It just figures

My dog is a canine vacuum. If there are crumbs on the floor, she finds them.

She’s picky though. Dirt? Leaves? Inedible detritus? Well, those remain on the floor until I sweep, mop or vacuum, but if there is food to be found, she’s on it.

So her bowl of food spills this afternoon, and there are kibbles and slimy bits of soft dog food strewn around, and where does her nose go? Into the empty bowl!

On any other day, she’d be gulping down human food on the floor she’s not supposed to be eating and here she is, surrounded by food made especially for her palate … and she’s licking an empty bowl.

Dumb dog. She’s a sweetheart. But she’s not winning any awards for timely mess rescues here.

Speaking of dogs with bad timing, did you see the Chicago White Sox didn’t make the playoffs?

Hats off to those nice Minnesotans

The phenomenon of Minnesota Nice makes appearances even to people sporting Chicago Cubs hats on their beat-up Jeeps.

Of course, the Cubs have won even fewer games than the Twins, an impressive feat for teams which are No. 15 and No. 12 respectively in annual payroll, so maybe it’s pity Minnesotans are showing, not niceness.

Nice hat!

My Beloved has a penchant and corresponding talent for fixing just about anything, and he was irked he couldn’t puzzle out why the third brake light on his fix-up project wasn’t lighting properly. So he did what any Virgo might do: He covered it up this tiny imperfection. With a Chicago Cubs hat he found in my closet.

He didn’t choose the Cubs hat because he’s a Cubs fan. He chose it because it had a “C” that looked vaguely similar to the Chicago Bears logo. But he certainly didn’t want to waste one his Bears hats on the effort; he’s not the baseball fan in our house — he’s the football fan. (Not very nice, if you ask me, but he’s originally from Illinois so go figure.)

In any case, he wired the hat to the light securely and thought he could forget about his inoperational brake light.

But noooOOOoo.

Minnesotans behave with polite friendliness (some say passive aggressiveness) even in traffic. And even to Cubs fans.

As we’ve driven through Wisconsin (they’re nice in Wisconsin, too, unless they’re protesting unions or union busting) and Minnesota the past week, he’s been politely interrupted at least a dozen times at gas stations and in parking lots by people who think they’re being helpful: “Hey, don’t forget your hat!”

“OK, thanks,” he says and rolls his eyes.

I laughed out loud when we were stopped in traffic and a woman in the car next to us said, “Hey! Your hat’s on the back! I’m a Cubs fan, too!”

He nodded and said something noncommittal like, “Yeah, thanks!”

The light was still red, and she said, “At least the Twins kicked the butts of the White Sox last night!”

Something else Cubs and Twins fans have in common: We don’t like those pesky White Sox!

How nice.

Horsing around

Arlington Raceway, Arlington, Ill.

This pastoral scene, skewed a bit for an artsy perspective, filled my afternoon view at the race track.

The weather was wonderful, and big puffy clouds drifted through the blue sky on our annual visit to the horse races. It’s a fun place to visit if ever you’re looking for an activity to occupy your time on a summer afternoon in Chicagoland. The horses, as usual, were beautiful athletes; it’s almost startling to see how fast they go on those delicate little ankles.

My bets were less than wonderful (I lost every $2 bet plus one super-longshot $12 superfecta box bet mistakenly placed for me by my Beloved), but that didn’t dampen my fun. My seatmates had much better luck — good enough luck, in fact, to spring for Lou Malnati’s pizza for dinner, so my bets were simply what they were intended to be — entertaining.

A lazy Sunday afternoon punctuated every 20 minutes with a pulse-pounding race to the finish: The ideal prescription for the dog days of summer.

I hope the White Sox like what they got, whoever he is

Watching Francisco Liriano pitch is like living in a dysfunctional family.

As a fan of the Minnesota Twins, I never knew which Frankie was going to show up on the mound. The stellar strike-out pitcher I respected and appreciated? The hit-and-miss thrower who would get himself into a bases-loaded nightmare and then clean up everything with pinpoint accuracy and a shrug? Or the flaying mess that melted down in the first (or third or fifth) inning, making me wince and want to sneak quietly out the exit?

I was at the Metrodome watching him pitch when he got injured in 2006; eventually, he had Tommie John surgery. When he finally returned to the mound, he was never the same.

I always hoped for the young phenom but in recent years (and especially weeks), I didn’t know what to expect and I just prayed he performed well enough to be picked up by another team.

I couldn’t be happier for the despised Chicago White Sox, which now lay claim to the craziness and take on the Twins again this week. Liriano may actually pitch against his old team. That’ll be entertaining — either Liriano will hurl a perfect game against the Twins or he’ll walk in the winning run.

How White Sox general manager Kenny Williams thinks Liriano will be able to withstand the withering scrutiny of rabid Chicago fans, I don’t know. I suspect this trade will turn out more like Chuck Knoblauch, the impressive rookie second baseman with the Twins who couldn’t hack it with the Yankees and ended up in left field, than David Ortiz, the designated hitter who was mediocre with the Twins but turned into “Big Papi” with the Boston Red Sox.

