We spent this past weekend in Mankato for a basketball tournament. Drew and Ian were both in it. We normally are in “C” class (there is A,B, and C) but for this one there was only A and B. Even though we had to be in “B”, we thought the hanging out at the hotel with friends part would outweigh the dismal prospects of doing well. So we had to go into the B class. Drew’s team had a game at 9:10 AM Saturday and he had Cub Scouts graduation Friday night, so we couldn’t stay overnight in Mankato Friday. We had to pack the night before and set the alarm for 5:00. It snowed Friday night and into the early morning, so the roads were terrible Sat AM. Even on the freeways. The right lane had two bare ruts to drive in, and the left lane was snow packed. Of course we were running late so I had to pass several cars in the left lane and almost went in the ditch a few times. Julie was grabbing my sleeve and pushing her imaginary brake pedal on the passendger’s side. So Drew’s team was up first and we lost by like 20 to a pretty bad team from Madelia. We would have beaten them 7 out of 10 times in better circumstances. We had two of our three best players coming off the flu, and were not 100%. Drew is one of the three bench players on the team, mostly because he has no confidence. Well anyway, we lost that one, then ran into a really good Mankato West team, (who ended up losing in the championship game) but we only lost to them by 4 in overtime. The coaches’ son got a foul, started spazzing about it, then next time Mankato came down the court, he intentionally pushed the kid down. Everyone in the crowd went “Oooh” at the same time. The coach did the right thing and pulled him out and he sat the rest of the game, and didn’t start for the rest of the tournament. Drew was done for the day, and we ran to Chipotle for lunch and Drew, Ian and I ate an entire burrito ourselves. Pretty impressive for Drew. Then we checked in to the AmericInn right on campus and went to Ian’s first game (I am the head coach of that team). Here’s the scenario. if we won our first game we could be back to the hotel by 6:30, if we lost we had a later game and wouldn’t be back until 7:30 or 8. I actually used that for my motivational speech before the game.

Our first game was against Fairmont. They were not very tall, but they were good basketball players and well coached, and by well coached, I mean they listened to their coach unlike my team, who are too busy bickering with each other to listen to me. Well they put on a press and like usual, I called a time-out to set up the press-breaker, and they did the exact opposite of what I told them to do. Fairmont went on a 12-0 run and went on to beat us by 20 I think. I honestly don’t remember already. As Matt Foley would say, “Oopsie Daisy, Oopsie Daisy!!” Our second game was at 5:30 against Waseca and the exact same thing happened, they put on a press and beat us handily. We got back to the hotel, and my assistant was already in the lobby with the other Hastings parents (there were 4 teams there and they were all already done for the day) and drinking a Coors Light. My team was driving me to drink too. I went back to the room and put on my t-shirt I ordered from 80’s tees just for that night. It was a green t-shirt and had Larry Bird with his prime mullet:

One of the parents offered me $20 on the spot for it, and his wife deadpanned “It’ll never fit you”.

Drew’s coach was already half in the bag as well. And throughout the night, every time he left the table, the other parents would add more Captain Morgan to his drink. Funny side note, he told us some background info on a coach we all knew something about, but something always seemed odd about him. It turns out he lives in a van down by the river, literally! Kinda sad though because he has a son. Here’s the story, there is a guy who coached a 4th grade Woodbury / Hastings team a couple years ago who I met a couple times in coaching circles. We even scrimmaged them (we were in 6th grade) and they actually beat us. The guy was the smartest basketball person I ever met. He would go on and on about different offenses and defenses. I also ran into him at Great Clips and he told me about his background, in High School he played for the Oklahoma State Champions, College for Oklahoma U I believe, and played briefly with the San Antonio Spurs. That’s the stuff you read when you see one of his basketball camp flyers. What I learned that night is that he is a drug addict, not sure which drug, but two years ago and last year, once he got enough money, he abandoned the team and went on a drug binge for a few days. And he had an old crappy conversion van that he lives in, in a town with three rivers. Nice huh!

The main commotion for the night was a group of parents that were playing a drinking game that was a combination of quarters and beer pong. If you could bounce the ping pong ball into the glass three times in a row you could make a rule. Some examples were, if you make one in the girls drink, or if you “airball” you need to drink two, or have to use your left hand, if you are wearing glasses (me and my wife were the only ones), etc.

