multiple services and websites that keep score in real time and I merely have to look over my shoulder at my computer screen to check the score of my fantasy game while I'm watching a real game. Oh, and for the third time in the last four years, my team is playing in my league's Fantasy Bowl this weekend (as I write this I'm already down 12-0 since my opponent had Ben Roethlisberger playing Thursday night).

Win or lose, this is also going to be my last game.

It's not that I've grown bored with my success or with the game. For the last 23 years I've been in at least one league every year, and often as the Commissioner. To some extent it's been a year-round hobby as I've tried to stay on top of off-season moves and their implications and overall it's been an interesting and often passionate pastime. I've always enjoyed the combination of luck and skill required to build a winning record: the pre-draft preparation and hunches on who were going to be the best players in the coming year, the way the best-laid plans could be thrown out the window by capricious injuries, and how you had to hustle to come up with alternate plans and players as a result. This year, however, it has all been more of a chore for me than entertainment.

To some extent it may be due to those nagging distractions called "life" getting in the way. My personal life has had a fair amount of tumult since last spring that left me with relatively little free time to dwell on football, and little inclination to do so when I could have. I think the biggest issue, however, has become the carnage on the field.

As I said, luck and injuries were a wild card in every season and something you simply expected (hoping that it wouldn't happen to your team) and accepted as part of the randomness that made the game entertaining. Somewhere along the line, however, it started to work on me that these injuries weren't just an inconvenience I had to work around, but something tangible, painful and even devastating to the real person involved. Not that the existence of fantasy football contributed to these injuries in any way, but it started to bother me that this was my "entertainment."

Strangely enough, the turning point wasn't a football injury. Last summer when pro wrestler Chris Benoit killed his family and himself there was a lot written about the wrestling culture and steroids and about how many wrestlers had died young or had serious personal problems. There was a lot of media hand-wringing about who was to blame — the promoters, the personality types drawn to being wrestlers, the lifestyle, etc. No one seemed to touch on what seemed to me to be the obvious: if people weren't paying out big money to watch the shows, go to the events and buy the merchandise then there wouldn't be the incentive for the performers to try to make a name and physique for themselves, travel 300 days a year and resort to drugs to buid themselves up and to ease or mask the pain and debilitations that came from being a human torpedo. As I self-righteously scoffed at wrestling fans for being enablers I had a chilling revelation of my own fandom.

No, it isn't fantasy football that's driving young men to seek fame and fortune in exchange for their bodies in the NFL (speaking as one who gave up a knee playing the game for free), but my attitude has shifted and I don't know if will ever go back. I still enjoy watching the game and the big hits, but I can feel myself pulling back.

I made my "retirement" announcement to my league at the end of our regular season, before our play-offs, so the rest of the owners can start thinking about finding a replacement Commissioner now, when the season is at it's peak, and not in the dog days of summer. I received a very gratifying email from one of the owners thanking me for the entertainment value I brought to the league (via weekly game summaries) and asking me to reconsider. In the message he said my passion and commitment would be missed and couldn't be duplicated. I told him that I thought the passion and commitment may very well be duplicated by someone else — I just knew that I couldn't duplicate it any longer, and that was the surest sign that it was time to hang it up.

It's been a bit odd going through these final weeks as I've advanced through the play-offs. I've caught myself filing away mental notes about players for next year out of habit before realizing, wryly, there won't be a next year. Oh well, wish me luck this weekend! I've got a 12-point deficit to make up and a decision to make of which two players to start between Ryan Grant, LenDale White and Brandon Jacobs, all while praying for good weather in New England so Randy Moss can catch three touchdown passes.

Other than that, it's back to reality.

Torii Hunter is gone and Johan Santana's bags, while they aren't packed, have been brought up from the basement. As a Twins fan I should be sad but, while I'll miss the lads, I think the Twins are doing the right thing. The market is speaking and you don't have to be clairvoyant to get the message. The Twins have no business paying the kind of money these players can command - not now, and not even three years from now when the new stadium opens.

