::Wipes away a tear::

Oh, my. That was simply beautiful.

Thank you, Batgirl.

And thank YOU, Bret Boone.

Dear Batgirl -

I can't believe your close "personal friend" wouldn't know that Juan Rincon's favourite fruit is blueberry so what's he doing drinking strawberry milkshakes?? HaHa =)

Applause for noticing the Chairman needs a better haircut - hey I know people that know people that could help him out =)

Please tell your close personal friend I enjoyed the essay immensely;-)

Much Love
Wonder Woman -

LOL - I just looked at the picture again - the facial expression on Gardy is too much!

That is my hope. The last line says it best.

Batgirl,

You have truly outdone yourself this time. I see Bret as a professor/superhero...teaching the younger guys what a grounder is and why they have gloves, all the while saving the earth from destruction at the hands of the evil Dr. Ozzie (Dr. Ozmond? That sounds better). It'd probably be a better movie than Fantastic Four, at least.

-Drew

Bat-girl,
Just found your site a few days ago, shameful for a life long twins fan I know, but these 'new fangled' computers are hard to work! Loved the article and just spent half my morning fielding grounders with Nick Punto and putting the Yank-mes behind bars! Much love from Nodak Twins fans.

Beautiful, BG, just beautiful!

Sweet article! I was just teasing my friend that he thought that Bret Boone was going to save the world! This friend of Batgirl's is my absolute favorite ESPN writer. Even more than the SportsGuy.

Beautiful, BG, just beautiful!

Er, I mean, please let Ms. Ursu know that I thought it was a beautiful article.

Batgirl, please give my regards to Ms. Ursu, a simply fabulous piece of writing.

Ah, if only Bret Boone can accomplish this, life will smile, indeed. And since a dear friend of Batgirl's wrote it, it must be true. Batgirl only befriends the best.

"A close personal friend of BG's has an essay on the Boone trade on ESPN.com's Page 2."

My first thought was "Why is Sid Hartman writing for Page 2?"

Batgirl, tell Anne that was a great piece of work, I wish I'd written it.

Another great job by your friend Anne! I am especially looking forward to seeing the music video of Piniella, Robinson Rogers singing "You Can Call Me Al."

Now if only ESPN could figure out how to get the link to Anne's archive working....

Batgirl -
Excellent job -
I would be content if B-Boone stabilized the free-swinging spaz monkeys.
Saving the world from aliens is icing on the cake.

FYI

The NHL Lockout/Strike is over.

Back to Boone.

That's hilarious. Way to make it onto espn.com, by the way, I'm envious. You rock.

"With his help, the Minnesota Twins will receive the people's ovation and fame forever!"

I think Young Lady Ursu is an Iron Chef fan. Hoepfully she won't forget Batgirl now that she is Big Time.

But it is nice to read Anne on ESPN. See not everyone is from the east coast there :p

Can there be less seething hate mail than the last time she was on Page 2? (The Red Sox/Yankees legos.)

And:
"send the larcenous Scott Podsednik into a devastating shame spiral"

Dare we hope?

A truly marvelous piece by Ms. Ursu. I'd say the best bit of writing on ESPN I've seen in awhile. We are all so lucky to have Batgirl and her friend to read everyday.

Jeb - God, that was ridiculous. I can't remember who said it, but after that someone posted how sad it was that the Red Sox lose at legos and some people will still get pissed.

I don't see anything more than mildly-inflammatory this time around, and most of it is aimed at our own hometown nine.

Oh, and Mike... good catch on the Iron Chef reference, I completely missed it.

Genius!

...but no pressure, Bret Boone!

" free-swinging spaz monkeys."

hahahaha... awesome. beatiful!

Your keyboard to God's ears, BG. Here's hoping.

Batgirl that was beautiful! Simply beautiful. Your friend did an excellent job, right down to the song selection. :)

Bravo!

That brought a tear to my eye.

I saw War of the Worlds in Kansas City after baking at the 3-2 game that distracted us long enough for the aliens to their invasion. The ending was as half-ass as the ending of the game.

I do, though, think it's an encouraging trend that the Tim Robbins retard character is getting killed earlier in every movie.

"He'll remove all recollections of "Bewitched" from the public's consciousness."

If you mean the new movie version, after wasting $6.00 to see it the other night I agree completely.
But I will always love the original series, and even Bret Boone could not erase that from my conciousness.

So...based on this essay, will Bret Boone's Twins nickname be "Bret Boone"?

