The Minnesota Sports Attitude Has To Stop

The infamous weeping blondes. Picture via: http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/900*619/7patr1221.jpg
The infamous weeping blondes. Picture via: http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/900*619/7patr1221.jpg

David Ortiz taunted us. Not even on the baseball diamond or even about baseball. Big Papi taunted the Minnesota sports fan about basketball on Twitter. The former Twins first baseman/DH turned Boston Red Sox DH took time out of his feud with Tampa Bay Rays ace David Price to troll the seemingly helpless Minnesotan. Oh, how far we have fallen.

As we open up June in the state of Minnesota, a couple storylines run wild amongst the rubes: how horrible Joe Mauer looks and what in the world is going to happen to Kevin Love. The faces of the Target Plaza franchises are currently the talking points and points that aren’t exactly good for them personally or for their current franchise.

It’s been ten years since the Minnesota Timberwolves were in the NBA Playoffs. Never say never, but it will more than likely be a four or five year absence before the Minnesota Twins return to play in the MLB playoffs. Hell, the Vikings look to be in a rebuilding year, so we might as well throw that in here, too. This is our outlook. Our very Minnesotan piss poor outlook.

We ignore the Golden Gophers winning the NIT tournament despite it being Richard Pitino’s first year as coach. We ignore Jerry Kill getting the Gophers back to bowl games and building back up what Tim Brewster tore to the ground. We ignore the fact that the Minnesota Wild won a playoff series, their first in ten years. We ignore the Minnesota Lynx who have been to the WNBA Finals three years in a row, won two of them if you hadn’t noticed, and are the only undefeated team in the association in 2014. Snap out of this crappy attitude people.

It’s sports. The ball won’t always bounce your way if we want to be cliché, but there’s no reason to have this poor, poor pitiful me attitude about the sports teams in this state. Success ebbs and flows. Not that long ago, the Twins were winning division championships, the Timberwolves were making the playoffs every year and the Vikings had a boatload… of talent.

The Wild will win a Stanley Cup sooner than later, they are way too young and talented not to. The Twins have Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and a field of dreams of prospects coming up the pipeline that we lead this team to the playoffs again. Give it a couple years of fermentation and a couple years of Aaron Rodgers getting older, the Vikings will probably see the top of the NFC North soon enough. If the Timberwolves pull off the Kevin Love trade right, they should be setting themselves up for success sooner than later as well.

Has it been a longer valley of defeat than most, God, I hope so, but let’s stop being an easy stomping ground for Big Papi slam tweets. It’s hard to imagine, but maybe one day the Twin Cities can steal the hashtag Ortiz used and claim themselves to be: #CitiesofChampions.

Advertisement

Fred Hoiberg Needs to Stay at Iowa State

Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports
Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

A hug can mean a million things. The list expanded to a million and one on Sunday when North Carolina coach Roy Williams embraced Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg signaling the end of the game with the Cyclones of Iowa State advancing to the Sweet 16. The hug told the whole arena and the viewers at home the game was over, not the time running out because the NCAA apparently can’t hire anyone who has ever run a clock before. The clock ran out on North Carolina Sunday, but the advancement of the Cyclones might have again started the clock on their own coach.

A year ago, Fred Hoiberg’s name was quite popular around the state of Minnesota with rumors and hopes of him being Tubby Smith’s replacement at the University of Minnesota. I’m sure that The Mayor’s name will be highlighted once Iowa State’s tournament run ends, but with a different basketball squad in Minneapolis.

It’s more than likely that Rick Adelman will not be coming back as the Minnesota Timberwolves head coach next season. Adelman will be 68 when training camp opens which will follow a third failed attempt at making the playoffs despite having a remarkable Kevin Love healthy for the duration of the season. This leaves a vacant coaching spot on an NBA team that should be in the playoffs given the right circumstances.

Hoiberg will be offered the job. It simply makes no sense not to offer him the job and the Timberwolves would be doing themselves an injustice by not asking the former Wolves player and exec, but Hoiberg needs to stay in Ames. He’s The Mayor for crying out loud.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with Hoiberg, here’s a quick rundown: really good quarterback at Ames High School and turned down the University of Nebraska’s offer of a football scholarship, won the Iowa state high school basketball championship as a senior and was named Iowa’s Mr. Basketball, played basketball at Iowa State and was beloved, played ten years in the NBA but forced to retire due to a heart condition, worked in the front office of the Timberwolves and now is sitting in the Sweet 16 as head coach in his return to Iowa State amidst their third straight NCAA Tournament appearance.

The Mayor is loved in Ames and there’s just no denying that, but he’s also very loved in Minnesota where he was a big part of the last Timberwolves teams that were actually worth a damn. Minnesotans love him so much we really wanted him to be the Gophers coach, but nothing makes the Gopher job better to him than his hometown/alma mater Iowa State. The same should apply for the Timberwolves.

I beg Fred Hoiberg to stay in Ames and coach the Iowa State Cyclones until he can’t coach anymore. There’s something special in being loyal to one team and I believe Fred Hoiberg can be that guy. He’ll never be fired by Iowa State, he’ll have the job as long as he wants and I hope that is a long time.

Loyalty to one team rarely happens anymore, but rarely does one’s town reflect such loyalty back on someone the way it appears that Ames, Iowa does onto its unofficial Mayor in Hoiberg. The Mayor is going to get a lot of calls trying to move him into a bigger pond, but sometimes greatness comes in small packages, kind of like a hug.

Minnesota Timberwolves Hit Another Marketing Home Run

vinyl

The Minnesota Timberwolves might be heading for a disappointment of a season if they don’t string together some wins really soon, but the PR department is on fire.

The Wolves marketing and PR gurus basically strong-armed Kevin Love into the starting lineup for the Western Conference and now they are making the push for center Nikola Pekovic to be an All-Star reserve. How? With only the greatest promotional material of all-time.

The Bruise Brothers… on vinyl!

I typically love it when my favorite things are combined. Like say, Jimmy Fallon being a hockey goalie.

If you combine sports, comedy or music in any sort of combination, I’m a huge sucker for it. It’s neat, it’s different and simply awesome.

Well done, Minnesota Timberwolves. Now if only I could get one for myself!

Read more about the vinyl from the man, Jon Krawczynski.