This is not a case of large market vs. small market. At least, not in any way that implies there's a kind of balance between the number of teams on each side of that equation. This is huge market vs. everyone else and there are only a couple of teams that can handle the kind of dollars we're talking about. Without going to Forbes magazine, or looking up TV contracts, I'd hazard that less than a handful of teams have the revenue to pay top dollar and beyond that has been established for the elite players.

Think of it, before last season the Red Sox paid some $52 million to Dice-K's Japanese League team just to get the young man out of his contract; after that they still had to pay him another $50 mil or so. There were teams last year who's entire payroll didn't approach $50 million. I'd like to think someone in Massachusetts rubbed his neck pretty hard before writing those checks, but the Red Sox did win the World Series. Ask their accountants, not me, if it was worth it.

And ask the Yankees front office now if they'd wished they'd gone a little higher in the bidding.

"If you haven't hunted man, you haven't hunted."
— Jesse Ventura

I breathed in deeply, imagining I could catch the invigorating smell of napalm in the morning. All I got was dank musk of the forest floor, the scent of plastic and the stench of someone else's sweat from the borrowed helmet. And besides, it was late afternoon. My very own sweat was running into my eyes while swatches of sunlight and shadow cut across my vision as I scanned slowly through the leaves and branches that masked my position. Moving only my head, the light glared off of the pits and scratches in my visor and made the shadows seem even deeper as my eyes probed, alert for any sign of danger or opportunity, for any movement of branch or leaf not consistent with the slight breeze tickling through the oppressive valley. I cradled the gun in my arms and flexed my firing hand to keep it from cramping. I knew someone was out there. Someone who wanted to hurt me.

"But not if I see you first," I thought.

Earlier in the day I had set out on a recon mission, moving along the trail in unfamiliar territory as my footfalls competed with my heart beat to see which could pound louder in my ears. The trail was clear. The trail was easy. "The trail is death," I thought to myself. "The trail is the way the fat, stupid animals go and the strong, clever animals wait out of sight beside it and take the easy pickings."

Picking your way through the branches and brambles, with the cockleburs clotting on your clothing, is hard. Life is hard. Learn to move through the forest and you might live. It's a game really, like a snipe hunt. Except it's not snipe, it's snipers, and they really are out there. Is that sweat trickling along my spine or is it the prickly sensation of an unseen gun barrel drawing down on my back?

The first time I was shot wasn't so bad, really. Everything was fine until the moment of sudden impact. "What? Me? Now? So soon?" flashed across my mind, but there was no denying the thick, viscous liquid that came dripping down my visor. I had reached up with my hand, brought it away wet and slick, the goo the consistency of a bird dropping. And it was yellow. Dammit, it must have been Ben who got me, and I was dead — at least until that round of Paintball was finished, anyway. Then I could seek my revenge. That opportunity had come about an hour later when I had Ben pinned down behind a curved metal barrier. I was to his left at an extreme angle that barely allowed me to see him, but enough so I could pump round after round past the edge of the barricade, so close to him that a deep breath on his part would have ended it, yet he held his breath and his unlikely position, unable to return fire. I fired three more quick shots to keep him still and then rose slightly to move to my right to get a finishing angle. Then came the all too familiar whack on my skull as the ball exploded on my scalp, a jet of orange paint shooting through my hair, dispensed by a shooter from across the field. Another important lesson learned: use your head, or someone else will...for target practice!


The Orange Badge of Courage. The paintball struck just above the curve of the hairline.