I'm just imaging how confusing that article might be for someone who doesn't understand "irony" or "sarcasm" or "humor". I guess if Tom Cruise is left for the buzzards in Tampa, Bret's the only one who CAN save us from the aliens and their devastating ways...although why didn't they totally rip up Boston like they did New York? Miranda Otto's parents' house was surprisingly untouched. I guess the aliens liked the Back Bay too much to muss it up.

Oh, and here's a little fun note about Torii Hunter, Bradke, and Hee Seop Choi.
http://rotoworld.com/content/playerpages/player_previousnews.asp?sport=MLB&leaguenum=&id=5337

Yeah! More well deserved exposure for Bat-girl!

Batgirl apparently spent formative years at Rhode Island. Who knew!

I'm not a Twins fan, but you're clearly wicked smaht and I enjoy the site so much I'll even forgive the Brown affiliation.

- Penn Student

Batgirl,

Please tell your close personal friend that her essay on Bret "Don't Call Me Maverick" Boone was deliriously funny.

MK

Oh please tell me that you are going to be a regular on Page 2. We, the proud residents of Minnesota, need an intelligent, articulate and yes, sassy voice on a national stage...and Louie Anderson just ain't cutting it. Well played!!!

I knew we would be saved! With Booney as protection Mauer will bat .400!

Hehe, awesome parody.

Great job Batgirl.

Not to change the subject or anything, but I am an Astros fan turned on to your website through espn.com. For several years now, I have been depressed that Johan Santana (and for that matter, Freddy Garcia) are not plying their trade for the Astros, along with Bobby Abreu and Melvyn Mora. Which got me thinking, who would win the most games if all players were reorganized and returned to the teams that
drafted/developed them? I bet Minnesota would rank right up there with the likes of Oakland, Washington/Montreal, and Houston. Like us, you all have developed more than your fair share of major league talent.
Here's what my Astros would look like:
Starting 5: Johan Santana, Roy Oswalt, Freddy Garcia, Mike Hampton, and Brandon Backe (a little weak at the 5, , but very strong from 1-4).
Relievers: Brad Lidge, Billy Wagner, Scott Linebrink (Padres), Chad Qualls and Kirk Saarloos. Solid 7/8/9 guys, but suspect middle relief.
Outfield: Bobby Abreu, Willy Taveras and Luis Gonzales, with support from Steve Finley and Richard Hidalgo. Short on HRs but otherwise a very capable outfield. (For you AL fans, Taveras is an NL rookie of the year candidate.)
Infield: Lance Berkman (1B), Craig Biggio (2B), Melvyn Mora (SS), Morgan Ensberg (3B), and John Buck (c), with support from Adam Everett, Julio Lugo, Chris Burke, Raul Chavez and [filler]. Biggio is average these days at 2B and the catcher is terrible, but otherwise, a decent infield with plenty of late inning defensive help.
The lineup would look like this:
(1) Taveras; (2) M. Mora; (3) Abreu; (4) Berkman; (5) Ensberg; (6) L. Gonzales; (7) Biggio; (8) Buck and (9) pitcher or Hidalgo batting 7th as DH, moving down Biggio and Buck.

This would be a stout team, especially with the right/left/right combination in the middle of the lineup.

Query, what active 24 guys would you Minnesota fans put out there?

batgirl,
kudos to ms. ursu and your first-line reference link (get the host servers ready!)

i'm with sdave, if the archive link works, fill it! maybe espn/page2 has a bright future in store for batgirl?

Dear Mr./Ms Fan,

Wow, that's quite a line-up. I've always wondered how Houston took the whole Astros thing. As you say, our minor league system is our lifeblood--we tend to hold onto these prospects very tightly. One, though, I imagine we'd all like to have back--some guy named David Ortiz.

Yours,
BG

Ortiz is a tough break. You can hold onto prospects until you have so many that they get picked up as Rule V (Santana) or expansion draftees (Abreu). Then, when they make a ton of money, then there's nothing you can do but root for them from afar.
Truth be told, there is much gnashing of teeth in Houston everytime people talk about a spectacular Johan Santana start.

Dear Ms. Ursu,

Fabulous piece. I loved every word.

Dear BG and SantanaFan,

I'm willing to bet that a certain Mr. Corey Koskie would be welcomed back if he asked to return and promised not to break.

k-bro

Ahem ....

David Ortiz (nee, David Arias) would go back to the Mariners.

BG - I live in Minneapolis and was just turned on to your site by the terrific article your "close personal friend" wrote for Page 2. Very happy to have discovered it as everything I have read is top-notch.