Well we pretty much had the hotel filled up with people we knew, so we all just hung out in the lobby and drank. Julie was definitely keepin’ it real that night. One parent brought frozen pizza’s and a pizza oven and made those, and other parents all brought their own thing to contribute. Julie made an awesome spaghetti thing in the crock pot. Well by 10:00 we had to clear out of the lobby as they were getting complaints from the two rooms that we did not occupy, so we had to go back to our rooms. We put the kids to bed after a quick argument about who was going to sleep on the floor (of course Drew the peacemaker gave in). They were all asleep in about 10 minutes. Ju and I went to check out the hot tub, and saw a four people we knew doing the same. The water was so hot though that we could not even get under water for more than a few seconds. So we quickly went back to the room and went to bed.

Next morning, Drew had the first game, and so he and I went to that one alone. Again, like Sat AM, the opposing team was not very good. The score was tied 10-10 at half. The second half was extremely uneventful, final score 14-18 loss. Back to the hotel to get everyone else and check out. Next game was Drew again, this time they were playing a bunch of giants from Mahtomedi. We only have one tall kid and he was getting off the flu, so I knew we were doomed. We lost by a wide margin again. We were down to only 5 kids by the end, One was sick and two were injured. I didn’t see most of the second half though because I had to go to coach Ian’s game. So Drew ended up going 0-4 but they could have won all 4. They played their best game against the second place team, and only lost in overtime. Ian’s last game was against Orono. They had two loudmouthed 20 something coaches that drove the referees crazy. That would eventually give us our first victory. We ended up winning by 3 with our big guy (6’0” and 200lbs) who can bench 210 he tells me and I believe him unbelievably sinking two free throws in the final seconds.

We headed home and we were all very hungry. It was 3:00 and no lunch yet. We planned on going to the Pizza Ranch lunch buffet in LeSueur .

When we got there however, they informed us that the lunch buffet was over and the dinner did not start until 5. I remembered seeing a sign for a Chinese Buffet, so we went over there, but no dice, their buffet was not open either, only menu items. We went back to the Pizza Ranch and ordered the salad bar and a Large Taco Pizza, which is top notch. The rest of the trip was not eventful, the kids watched Monsters Inc. and we rolled in the driveway about 7:00 just in time to finish homework and go to bed. I was glad to see my memory foam pillow! I highly recommend it!

Have the T-Wolves turned the corner? In an impressive win over San Antonio, they held on to beat the Spurs in overtime. There were a couple of crazy coaches decisions down the stretch though that made it interesting. Mark Blount spent the much of the fourth quarter on the bench after shooting 9 of 11 and I think had 20 points up to then. Why wouldn’t you play the hot player in a close game? I know Smith has been a steal and a boon for the T-Wolves this year, but Blount was having a career day. Plus he was d’ing up Duncan as good as anyone I’ve ever seen. He still scored on him with impossible shots, but what do you expect, he is a first-time ballot hall of famer. The other one that really sticks in my craw is on our last possession of regulation. Game tied at 93, after a time out, Foye gets the ball with a four second differential on the shot clock. So it was like 21 seconds on the game clock and 17 on the shot clock. What is the apparent called play? Foye drives in and throws up a leaner within 5 seconds, misses and then Spurs ball with plenty of time to set up a last shot. Luckily they missed the shot and we did not foul, so overtime! Unfortunately I missed most of the OT because I was watching it on DVR and I did not record the post game show.


Hey Dwayne What’s Happening with the coaching?

My wife watched the OT live upstairs and saw the postgame show with (unknown blonde girl talking head). Apparently Anthony LaPanta (the regular post-game talking head) was on vacation or something, but the sub was terrible.

Side note: I used to play pick-up basketball with Anthony LaPanta through a mutual friend of his brother. He was not real good, but a nice enough guy. He did have a superiority complex though.