This time, however, I can make no mistakes. I am the left flank of the line, the end. I am Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine at Little Round Top. If I fall, if they get by me, the bad guys roll into our rear, capture the flag and it's over. My eyes continue to scan the area in front of me. About 30 yards away is a wooden barricade, set between some trees, surrounded by brush. I have already swept it several times. This time a black paint hopper and barrel are sticking up above the edge of the barrier. That wasn't there before! I bring up my gun, let out my breath slightly and wait. As the head inevitably comes up over the wall I pour about half a gallon of paint into the area; had I the time and the inclination I could have tattooed my initials into the wood. Instead I focus on keeping the unknown head down so he can't get an aimed shot off at me. More paintballs are coming at me from my right now, but the angle isn't good and the brush around me too thick to permit a serious threat. I fire some suppressing rounds in that general direction while keeping my eye on the original target, hoping he will take the opportunity to show himself. He does; I add another coat to the primer already laid down. I'm aware of activity to my right, but from my side of the lines, then some shooting moving away from me and then the cry — "The game is over!"

While things had heated up by me, Kevin had grabbed the flag and gone forward, sweeping up the right flank and planting it in the enemy base while my two shooters focused on me. One of these was the Mall Diva. A third sniper, Tiger Lilly, meanwhile, had been waiting on the edge of the action, also focusing on me. "Ooh, Dad, if you had only come forward three more feet I would have had you," she said. "Yeah," I thought to myself, "and if fish had feet they'd be mice."

Maybe next time, kid.

I'm playing in a certain golf tournament tomorrow with fellow MOB bloggers and some Comment Trolls. The summer-long hype and trash talk leading up to this event has been intense and it might seem fitting for me at this point to regale you with tales of my greatest rounds and most spectacular shots. I don't want to put myself in the running for the Spotty, however, and I'm afraid that if I did it also might induce King to move the betting line in the wrong direction.

Instead of telling you of the Bunyanesque drives that split the fairway like lightning bolts, or pin-rattling five-irons, or those wedge shots that landed on the green like a butterfly with sore feet I thought I'd regale those of you still reading with some of my less than stellar (but no less memorable) moments and galactic blunders that have caused me to adopt the nickname "O.B. Juan".

And no, I'm not counting the time my clubs were stolen before I even got to the first tee.

Here's a story that might explain a lot: my wife and I were playing with another couple that are friends of ours and on one hole my approach shot to the green was long and to the left, going behind a stand of small spruce that bordered a road. The other guy was maybe 40 yards in front of the green and while he figured out his approach shot I made my way behind the trees to see if my shot had stayed in play or gone into the road. After a few minutes I found my ball and stepped out from behind a six-foot evergreen to see if I had a line to the flag. Unfortunately that was right at the time my friend literally "skulled" a wedge, sending his ball on cruise missile trajectory that neatly bisected my eyebrows. Fortunately I was wearing a new, crushable straw hat that absorbed much of the impact, though I was left with 14 dimple-shaped blood drops in a round formation on my forehead. I had my revenge, though: the rest of the day every time my friend lined up a putt I'd say something like, "Why is it suddenly getting so dark?" or "Grandpa, is that you?"

My commentary around the greens has been a problem other times, too. Once I was playing in a 4-man scramble where my team was trailing the leaders by one stroke with two holes to play. We had a 25-foot putt for birdie that we all looked over carefully before our first guy stepped up to try the putt. He eyed the line carefully, and in a dead serious tone said, "I am aiming six inches left of the hole." There was something about the tension and the way his voice sounded that reminded me of one of those movies where someone has to defuse a bomb. I suddenly heard myself saying, in the same tone of voice as my friend, "I am cutting the blue wire." The putter froze, and it was deathly silent for about two seconds. Then his forearms started to shake, and then his whole body and then we all started laughing so hard we had tears coming out of our eyes. The worst part was that none of us could stand over the putt without starting to laugh all over again. It was the kind of laughter like you try to suppress when you hear a fart in church, and we were just about as successful. We barely made par that hole and we still couldn't compose ourselves on the final hole and we ended up losing the tournament by one stroke. I thought the guys were going to kill me.