Mr./Ms. Mint -
I believe his nickname would have to be "Booney", though I would not be surprised to hear "Bretty" as well.

Dear Mr. Steve,

Not if I can help it.

Dear Ms. Mac,

True 'Dat.

Sincerely,
BG

The Astros didn't draft or develop Mike Hampton. Houston acquired him in trade from the Mariners, after he had appeared in 13 games for Seattle, in exchange for Eric Anthony. One of the worst trades in Mariner history, although not THE worst.

I also think it's fair to question whether Santana would've developed into the same pitcher if he had not come to Minnesota. After all, he didn't really distinguish himself even in the Twins system until the Spring of 2002, after Cuellar and Anderson taught him and helped perfect his change-up. What if he'd worked with any other coach who might have been a less able instructor or had chosen to teach him a different secondary pitch?

The Twins coaches were the ones who gave him the key to realize his potential. I think this organization deserves full credit for that result.

Anyway, I love the article, Beege. This is one of those days when I feel like erasing everything I wrote about a subject in the past few days and spending the next week back at the woodshed again. Hello, shame spiral!

Cheers.

That's my arguement for why Ortiz would not be the player he is now. Without Boston's system and players he would have developed differently.

"One of the worst trades in Mariner history, although not THE worst."
No, that distinction still goes to Varitek/Lowe for Heathcliff Slocumb. We still shudder at the memory.

BG - loved the article. I'm sharing it with all my sad Boonie Fan friends here in Seattle :-)

As for nicknames ... the announcers and fans have (rather unoriginally as is typical around here) always called him "Boonie"; when he's happy with himself, he calls himself "The Boone". I think a new nickname is in order. Knock yourselves out.

BG -

If I weren't a Mariners fan due to location or a St. Louis Fan due to heritage I would be a Twins fan due to your fabulous writing.

That said, you should let Ms. Ursu know that Mr. Boone spends far too much time practicing the bat flip he does every time he hits a home run to actually do any of the stuff she thinks he's going to do.

And even if that weren't the case, the bleach has obviously progressed past the roots of his hair and into his brain, which affects him in all sorts of ways, too many to mention.

But if you want him to be your source of optimism I'm fully in support of defense mechanisms of all kinds.

Swankette,

Would this be the same bleach that Jose Lima has been using? If that's the case I like Boone's prospects over here, since Lima seems to become a different playe around the Minnesota Twins, and I have a sneaky suspicion that it's the bleach.

Hmm. Bleach.

Clorox?

MK

(That would be player above, instead of playe. Or playa, for that matter.)

Maybe it's not the bleach at all. Coming from Seattle, maybe Boone needs ample frappuccino to perform at his best.

Or perhaps I've got it reversed. Boone's decline the last couple of year correlates with increasing sales of frappuccino at Starbucks outlets. Maybe the key to making this trade work for the Twins is keeping Boone away from Starbucks and ensuring that Caribou defers any plans to introduce it's own frappy-style drink until after the World Series.

Dear liketwinsluvcubs,

You have two whole seasons to catch up on!
Boy, are you in for a treat. ;-)

BTW...It is Ms. Mint.

Though the nickname Boonie would be fine with me, I do like the way that Ms. Ursu uses both his first and last name each time she refers to him throughout her article on "Page 2".

Of course, we could use his full name and call him Bret Robert Boone.

But that would only be truly appropriate when we're really mad at him, which I sincerely hope doesn't happen very often.

Anyway, welcome to Batlinghood.

Love,
bubblemint

As far as nicknames go, I'm hoping we don't need option # 1, but:
1) If he's bad, we could call him "Brat" Boone.
2) If he's good, he could become the BODOTC, if the BOD Supreme High Commandress chooses to have an Official Twins Correspondent, and if he wants to pull the T-shirt BOD again.
3) If he's really good, he could use his Boone-Boone Stick to knock some pitching around. And maybe re-inspire the Doctor's Boom-Boom Stick.

BG, as if you hadn't done enough for me already, now you actually chose MY suggestion for a cheesy friend song and slipped it into the big smarmy media! I'm all a-flutter! I am seriously very very honored. Thank you for taking me one degree closer to my dream of being ESPN's religion writer.

I'm totally telling all the Mariners fans who surround me. They'll LOVE you.

Dearest Mr T,

You Can Call Me Al was perfect. Batgirl thanks you.

Sincerely,
BG

"Free swinging spaz monkeys"?

What, you've secretly been watching the Mariners all year?