When she finished her train wreck job, she tried to kick it back to courtside announces Tom Hanneman and Jim Peterson (my God I miss Trent Tucker) she says “back to you Tom and .. uh Tom and (uncomfortable silence)” finally Hanny pipes up and says “Jim”. As the camera goes off her she says “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” I can’t find her name or picture now, if I do I’ll paste it in here later. Would it kill FSN North to hire Tucker to do SOMETHING! I just miss him, I know that sounds gay but I don’t care.



To prove I’m not, here are some Dance Team Pics




It didn’t get any better than Kevin Harlan and Tucker back in the day. I was watching a game on ESPN classic between the T’Wolves and the Celtics. I know, a T’Wolves game on ESPN Classic? But it was an awesome game, last second heroics and all. Anyway, I was so happy because it was being announced by Harlan-Tucker. I couldn’t believe my luck. Then after the first quarter, they switched to the Boston announcers! I almost swallowed my remote.


Back to the subject, our front court looked very impressive again, with Garnett, Blount, and Smith (no Griffin again). But the backcourt was shaky at best. Hassel made several smart plays, and is solid at the 2 or 3, and Foye is surprisingly good for a rookie. Unfortunately, Mike James and Ricky Davis are stinking it up. Ricky shooting poorly last night (3-17 including 0-5 from 3pt range), bad defense, and a couple really bad passes. Would we look better with AI? I’m sure depending on who we had to give up. Well we’ll never know.

Holiday Road Part I

I found out long ago,
It’s a long way down the holiday road
-Theme song from National Lampoon’s Vacation

Imagine if you will a 5 year old in the most whiny and annoyed voice “Why do we have to listen to this song?”

My response in my head “Well because its from one of the funniest movies of all time, which you won’t see for about 10 years, sorry, you just won’t get it”

Actual response “Because it’s fun, and if you don’t sing along we’re going to listen to it again.”

Usually its all about the kids in our fam, but at this moment, it was just about entertaining me and my wife. Each day of our 2000 mile trip to the beautiful scenic Black Hills began with this song. The first time we played this song it was a little touchy as you can tell but by the end of the trip everyone, even our 11 year old who I don’t think I have ever heard sing before, was at least mouthing the words. Even in his school concerts, he just kinda moves his mouth, if he knows the words at all. Actually the trip west was beautiful and scenic, to my surprise. But I will give you this, the 500 or so miles we had to drive across South Dakota to get there was literally hellish. South Dakota is normally a hot wasteland, with scrub growth and flatlands, I knew this going in. Everyone always says that the drive there is terrible, nothing to look at, nothing to stop in and see etc. Well luckily we were able to close out a deal on a “Family Truckster Deluxe” right before we left.












Now, I owe it to myself to tell you, Mr. Griswold, that if you are thinking of taking the tribe cross country, this is your automobile. The Wagon Queen Family Truckster. You think you hate it now, but wait till you drive it.



We weren’t happy to be in the “Minivan Owners Club” again, but it was even equipped with a DVD player to keep the kids quiet for hours at a time, so we pulled the trigger.

About half way across South Dakota, we had to stop for gas. All day we were watching the computer in the car showing the outside temp 94,95,96, etc. About 2:00 PM we stopped in this wasteland called Vivian. The gas station looked right out of a Terminator movie.



I was waiting for someone to come running out of the store screaming “RUN, RUN IF YOU WANT TO LIVE”.

While the kids and wife ran inside, I pumped the gas. By the time I shut off the car, the thermometer read 121 degrees! I thought, “well new car, it probably isn’t very accurate”. I went over to wash the windshield, scrubbed it with the business side of the squeegee, then flipped it over to wipe it off, but it had already evaporated, in like 3 seconds. The gas station was just packed with people trying to stay cool. Mostly motorcycle riders. One was in the restroom just running cold water over her head in the sink for the whole time my wife was in there. The sun was so hot even with the windows up and AC on that I was pouring water on my left arm and leg to keep it cool. By the way, in case you were wondering, I proved that day that you cannot get a sunburn through a car window.