I guess the all-time worst episode was when I was playing on a course near San Diego with my dad, my brother and my uncle. One hole featured an unusual bunker that was actually a hill on the side facing the fairway, with sand on the back side. Naturally I had to push my tee-shot left and into this bunker, finding myself in the sand with an uphill lie, trying to get over a wall higher than myself with no view to the fairway. I tried to hit out and over the wall, but the ball caught the lip and rolled back down behind where I started. This actually gave me more room and a better angle to try to get a wedge to the fairway, so I tried it again. No luck. In fact, worse luck, as the ball came back and rested in one of my footprints. This time I turned and aimed back toward the tee, punching the ball back to the fairway, quite disgusted with the whole affair. I grabbed the rake and smoothed my numerous footprints, then climbed out of the bunker and tossed the rake out ahead of me in disgust. It landed perfectly on the curvature of the tines and bounced back directly at me, airborne as if launched from springs ... and heading right for a delicate part of my anatomy. I twisted away, and the handle of the rake caught the hem of my khaki shorts. The combination of the tines then re-establishing contact with the ground while I turned my body resulted in the right leg of my shorts being torn from hem to belt loop. Keep in mind, all of this time I was out of sight from the rest of my four-some who were up ahead and could only see the occasional bursts of sand as I tried to extricate myself. When I finally came staggering around the side of the hill, the now-exposed inner pocket of my shorts flapping in the California sun they thought I must have been attacked by a wild animal. "Breezy" described the rest of my round, if not my attitude.

Man, I can't wait for tomorrow.

I love golf and have certain positive (and selective) memories I like to share with others. What I'm about to relate, however, details one outing where I never took a swing or even saw a club swung.

I was fully intending to play, however, when I drove out to Minneapolis' F.A. Gross public course a few years ago to play in my company league. I wheeled my pullcart and clubs up to the clubhouse door and went inside to pay my greens fee and change into a pair of shorts. It took me five minutes, max. When I came outside my clubs were gone. Since it was a company league, I looked around to see if one of my "friends" might be playing a joke on me. There was no one I recognized or who even seemed to be paying attention to me. Certainly, if you were playing a prank on someone, you'd want to be where you could see the look on that person's face, right? After double-checking the immediate area to be sure my clubs hadn't been moved out of the way I went back inside and asked the guy at the counter and the ranger standing nearby if anyone had found it necessary to move my clubs.

The guy at the counter said that none of the staff would have moved my clubs, but suggested that someone might have taken them and he asked the ranger to drive me through the parking lot to see if we could spot the clubs or anything suspicious. We jumped into a golf cart and began a circuit through the lot.

I had a strange feeling as we patrolled; normally I might be more than a touch upset by the situation, especially since I had just bought new irons a few weeks before that and I knew my wife, The Finance Minister, was unlikely to authorize another disbursement of that sort. Instead, I felt calm and had a little talk with God. My point, essentially, was that He knew I tithed and that I expected him to kind of keep an eye on my things and finances. I stayed calm and when the parking lot search turned up nothing I headed back to the clubhouse where a thought came to me: if my clubs were stolen it certainly wouldn't be because another golfer coveted them (new irons or not); therefore the culprit's objective would be to sell the clubs. I believe that if I had let myself get angry my blood would have been pounding so hard in my head that I wouldn't have heard that little thought, or wouldn't have paid attention to it until much later.

I didn't have a cell phone then (and if I did, it probably would have been in my golf bag anyway), so I got a bunch of change at the counter and went over to the pay phone and Yellow Pages and started calling atll the Play It Again Sports and SecondSwing stores in the metro (after I called the police, that is). I started with the ones closest to the golf course and worked out to the 'burbs in case the thief was clever enough to try to put some distance between the scene and the sale. With each call I described my clubs and golf bag in detail and then moved on to the next store on the list.

After about 30 minutes of this I was talking to a store out in Burnsville when a police officer walked into the clubhouse and was pointed in my direction. He approached and I hung up. "You might want to hear this, " he said, pointing toward the radio on his belt. He spoke into his microphone and said, "I'm with the guy now."