Frightwig, you are correct that the Astros did not draft Hampton, but they did "develop" him on the major league level, sort of like the Twins did what a lot of their better players. Hampton was in the rotation from 1994 on, and the first real complete season he had was 1999. So, we Astros fans had to suffer through 5 years of average-ness before he became MIKE HAMPTON.
This leads me to the other game I like to play when my team is mired in mediocrity, like the stros were earlier this season. (All the time I would spend poring over box scores, I devote to this game instead...) It's called, the gift that keeps on giving. Here's the example that comes to mind:

Astros draft Eric Anthony in 1989, deal him for Mike Hampton in 1994, deal Hampton for Octavio Dotel in 2000, and deal Dotel for Carlos Beltran in 2004. Beltran leaves as a free agent in 2004, which officially closes the loop on Eric Anthony and allows us to finally evaluate that pick. All in all, I would rate Anthony as a B+/A- draft choice for the Astros, for what Hampton, Dotel and Beltran did for the Astros from 1998 to 2004.
Seattle fans, I don't know if that team drafted Mark Langston, but if you did, you can say Langston begat Randy Johnson, who begat Freddy Garcia, who begat....who did you get for Garcia and is he any good?

As the Guinness guys would say... BRILLIANT!!!

Batgirl

Love your article on the Superman Bret. Don't underestimate the Boone brothers legend. Aaron came into Cleveland and solidified the hitting such that the Indians went from batting average of.285 last year to .230 for the first two months and Aaron was at .150. At one time with Aaron's solidifying influence, there were three starters under .200. Aaron, Casey Blake and Victor Martinez.Of course Juan Gonzalez batted One Pitch and is out for the season.Christian Guzman we need you.

Luckily,Aaron frightened the pitchers so much that they have a terrific ERA.

Keep up the good work

send my regards to your "close personal friend" BG. That was a great article. The picture was amazing too.

BG, Thank you for that incredible letter to Fox Sports. You hit it right on the head! Amen, sistah! It was just two weekends ago as I was watching Fox Sports broadcast the Braves Phillies game that I said to my in-laws, "I used to like Joe Buck, but these days it seems as though he's auditioning for a radio show to compete against Dan Patrick for FOX rather than broadcasting a baseball game." I'm not suggesting there are any conspiracies, just that he seems to care more about his own personal opinions on things rather than the game taking place that he is supposed to be broadcasting. Oh, he doesn't do a bad job of getting his opinions across, and I don't neccesarily disagree with him. But he's trying to bake a pie at a Mariah Carey concert. I think he got a little too full of himself when he "called" the Randy Moss mooning at Green Bay last January and he can't seem to get off his soap box. He needs to take a page out of his grandfather's (God, rest his beautiful soul) notebook and get back to broadcasting games.

Santanafan--

Mariners received Miguel Olivo, Jeremy Reed, and Mike Morse from the Bitch Sox for Garcia.

Olivo was the center of the trade, but he's hitting in the .140s this year for the Mariners. As of now, he's an unmitigated bust.

Jeremy Reed is having a fine rookie year. He could be a stud.

Mike Morse is off to a blazing start over his first six weeks, although I'll be surprised if he turns out as good as Reed.

Langston lives on!

I've already had occasion to use "spaz monkeys" in everyday conversation. Bigs ups for adding to the Batnation's verbal lexicon.

Mike Hampton?! Let's not get carried away that he had anything more than one great season. Oh, he's had some good seasons, yes, but he's no staff ace. Yeah, I'd take him as a 4. And in the NL I'll take him over Garcia. Barely.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/h/hamptmi01.shtml
Scroll down to "similar pitchers".

Anyway, playing "what if" with ex-players is one reason why people started playing fantasy baseball. Emphasis on fantasy.

Now that we've fantasized about Boone*, let's see what he does.

*Mariner fans, for the men-liking Twins fans, post the link to his angel beefcake shot. They'll love it.

The only problem is, Bret Boone has already failed to force the legislators to give us a stadium bill.

I could post for pages and pages about how angry I am with the state government. But I won't.

As a longtime Seattleite who's moving to the Twin Cities in September, it's great to see that Boonie will be joining the local team. You'll find that he's a pleasure to watch on the field (even with his defense slipping a little the last two years, he's a wizard at second), in the community, and especially in the locker room. A good pickup, especially for almost nothing.
Go Boonie!

BG,
It depends on how you're defining "development." You got David Ortiz from the M's before the name change. I remember him coming up through the organization as David Arias. Too bad he was behind Edgar Martinez or he still might be in Mariners blue. (Who am I kidding, we know they don't hold on to good players...)