Whatever happens, I’m glad the Twins dumped Liriano. I couldn’t take the unpredictability, and there’s no Al-Anon for fans of dysfunctional pitchers.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack

So rife with advertising, Major League Baseball’s All-Star game was barely watchable.

There are the regular commercials, of course, and the ads on the backstop. The announcer’s lead-in ads are nothing new, but the picture-in-picture ad for the new “Ice Age” movie was more than I could take.

So I turned to Twitter. Ah, yes, I know, hardly a space with less advertising, but I heard the Sports Tax Man was worth following.

#MLB Prince Fielder won home run derby. He will make $125,683 per in season day for 2012 & 2013 and will make $131,148 p/day for 2014-2020—
Robert Raiola, CPA (@SportsTaxMan) July 10, 2012

Ray Raiola was profiled on National Public Radio this morning. He’s an accountant — a “financial quarterback” — who advises big names on their sports contracts and dishes about sports from a money perspective.

Prince Fielder is being paid $125,000+ a day? Wow. It’s no wonder there’s advertising on every square inch of the All-Star game’s TV screen.

Clash of the Titans

The Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs battle for the bottom this weekend at Target Field in their first interleague tangle since 2009.

Longtime readers will recall the sorry tale of my lost visit to Wrigley Field when the Twins played the Cubs in Chicago. A thunderstorm in Dallas foiled my plans. I still hate you, American Airlines, for that. Having lived in Illinois five years now, I still haven’t seen a game at Wrigley Field.

This is the first time the Cubs play at Target Field, and that’s the extent of the news about the series. Both teams are so bad this year, there’s nothing else to look forward to.

Sigh.

The Twins have the worst record in the American League, and the Cubs, a perennial loser, are especially bad this year with the second worst record in the National League and three fewer wins this season than even the Twins. The preview on the series in Chicago papers focuses on who will be designated hitter (it’s Alfonso Soriano).

It’s hard to be a baseball fan in this atmosphere. Or at least it’s hard for me. I’m a Twins fan always and everywhere, but living outside Chicago I root for the Cubs (because I simply cannot stomach rooting for the White Sox). So who do I cheer in this mess? Well, the Twins, of course. But a shining victory like the Twins winning their fourth series in a row would be tarnished because I would just jfeel bad for the Cubs.

Coincidentally, I’m in Minnesota for the matchup, but there’s no way I’m spending any cash on tickets. With my luck, a thunderstorm would rain out the game.

Big news in little game

SPORTS PAGE

Cold Spring 12-year-old gets hit in team’s first loss

Cold Spring right fielder Drew, nephew to renowned blogger Minnesota Transplant, had this to say after Tuesday’s first loss of the season:

“Where are we going to eat, Dad?”

The Cold Spring baseball team took a tough loss against the Osseo-Maple Grove, 3-1. The team is now 8-1-1* (*tie was officially a loss determined by a coin flip in bad weather earlier this season).

Drew strengthened the bottom of the batting order with a walk, a hit and at least two stolen bases. He got caught in a run-down in the third inning and was stranded on base in the sixth. He barely missed a hard hit ball while fielding his position, but redeemed himself later while fielding a grounder and firing it back to the infield with pinpoint accuracy.

The game was played in near perfect May conditions in front of an ardent crowd that included Auntie, visiting from Illinois, at the Weaver Lake fields.

In the other big Major League Baseball game of the day, Twins right fielder Erik Kamatsu was 1 for 3 in a 5-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

Minnesota Transplant was the sports editor for a quarter while attending the University of Minnesota-Morris in 1988. She never attended a game. Thank goodness for the sports copy generated by the university public relations team.

Twins make winter headlines, heighten anticipation

Minnesota Twins’ Joe Mauer made headline news in the Chicago Tribune today.

Normally, I don’t even open the sports pages during the winter because I care about baseball, and the “hot stove league” is boring; baseball writers are just filling news columns with speculation and in my neck of the woods, it’s speculation about Chicago teams.

Yawn.

But today, columnist Phil Rogers’ headline read: “Hometown hero now costly drag: Mauer’s huge, long-term contract hurting Twins more than it helps.”

Rogers’ point was this: Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau cost the Twins too much and can’t deliver, and he made a compelling case. He wrote, “It’s tough building a 25-man roster with two players getting 35 percent of the payroll.”

What I find interesting is that White Sox fans are watching the Twins so closely, even in wintry January. Is Rogers’ sour grapes attitude a reason to cheer for Twins fans?

Coincidentally, it reached 40 degrees this morning near Hampshire.

Warmer temps (however temporary) and Twins headlines in a Chicago newspaper whet my appetite for baseball and the clean slate of a new season.

Only 39 days to the first game of spring training. Ahh.

Why did coach Leslie Frazier go to the bank?*

One good thing about moving only two states away from one’s home state is that the professional sport teams are in the same divisions and play each other often. This means there’s lots  of opportunity for nostalgic cheering and trash talking.