Someone on the other end of the radio said, "Ok. The suspects are still in the store. We've got a unit out back, and we're about to pull up in front and hit the lights." A few minutes later we got another word: "We've got 'em. You want to bring the guy over to identify the items?"

Great! I got to ride in the police car (front seat) over to the Play It Again store in Roseville, the closest such store to the golf course and the first place I had called. Apparently the thief and his buddy had stopped off to pick up a girlfriend and then went to the nearest Play It Again (no one has ever suggested thieves are smart). In the interim the manager had received my call, took my club description and probably thought to himself, "Fat chance." Lo and behold, a few minutes later these three teenagers had come into the store wanting to sell a set of golf clubs. The manager later told me his heart started pounding when he saw the bag (a distinctive one).

He decided to stall the kids, so he said he had to go look up the putter in his books to determine it's value. He went back to his office and once out of sight had someone on his staff call the police. He then went back out and started vigorously negotiating with the kids, club by club, trying to stall. He was wondering where the police were and concerned that the kids would get frustrated and leave, when a squad car pulled up to the front door.

When I arrived on the scene the kids were sitting in separate squad cars and my golf bag and clubs were laid out on the asphalt parking lot, along with everything else that was in the suspects' car. One of the cops was taking inventory and needed me to help place a value on everything. He pointed to my driver; "What's that worth?" A few negative thoughts came to my mind, but I said, "Hard to say. My brother built that for me."

"Oh," said the officer. "Custom-made. That's gotta be $300 at least!" On we went through the contents. We got to the putter. "Now that," I said, "Is a known offender. Better take it in for questioning."

"Yeah," the cop said. "I had one like that."

When all was said and done I got my clubs back on the spot and had a chance to talk to the store manager and the officers from St. Anthony (where the theft occurred) and Roseville (where the arrest was made). Everyone, even the police, was charged up about being in on busting a case. I then got to ride in the police car again back to golf course, where it was much too late to get my round in. I went back to the Play It Again and bought pizza for the crew. (The criminal masterminds were all under 18 and were later shunted into an "alernative justice" program).

When I got home my wife asked how everything went. "Great," I said, "Wait until you hear this...."

I've been doing a bit of father-daughter bonding lately with Tiger Lilly via one of the Xbox games I received for my birthday: Justice League Heroes. In it mixed duos of superheroes fly and fight their way through a less-bloody version of the Baldur's Gate II universe (the games were designed by the same people). Though you can play individually, the game works best with a real partner and Tiger Lilly's just the person you want to take with you into a dark Gotham or Metropolis alley - fast thumbs, sharp eyes and a diabolical "heh, heh" when she unleashes a devastating A-B-A combo on a pitiable robot or para-demon, or — if she's playing as Zatanna, Mistress of Magic — when she turns them into white rabbits.

You start out with your basic A-list of superheroes: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Zatanna, the Martian Manhunter, the Flash and the guy I'm kind of partial to — Green Lantern (who's secret identity is John Stewart). As you go along you can earn shields (points) that allow you to unlock more characters such as Aquaman, Hawkgirl, and the Huntress. On some levels you get to pick your character from the entire roster, but most of the time the duo is predetermined (to fit the cut-scene segues) and you only get to pick between the two — which means I sometimes get the opportunity to explore my inner Wonder Woman (laugh and I'll bounce a tiara-boomerang off your head so fast you'll feel like Jimmy Olson).

Each character has a different set of super powers and it's fun learning how to best apply them. Superman, for example, has a super-assortment that includes heat vision, freezing breath, a high-speed flying strike and the Super-Punch, which takes a moment to load up but does tremendous damage. Still, he can be a bit of an oaf. On one level where I'm playing as Superman and Tiger Lilly is Wonder Woman, TL takes great delight in letting me fly out to punch a laser-shooting creature...and then using her lasso to snatch the villain right from under my nose (or fist) so she can deliver a knock-out kick. The best part though, in my opinion, is the job the artists and writers did in getting the personalities of the characters into the game. Superman and Batman, for instance, don't really like each other (well, to tell the truth, Batman doesn't really like anyone) and trash-talk each other throughout the game and there's girl-talk between Zatanna and Wonder Woman (Z: "Just between us girls, don't you ever get cold in that outfit?").