In just four more hours we were in Rapid City. Oooh Yeah. Checked into our resort, and unpacked our stuff in our cabin. It was pretty cool, an A frame cabin, with one bed and a cot upstairs and a full bed downstairs. It also had a small refrigerator, a microwave and a small table and chairs (and a bathroom of course). Well it was getting late in the day and we still had not eaten dinner yet, so we went searching for a restaurant. We couldn’t find anything right in Keystone, so we drove 20 minutes back to Rapid City and stopped at the very first place we saw, “Ruby Tuesday”. At this point, everyone was starving and the whining was again in full effect, along with short tempers for the adults. We found out the wait was 20 minutes, so we hunkered down to playing Game Boys and looking at a menu to decide what we were going to eat. We figured by the time we found somewhere else, it would take 10 minutes and the wait there might be the same anyway. We needed a reliable place at this point, where we knew the food would be good, and of course the breadsticks and honey butter there are top notch and you get them right away.. We finally sat down and asked for our breadsticks only to find out they don’t do that anymore! What the hell! Isn’t that their whole shtick? I mean every place has to have their ‘thing’ to separate themselves from other restaurants, or else they are just another place with bar food. Maybe they are owned by a famous sports figure, or they brew their own beer, or they have some specialty item on their menu. Also we found out that they do not have the baked potato bar as part of the salad bar anymore. So the reason now to go to Ruby Tuesday is apparently for the watered down Salad Bar, I will now put my head in a salad spinner. Well after a tall Coors light which they did bring right away, we didn’t care as much any more.



Cooooooors Light, Is the Right Beer NOW!

After dinner, we went back to the cabin and cranked up the AC, put the kids to bed and turned on the TV.
They advertised that they had satellite TV but they only had six channels (not even the locals!). And the only one worth watching was the weather channel, so we started watching that. The lead story was the hot spell in the upper Midwest, centered on Pierre South Dakota, which was almost exactly where we stopped at the hottest part of the day, on the hottest spot in the country, perhaps the hottest spot on the planet at 115 degrees. It set the all time high record for the entire state. The hottest temperature recorded in South Dakota, Ever! The forecast was a little better but not much. The whole week was supposed to be in the 90’s or low 100’s according to the weather that night, and it didn’t disappoint.

Day One



The next day we planned on staying close to Keystone. Within a few miles is Mt. Rushmore and Downtown Keystone, which is a series of about 30 tourist traps. So first thing’s first, we went to Mt. Rushmore. The park is set up very nicely, with convenient parking in new ramps, and an easy walk to the first visitor’s center. It was also very reasonable, I think it was $12.00 for our whole tribe, and the pass was good for the rest of the year. Back in the day, you could just walk up to a 30 by 20 platform in the rock about a mile away and take pictures or use the binocular thingy. Now they have added excellent trails and a boardwalk to make an easy walk right to the base of the mountain.

Then you can proceed to the Artist’s studio where you can see the original 1/12th sculpture of the Rushmore statue. But first you get to a state of the art visitors center detailing the construction (or destruction) of the Rushmore faces.


The original sculpture that Rushmore was modeled after, it was cool to see because it was from the waist up. The original sculpture is about 12 feet tall!


Another thing that most people said was a good time was the 1880’s train. It is an authentic steam train from the 1880’s. Sounds like a good idea. Well the tickets were not cheap, like most everything on this trip (they were $70 for the whole family). We got on the train in downtown Keystone and it went 12 miles to Hill city. It was very hot, over 100 degrees again and I quickly discovered the two worst things about the 1880’s train, smoke and no AC. The train was changed over from coal burning to “earth friendly” used motor oil. That’s right, the train burns used motor oil to power the 174,000 pound locomotive, not to mention the passenger cars. If you have smelled used motor oil before, you know it doesn’t smell great, but now imagine lighting it on fire, well lets just say it smelled like we were following about 10 diesel trucks. The black soot actually settled onto our sticky skin as we meandered through the valley. The train could only go about 15 miles per hour, which was not fast enough to keep a breeze flowing through the train. Not only that but there really wasn’t much to see on the ride. The views were average at best, and there were no real historical things we went by other than some rotting shacks. So it took almost 45 minutes to get to Hill city, then the kids were hot, had to go to the bathroom, and thirsty. So another $13 later we had drinks and an ice cream or candy (frozen Skittles in Will’s case). And we had another 45 minute ride back to Keystone to look forward to. I can’t remember much from the next 2 hours, I was so hot and asphyxiated from the fumes that I think I blacked out for part of the trip. I think we went back to our cabin next and rested for a while and cooled off in our AC. Later that night, we went back to Rushmore for a speech by a native American Park Ranger (Rushmore is a national park) that was surprisingly very good. He compared the four presidents on Rushmore to four leaders of the Sioux who had similar roles in their culture. Emancipator (Lincoln), Preserver (Roosevelt), Founder (Washington), and the Author (Jefferson) unfortunately I can’t remember any of the Sioux leaders but it was a compelling speech nonetheless. At dusk the park lit up the faces, which was also riveting, one of the best moments of the trip, followed by Drew saying “I have to go to the bathroom”.