See, if I had moved to Chuvashia, I wouldn’t even get box scores, let alone the opportunity to see Minnesota vs. Chuvash games on TV.

In Major League Baseball, that means I root for the Minnesota Twins and any team that plays against the Chicago White Sox. (Of course this year, it was hard to cheer for much of anything; I will, however, maintain my American League allegiances and root for the Texas Rangers in the World Series.)

In the National Football League, I am less partisan. Married to a die-hard Bears fan, I am contractually required to cheer for the Chicago Bears. Not just when they play again the Minnesota Vikings, but especially when they do.

Like tonight.

I will acknowledge, here in the privacy of the blog confessional, that even as I am in awe of Devin Hester careening down the field, I feel kinda sorry for Vikings fans this season. And darn, the distraction of the NBA season has been delayed.

* To get his quarter back. (Thanks, Drew, for the joke inspiration!)

9 things I learned from watching stock car races for a season (and 1 thing I still can’t figure out)

The last night of the season for stock car racing ended with a smoking hulk that came just shy of winning the demolition derby.

Junior, after the demolition derby. Nice rim, eh?

Casualty count: 4 cars, 1 wrist and about 20 evenings on the dirt track at Sycamore Speedway. We won’t count dollars spent. Don’t want to know.

Accolades earned: About six trophies and $100 for second place in the demo derby. Also: Machismo firmly established.

As the No. 1 fan, I sat in the wooden bleachers almost every race night and videotaped almost every race. Which is tricky with buttery fingers from the evilly delicious speedway popcorn doused in real golden flavoring. It wasn’t my first choice, but when we were dating, my Beloved and I made an agreement: He would go to baseball games with me if I would go to the races with him. So I did this for love. Here’s what I learned:

1. A dirt race track is not a fashion runway. I wore boots and jewelry the first night, and that was the last time. T-shirts, preferably with obscene comments, and torn jeans were more appropriate.
2. Sycamore Speedway smells like London. I’m not sure if I was catching whiffs of cabbie exhaust or the dank odor of the
   Underground, but especially in the spring and fall when it was cool and damp, I caught myself thinking of London. I know for sure it wasn’t the accents of the redneck fans that evoked those memories.
3. Races are won where the rubber hits the road. A bad tire brings even the fastest overpowered car to a stop. My Beloved and his brother went through at least 25 tires during the course of the season, most often the left front one, which took the most abuse on the quarter-mile track of constant left turns.
4. Lip gloss and dirt race tracks don’t mix. As the cars passed the stands at 50+ mph, they threw up a thin spray of grit on everything and everyone. Try looking sophisticated with mud on your glasses.
5. The super late models do not impress me. I was there for the spectator class — street cars modified only to remove the windows and unnecessary weight (like seats). The super late models look like sleek, nicely painted Nascar vehicles, but they’re louder, smellier and a lot more dainty. Every time there was a dust-up, the race was suspended. Babies. In the spectator class, disabled drivers were forced to sit in the middle of the action, flinching with every lap, until the race ended.This is what separated the boys from the men (or, in the poweder puff class, the girls from the gorillas).
6. Race car driving requires skill. I used to think anyone could step on the gas and turn left, but now I understand the courage, timing and finesse a successful race car driver must possess. Really!
7. A good race car driver requires a good pit crew. If it hadn’t been for our 17-year-old mechanic who loved wrenching, the season would have been over in June when My Beloved drove into the wall and killed the first car.
8. Race car fans breed. The roster of top drivers read like a script from a redneck “Dynasty.” Two surnames kept coming up, and in the Powder Puff category, two sisters — the daughters of the guy with the obnoxious cop car — took first and second place. And the stands were filled with kids! Last night, a woman brushed past me three times complaining “That’s how it is with potty training.” Really? Your 3-year-old needs to be exposed to smoke, noise and drunks until 11 o’clock? Yup. That’s how it is with race car fans.
9. Hot dogs taste better outdoors. This, I should have known, but I’m the woman who once enjoyed eating sushi and drinking wine at a Major League Baseball game in Toronto. Hot dogs are street food for a reason, and boy, those mustard-covered all-beef franks made a great chaser for blue smoke and gasoline fumes.

There’s one thing I still don’t understand though:

1. Crashes are awesome, man! The crowd was never so vocal as they were when two cars collided; 360-degree spins got extra points. Race track organizers saved the demolition derby for the final marquee event of the evening for a reason. At least a half-dozen cars flipped on their tops during the course of the season, and my heart always stopped when that happened. To the credit of the crowd, though, they cheered when the driver emerged triumphant from his upside-down vehicle.

Despite the dirt and blood-thirsty crowd (they must have been thirsty for something, given the piles of beer cups under the bleachers at the end of the night), I had a good time. I can’t say I’m sorry to see it end, because I’m not. But there’s a certain irony in the whole experience.

The speedway does a drawing every night for prizes like T-shirts and caps. Every night, I dutifully filled out my drawing slip, deposited it into the box and then listened to the track announcer call other people’s names. Until last night, the final night of the season. They drew my name! And guess what I won?

A free pass to a night of racing next summer.