As in Baldur's Gate, if you let your characters stand still too long they get antsy and let you know about it in ways generally true to their character. Zatanna, for instance, will say, "Hey! Pay attention to me!" or "Want to see a real magic trick? Pull my finger!" Her friend Wonder Woman will say, "You can tell that a man designed this costume," or, "If only I could remember where I parked the invisible plane." Superman, always the Boy Scout, will finally say, "I don't mean to be pushy, but 'places to go, people to save,' you know?" or "Have you ever noticed there always seems to be a lot of kryptonite lying around? Really, what's up with that?" My favorite, though, is the Batman: "Robin used to make me wait; ever wonder what happened to him?" — or the all-time winner, "What's the matter, Precious? Your mother kick you out of the basement?"

Besides having fun, I've even developed some super-powers of my own. For instance, Tiger Lilly can have her nose buried in a book, or be heading for a cuddle with Mom and all I have to do is interlock my fingers, raise my thumbs and twiddle them and she jumps up and runs at super-speed to the television. Now if I can only get that to work when it comes to mowing the lawn...SHAZAM!

"Some love the sound of the loon or the teal,
but I love the voice of Herb Carneal."

That's a snippet from a song I heard Garrison Keillor sing a long time ago. I don't remember what the song or the context was, but that couplet always stuck with me because it also expressed the pleasure and comfort I took from listening to Herb call a Twins game. There was just something so natural about the way he described the action; you could tell he enjoyed what he was doing, even in the most wretched of seasons - and there were enough of those over the years to have made a lesser man long for laryngitis.

It's kind of funny, but when I think of his voice now I don't think of baseball as much as I do night driving on a warm summer's evening; of settling back in my seat, the windows half open, letting the dark air and the golden tones eddy about me. Baseball is about the only sport I enjoy listening to on the radio. I can barely stand to watch the NBA, let alone listen to it and the college game isn't much more compelling. Hockey and football have so much going on that, while I'll listen to a game on radio, it's only until I can get to a TV, whereupon I'll dash inside to watch the rest. Many times, however, while on my way home and listening to Herb call a Twins game, I'd sit out in the driveway or garage and wait until the end of the inning before going inside and turning on the set. With Herb there was never any rush.

Herb and former Cardinals announcer Jack Buck were as much of the sound of baseball to me as the crack of the bat, and their style and grace was always a pleasure, and now they are both gone. There are other announcers who are alright, and some who are annoying (it took me awhile to appreciate John Gordon, and I can't stand Buck's son, Joe). In recent years I could hear Herb's voice getting weaker, but it was still a baseball voice and the few innings he'd work each game were like getting the last piece of cake: you knew it was going to be good, but soon gone. Last week when the newspaper had the story that he didn't feel strong enough to work the Opening Day game, Twins fans knew it wasn't a good sign. Herb said he hoped his voice would be strong enough to return soon, and even though I read his words in the paper — rather than hearing them — they struck me as having the same note of plucky optimism he'd use when saying "Wait until next year" after another 90-loss season. Like the Twins mantra, he always seemed to know that you can't take any one loss too hard.

This one, though, is going to be a toughie.

The StarTribune has a collection of some of Herb's classic calls here.

Last night after I finished my blog post I decided to do a little channel surfing — but I didn't get far. My thumb was barely warmed up before I came across FSN re-broadcasting Game 5 of the 1987 American League Championship Series between the Twins and the Detroit Tigers. By the time I tuned in the game was in the bottom of the 8th inning but I settled in to watch the exciting conclusion because I'd never seen it before.