Day Two
The next day saw another hot day though not as hot as the last. We made a longer drive to Hot Springs to experience Evans Plunge and the Mammoth Site.


First on the schedule, Mammoth Site. As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a huge sculpture of an elephant with long tusks and little ears. We had to make sure we didn’t turn the wrong way at the entrance and went into Elephant World or something. The mammoth site is a live archaeological dig where they are unearthing several different animals, mostly noted was the Colombian Mammoth. As we found out quickly, the Colombian mammoth is not a wooly mammoth (ah-la Manfred in ice Age)

Wooly Mammoth ________________Colombian Mammoth

and the Elephant sculpture was actually a Colombian mammoth. In case you are wondering, African elephants are about the size of a Wooly Mammoth as far as I could tell, but the Colombian Mammoth was much larger. Actually the coolest thing we saw there was a Giant Cat-Bear. It was larger than a polar bear. It could reach 15 feet up a tree for example, so those cave-men had to climb a tree fast and high to get away. But is was quick and agile like a cat.


The giant Cat-Bear was not to be trifled with

We wanted the kids to do this thing where they can dig and actually look for bones. But when we called two days before they were booked out two more weeks. Well it looked like it was pretty cool when we read about it but when we got there and saw the kids doing it, they were basically just digging for fossil casts that the workers buried in a giant sandbox. Not that cool after all. They had almost the same thing out near the gift shop, you could dig for elephant, Colombian mammoth, or Wooly Mammoth teeth in the sand. Next: buy some stupid souvenirs, then head off to Evans Plunge.


Evans Plunge is hard to describe. Of course it begins with White Men taking prime territory away from the Natives. The land in Hot Springs is known for .................. hot springs. In fact that is what caused so many animals to be buried in the mammoth site. They would get stuck in a hole caused by a now dead hot spring. Evans Plunge is a pool that is set up on top of a natural hot spring. There is no chlorine used in the pool as the hot spring replaces the entire Olympic sized pool 16 times per day. It has a rock bottom. Like a lake, and multiple water slides. The water also stays a constant 87 degrees. Just warm enough that if you move around just a little bit it is very comfortable. We spent the rest of the day there, eating our pb&j packed lunch too. The other activity they had there were Tarzan rings.



