The numbers game

7: Games into the season for the Twins. 4 up...3 down. It is good to know the Twins are consistantly inconsistant.
6: Games out of the Wild Card race the Twins will be if the Indians lose tonight.
5: Number of stadiums I was oringally planning on seeing over 5 days. The orignal 5 were: Wrigley Field, Miller Park, US Cellular (Comisky), Busch Stadium, and Kauffman Stadium. However, I have shortened the trip so that I now go see the Cubs/Dbacks, Brewers/Giants ( hopefully I can scalp tickets despite the Bonds thing), and White Sox/Tigers.
4: I have 4 new books to read. Here are the books:

Tip Off: How the 1984 Nba Draft Changed Basketball Forever. - Filip Bondy

I am only on page 4, but I have seen an error that limits the credibility of the book. The author (Filip Bondy) incorectly states the following: "A riddle would become extremly popular in the years to come. : Who was the only man who could hold (Michael) Jordan to less than 20 points per game? The answer was Dean Smith, because even in his senior season Jordan managed only 19.9 points per game." Now I am not going to argue about the 19.9 points per game even though one would hope that Michael Jordan's World (you would hope that would be an expert website on all things Jordan) would have the right scoring average. (For anybody who cares MJ's World lists it at 19.6: http://www.michaeljordansworld.com/college_stats.htm). The thing that frustrates me is that the novice baskeball fan knows that Michael Jordan was at UNC for only 3 years. He left college early, which is funny since Bondy already had pointed that out on page 3. I don't know how that passed the editing process. Maybe I am just overly sensitve since Michael Jordan comes from the most hated basketball school and is responsible for the worst no call in Nba Finals history.

Loose Balls: Terry Pluto

This book is like a fine wine in the fact that I am waiting for the right occasion to crack it open. Needless to says I have high expectations for it. For those of you don't know the book it is the "short, wild life of the American Basketball Assocation as told by the players, coaches, and movers and shakers who made it happen."

Can I Keep My Jersey: Paul Shirley

I am a fan of Shirley's blog and from all accounts this has the making of a very good book. It seems like a book along the same lines of 7 seconds or less by Jack McCallum. Basically that means it will be a really fun easy read, somehere between those ego-driven fluff books like Big Papi and the classics like Moneyball and hopefully Loose Balls. I am excited to read more from Shirley especially since he is associated with Chuck Klosterman (wrote the introduction) and the Sportsguy.

Runnin' Rebel: Jerry Tarkanian with Dan Wetzel

I had never heard about this book until a few days ago when I saw it reviewed on a blog. I am excited about the possibilities, but consider this book to the wildcard of the four.

3: Number of games that the Twins have lost in a row. It isn't a good idea to get swept by the Division Leader when you started off 6 games back. (3 also would have represented the number of games back the Twins would have been if they would have swept Le Tigres).
2: I am four hours into season 2 of 24. I feel very late getting into 24, but I have made the commitment to watch all of the seasons after seeing season 5 on tv and watching season 1 on dvd. I have already bought season 2, 3, and 4 and now I just need time to get through them. Thankfully I am unemployed right now, so I will have the time to right a wrong.
1: The Twins have lost their past 4 games to the Tigers by 1 run. They lost 1-0 in Detroit before the All-star game. Now they have lost 1-0 (on an unearned run), 3-2 (where they left 14 people on base), and now today 4-3 in 10 innings. I think the 2006 really messed up my perception of how the Twins should play. I think that it is normal for a team to be as far as 9-10 games out of the division and I still expect them to win the division. It is kind of like a rookie (think Sam Cassell in 1994) winning the Nba title. The rookie expects to win every year. The 2006 season was the first season I cared about a baseball team since before the 1994 stike. Basically I haven't cared about baseball since I was single digits in age. Now I am stuck watching an average baseball team that is 9 games out and for some reason I think they are going to be making a run any day now.

I leave tomorrow to go on my baseball trip. Hopefully the next post will I can write about successfuly getting my picture next to the Illinois state sign as well as a successful start to the baseball trip.