Yes, Twins fan that I am, I had missed one of the seminal moments in Twins history; had, in fact, missed all but a few innings of this series. "What, where you out of the country or something?" you might ask. As a matter of fact, the answer is "yes" and "something." I was honeymooning in Puerto Vallarta with the not-yet Reverend Mother, having gotten married on the same afternoon that the Twins played game three in Detroit (which fortunately caused me to miss the otherwise demoralizing Pat Sheridan homerun off of Jeff Reardon in the 9th).

I knew this team very well, however. I'd been working as a scoreboard operator for the Twins since the Dome opened a few years earlier and had watched this squad come together, working 40-50 games a year and watching most of the others on television (didn't have a blog to take up my time then). I was the same age as most of the guys on the team and felt a certain identification with them as we came into our own in our respective careers. I could sense there was something coming together with that group, but never anticipated playoffs in the early days of 1987; hence wedding plans were made for October with confidence.

It was spell-binding last night, however, to have those heady days brought back to me on the big screen, to see Rat and Herbie and Puck and Bruno all young again and mighty. To be reminded again of how smooth Gags was in the field and to see Dan Gladden and Steve Lombardozzi on the same field — and to laugh again at the memory of how Gladden would eventually punch Lombo out for being such a putz. Watching Stevie run home with a clinching run in the ninth last night I found myself thinking, "the guy even runs like a jerk."

I also got a little misty at how natural it seemed to see Kirby at the plate, lashing those practice swings, and to see Joe Niekro on the bench as the camera did a slow and unintentionally nostalgic pan through the dugout: hey, there's Mark "Country" Davidson, Sal Butera, and Bushie, Baylor and Gene-O, and there's Al "No-No" Newman (the nickname was one I used whenever Newmie had to come to the plate) and Bert Blyleven when his hair and beard were still orange, watching intensely and, uncharacteristically, not trying to give anyone a hot foot or a shaving cream facial. Finally, the crusty old skipper, Tom Kelly, not looking old and crusty at all back then.

Then there were the shots of the Tigers. My God, did the Twins really beat Jack Morris, Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker, while Sparky Anderson watched? Did anyone, even Gaetti, look more like a rat than Darrell Evans? And yeah, Sheridan, I saw you, too, you stiff prig with your ridiculous glasses, acting as if you belonged on the same field.

It was a strange sensation watching those two innings. Even though I knew the outcome of the game already there was still a lot of drama — probably because I knew of so many other outcomes still ahead. I also remembered what that time in my life, watching these guys in those seasons leading up to '87, had meant to me, and I thought about how one of the greatest things that could happen to them was about to happen, just at the time that one of the greatest things that ever happened to me happened. And we were all so young!

Today my work unit had a scheduled outing to watch the Twins play the Dodgers at the Dome, so I woke up this morning looking forward to seeing Johan Santana pitch. This was probably the exact opposite of what the Dodgers were feeling when they woke up.

When the time came our little group strolled the seven or eight blocks to the Dome for the 12:05 start, enjoying the lovely summer weather. There was an impressive crowd of all ages swarming around in the plaza and around the Dome, jostling through the gates. It was a very festive atmosphere and one you'd have thought impossible a month ago. One we got inside the lower bowl was almost completely filled between the foul poles with healthy representation in left field and the upper deck (we would have an announced crowd of 34,157). There were a number of banners and hand-held signs cheering on different players or begging Twins' announcer Bert Blyleven to "circle me," as in, "Circle me, Bert, I'm an illegal alien!" (They're not quite that bold, yet.)

We found our way to our seats in rows 13 and 14 of Section 114, which turns out to be a funky little cul de sac with only one way in. Does the Fire Marshall know about this place? The section angles toward home plate immediately behind the visitor bullpen along the right field line, and is a great place to see the game, or to get your grill rearranged when Justin Morneau gets out ahead of an off-speed pitch. Our seats were all the way across from the one, narrow entrance to the section, against the far wall. Once I realized the lay of the land I knew getting out for concessions was going to be difficult and the alternative was to have my food and beverage passed hand-to-hand by 20 people. I like to leave the food-handling to the trained professionals, so I pivoted and made for the concession stand even though it cost me seeing the Dodgers first three futile efforts against Johan.