As you can see by the picture they are a series of rings that lead all the way across the pool eight in total I believe. The only way to get across is to grab the first one with both hands, swing 3 or four times until you think you can reach the next one. Then let go with your right hand and reach quick to try to get the next one. If you made it to the next one, you now have one hand on the first ring and one hand on the next ring. Now you have to basically swing with both arms, using your biceps to arm curl your whole body weight. Get the swing far enough that you can let go with your left hand then reach quickly to the next one, rinse and repeat. I thought it looked kinda dumb at first, but my oldest wanted to try it, so we did, he was really about ½ inch too short, but they let him try anyway. Both our first attempts dropped us in the drink after the first ring. It really is much harder to do than I can accurately describe here. The only ones that were making it across were 17 year olds who weighed about 150 pounds. Whenever anyone other than those 3 boys made it across, people would start cheering, it was very odd. As the day wore on Ian eventually made it to the third ring, a remarkable feat for his age. About 4 hours later I had seen several men make it to the third or fourth ring, then I finally saw a guy about 45 make it to the fifth ring, which prompted me to say in my head, if that old fart can get to the fifth one, I can too, or at least get to two. Next try sure enough, made it to two. Next try made it to three. Then rested for about an hour, it was almost time to go, and I was determined to do better. I grabbed the first (1) ring with both hands swung twice, grabbed the next (2) with my right hand, swung three more times then reached with my left hand to grab the next ring (3). Swing three more times, reach with my right (4). Swing three more times, reach with my left (5). I can’t believe it, now I am only two rings from the end. I say to myself, I am going to give this every ounce of energy I have to make it across. Now I hate it when announcers of sporting events say “he’s going 110% percent” or some such nonsense. Of course it is impossible to give more than 100%, and how many of us have ever really given 100% of ourselves to something. It’s probably more like 90% or maybe even 95%. Well I was more determined to do this than I have been about most anything in my life for a long time. Swing three times reach with my right, grab the ring (6) made it, swing three more times, reach with my left, got it (7). Only one ring to go, I am nearly exhausted, give it five swings to try to get some extra momentum, reach with my right, touch (8), but my fingers cannot hold on, I end up swinging back on just my left hand on ring number (7), my wedding ring turns sideways, and cuts a gash into the plastic coating of the ring, For a split second, all 170 pounds of me are hanging from my wedding ring which is stuck in the Tarzan ring. I shake it free, but it is too late, there is a huge gash in my finger matching the one in the Tarzan ring. I land straight enough in the water, and look at by bleeding hand, my arms and hands shaking with exhaustion, and hear applause from the crowd. I look at my family all dumbfounded by my feat, and decide it was probably worth it.


About dinner time we decided to call it a day. We drove into downtown Hot Springs and found a decent Mexican Restaurant. After tacos, fajitas and soppapias, were are ready for the 1.5 hour drive back to our cabin. Instead of going the highway back we decide to drive through Custer State Park instead. This would prove to be both very rewarding and aggravating. One of the main goals of the trip was to see animals. Just at dusk, we entered the South end of the park. The orange glow of the sun was warming all of our moods (along with a belly full of food). Looking at the map, it looked like we should be going down a divided highway, but it was really just a 15 foot wide asphalt road with no lines on most of it. It seemed like we must be lost but all the cross roads kept coming up just as they were on the map. It started out with antelope grazing all over the hills right beside the road, and it just got better from there. It was pretty amazing to see all these animals close up, some as close as 10 feet from the car. Over the next hour we say hundreds of antelope, deer, a few buffalo, and a huge elk about 15 feet from the car. Now it started getting dark though, and we were only about half way through the park. We had a choice, continue straight through the park directly to our cabin on a road that even on the map was twisting back and forth like Christina Aguilera on the Dirrrty video.



We were dirrrrtier than Christina after the "Soot Train" ride.

Or go 15 miles east then 5 miles north then 15 miles west again back to our cabin. We decided that driving on these 15 foot unmarked roads in the dark was not a very good idea. So we drove the extra 30 miles and made our way home. The problem with that route was that there were so many deer (this is outside the park now ) that I couldn’t go more than about 40 on those roads either. My co –pilot was the spotter while I drove. We finally got back and crashed. Well the kids crashed, we had a few beers to calm us down from the harrowing drive. Day 2 in South Dakota came mercifully to a close.

Baseball, the Love Boat, and Scatman Crothers


This blog is dedicated to Aaron Spelling, the genius behind Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat, and Beverly Hills 90210, oh and we’ll forgive him for Tori...


Tori back when she looked even more like an alien.

A few weeks ago our family decided to go to a baseball game. The choices in town for pro ball are the Minnesota Twins, who play in a Teflon bubble, and the St. Paul Saints, who play in a campy outdoor facility. Well since it was a beautiful Minnesota night (like usual), we chose the latter. I would like to insert the pictures I took but my (camera) phone was later stolen. We sat above the third base line, about row 20. At these games there are always several things going on at once. One of the mainstays is the massaging nun. You read that right. There is a 110 pound 60 year old nun who gives massages all during the game. There were also two people getting haircuts. They also have an MC who constantly is working the crowd, cracking on the other team etc. Just a real fun atmosphere. They had another guy who, picture this, was a skinny dude, of some Spanish decent, in a white tux and top hat singing songs. His best song was Unchained Melody, just a weird experience. There was a kids playground near the right field corner. Quite nice to take the kids over there from the 5th to the 7th inning stretch. Then you only have another 45 minutes until the game is over. Breaks up the game really well for the kids. Well apparently the Saints games all have a theme now. That is another new thing since I went to a game last. The theme our night was “Love Boat” the first 5,000 people got a Love Boat stress squeeze thing. The theme was of course making fun of the Vikings issue last year. Which by the way if anyone was surprised by that you are a fool. If you were a twenty something, single, millionaire and your buddies asked if you wanted to rent a boat with a bunch of strippers, would you say no? I wouldn’t say yes now, but if you were in their shoes? Come on if the idea alone didn’t hook you, the peer pressure certainly would force your hand, be honest. I’m not saying it’s right, but let’s not be surprised about it. It was probably a typical night for most of them, it just happened to be on a boat where the crew didn’t welcome it instead of at a strip club.

The baseball was pretty good. In particular the pitching. There were several pitches in the 90’s, pretty good for minor league ball. The game was secondary for me though. There were also people watching the game for free. One guy just rode his bike right outside the left field fence which is a rail yard (I’ll get to that in a minute). He just leaned his bike up against the 6’ pile of rail road ties and climbed up and watched the game for a while. The announcer even commented on him saying “everyone wave to the guy out by the fence” and “How’s the game?” At no point did anyone try to kick him out though. Even better, a train crept up to the same opening in the fence and stopped to watch the game for about 15 minutes! Amazing.


Many people think the show went downhill when Vicky, the captain's illegitimate daughter was added. But as a shocker, she grew up to be a hottie single Mom!

The love boat theme was carried out throughout the game. They of course played the theme song several times between innings or pitchers. They also showed pictures of the actors on the jumbo screen. And they made paper copies of the main guest stars of the show and taped them all over the stadium. The ones I remember the most are Charo and Scatman Crothers. For some reason I felt compelled to take the one of Scatman, not sure why or what I was going to do with it. My kids of course were asking why I took it, I started to explain, but soon realized they were not going to ‘get it’.



The most memorable episode for me was when Scatman was on playing an “Uncle Tom” character (of course), and also there was a proud black woman who presumably has a Black History degree. Of course when you saw Julie check in a black woman, you knew Isaac was going to get some action! Well the story tried to play Isaac between these two characters, who both had something to ‘teach’ Isaac about Black History. It was culminated by Scatman doing “Hambone”, one of the greatest moments in TV history, I will never forget it. The most recent one for me that comes close is when Snoop Dogg was at a video game conference on TV and the interviewer was asking him how he liked the new first person shooter, House of the Dead. He answered “Well I dunno, I think I’m better at shooting real people”. True Story.



Betta Believe Snoop is Both Rhythm and Gangsta


Scatman was a big contributor to my childhood, including doing the voice for Hong Kong Phooey and Jazz on Transformers. You might say "You watched Love Boat and Transformers when you were a kid, they were like 15 years apart", I say "I'm still a kid".

Unfortunately my second biggest memory of the Love Boat is Ethel Merman in a muumuu singing “Over There” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business”.

The highlight of the night was when my 4 year old got a chant of "Go White Go" started. Eventually about 100 people surrounding us all joined in, inspired by the inspired mini-me. Well the Saints ended up losing anyway, can’t even remember the score. But that wasn’t the point. We had a great night of outdoor baseball and got a free trip down memory lane.

Its been a long time, I shouldn’t a left you, without a strong rhyme to step to...(Eric B. and Rakim)
Sorry, its been a couple of weeks, but here is a whopper, over 4000 words! Hope you enjoy.

Draft History, learn from it or be doomed to repeat it is how the saying goes. I analyzed all the drafts since 1989, the first year the T-Wolves were eligible. It would be comical if it didn’t almost make me cry how badly we have made picks over the years. You would think by sheer luck we would have at least accidentally picked some good to very good players every couple of years. But there is probably only 1 good draft year from 1989 to 2004 (2005 the jury is still out on). Of course you already know that is the year of KG The one year we got it right. I know that no one stays on the same team for more that 3-4 years anymore, I am looking at this from a perspective of getting a core of 2-3 potential all-stars, and filling in with role players at any position, making a run at a title, then re-building again.