Nevertheless I was in place in time to see the Twins load the bases with two outs in the bottom of the first. This brought Torii Hunter to the plate, which caused some minor groaning in our section. "Don't worry," I said to my friends. "There's already two outs, so he can't hit into a double-play." Sure enough, this time Torii laid off the eye-high fastball and eventually deposited one over the fence for a grand slam. Yes! In one inning Johan has gotten more run support than he received in a typical three-game stretch last year.

With the game already well in-hand, the rest of my group decided to try to make their way to the concession stands, sidling the length of the row and snaking their along a smaller aisle to get to the main aisle and out to the concourse. They missed a Morneau double and a great play by Jason Bartlett who made a running, diving stop to his left and came up with a smoking throw to first to beat the runner by a step. When our snackers got back two innings later the woman sitting next to me opened her container to reveal — a salad.

"Salad?" I asked, incredulously, channeling Tom Hanks. "There's no salad in baseball!"

"Well, the line was short," she said, by way of a weak explanation.

"Yeah, go figure," I said. By then my attention was distracted by my boss returning with a jumbo, half-pound Dome Dog. Gawd, the thing looked like it ought to have come with an NC-17 rating. I wanted to take a picture of it with my camera-phone, but my boss wouldn't let me because he was beginning to feel self-conscious by the uproar it was causing.

Winning makes everything look better. Once between innings they drove a cream-colored Dodge Ram 1500 extended cab truck out into right field in front of us and I actually found myself thinking, "Dang, that's a mighty nice lookin' truck!" There are limits to this aura, however. A little while later a beer vendor finally made his way down to our little section. I think he may have made a wrong turn and was trying to get back on the main thoroughfare. I thought we might make it worth his while, but then I saw the buttons he was wearing promoting the beer and the price. "$6 for a Miller Lite," I said to my boss, with more than a little wonder.

"It's better than waiting in line forever," he said.

"No, no," I said. "Say it slowly and out-loud: '$6 for a Miller Lite.'" He did.

"Hey, that's only $72 for a 12-pack!"

The rich truly are different from you and me.

Meanwhile, back at the game, Morneau had hit a pair of doubles and the Twins had added two more runs. Santana had only given up one hit through six innings and was throwing a shut-out but had began to struggle a little bit, going deep into the count and even walking a couple of guys. In the seventh, Olmedo Saenz led off for the Dodgers with a strong double and there was concern that perhaps Johan was beginning to tire as he was up to about 90 pitches. If the Dodgers were thinking or hoping that, however, they were soon disappointed as Johan struck out the next two batters in a row and then said, "Say hello to my leetle friend," striking out an overwhelmed Cesar Izturis on three pitches of 92, 92 and 93-mph.

Gardy had the lad take a seat to begin the 8th, but we were still feeling pretty safe because Kyle Lohse had already pitched last night. In came Juan Rincon, but this had the effect of making the game more interesting as he allowed three runs before getting out of the inning. But just to show you that everything is going the Twins way right now, the only thing this did was to turn the 9th inning into a save situation for Joe Nathan. Nathan has been so seldom needed of late that he has had to look into Tai Chi classes in order to get in the stretching and twisting that he normally puts himself through when he takes the mound. He was plenty loose today, however, greeting the first batter with a 93-mph first-pitch strike and getting faster from there, punching out the last batter of the game with a 96-mph blazer.

Oh, and Joe Mauer went a ho-hum 2-for-3 with a walk and double, raising his season batting average to .392 after going a mere 11-for-13 for the three-game series against the Dodgers. I don't think I ever went 11-for-13 in a softball tournament, and this guy is smoking major league pitching.

Darn, let's play two!