1989
Planned Obsolescence like the QWERTY keyboard and the Ford Pinto. By the way, the QWERTY keyboard is one of my biggest pet peeves. Did you know that the first keyboards for typewriters were set up with the alphabet in order ABCDEF but the old mechanical typewriters could not keep up with the speed of the typists? So some idiot named Christopher Sholes (who lived in Milwaukee of course friggin’ cheesehead) intentionally mixed up the letters so the typewriter wouldn’t jam up. Now like a 150 years later we are still using this messed up keyboard. For the love of God will someone please “Invent” the ABCDEF keyboard?



Christopher Sholes, every day I curse your name!

Anyway, the Timberwolves were expected to lose and that is just how management planned it. They were setting records for attendance in the HHH Metrodome (terrible for watching basketball) which seated more fans than any other stadium in the country. They wanted to tank the first few seasons, get good draft picks and build the nucleus that way. Seemed like a good idea at the time anyway. Minnesota fans were just happy to get basketball back after the Lakers left for LA decades before. The owners were raking in the dough with low salaries and huge revenue. Well what went wrong... The original Timberwolf Pooh Richardson, that’s what. I honestly don’t remember how the draft worked that year, if we could get the top pick or not. Well it doesn’t matter much anyway because the only pick we would have wanted before ours at #10 was the #4 Glen Rice.
Here is an excerpt from a contemporary article on the NBA website:

On the streets of his native Philadelphia, Richardson grew up and played alongside Lionel Simmons, Bo Kimble and the late Hank Gathers. "Those players had a lot to do with the player I am now," Richardson explained. "Just being around those guys and having the opportunity to play with them... You grow up with an attitude."

What like getting schooled by better players? Here is a list of players we should have taken instead of Pooh:

Nick Anderson he was good until he started missing Free Throws, bottoming out in 1996 at 40% (he also shot 40% from the field that year). But up until then he was almost 20 points per game in an era of defense first basketball. We could have used his skills at least until 1996.

Mookie Blaylock and Tim Hardaway, both point guards much better than Pooh, if you wanted a point Guard that is. Some of you may not remember this but Tim Hardaway was dominant from his very first season. He was a shooting point, but still averaged about 8 assists and 20 points per game for his first 10 years. I think I remember his knees being a problem eventually, but heck he had 10 very good years. Mookie Blaylock was the best defensive point guard for many of his years in the league. He averaged well over 2 steals per game through much of his career, peaking at 2.6 in 1993 and 1995. Many people think of him as being too short, but he was listed at 6’1”, the same as Pooh. A heavier version of Pooh, he was a surprisingly good rebounder peaking at 5.3 per game in 1996. Inexcusable not taking these guys.

OK, Shawn Kemp. The Timberwolves in their history have had many opportunities to pick players with off court problems and passed on them. I know He has like 9 kids by 6 mothers, but damn he was the best power forward in the game some of his years (I am not a big Mailman fan). He also had about 10 years where he had at least 8 rebounds and 15 points per game. He was a dominant inside dunker and shot over 50% much of his career. But no we didn’t need him. This was a diamond in the rough though, coming out of Trinity Valley after his freshman year.


Vlade Divac gets all the chicks

Vlade Divac, wasn’t the first foreign player selected in an NBA draft, but definitely not a as common as it is now. He made an immediate impact for the Lakers in his first year, scoring 8 pints and grabbing 6 rebounds in only 20 minutes per game. A center with good hands and strong moves inside. Something the T-Wolves still sorely need.


1990
I was at this draft party, my sister worked at the T-Wolves basketball camp and got us tickets for the draft party, I think it was at the convention center. Anyway the T-Wolves had two picks this year, but frankly there was not much to choose from looking back. There was only one perennial All-Star Gary Payton taken at #2. We had the #6 pick and took Felton Spencer. We also had the #20 pick from Philadelphia and took a high scorer named Gerald Glass. Awesome name by the way. The potential nicknames were limitless. Unfortunately he was more like “invisible like glass”, especially on defense. Others from this draft were Dennis Scott at #4, even our own Willie Burton from the Gophers. The #21 pick (right after Glass) was Jayson Williams (the power forward not the point guard) a genuinely insane guy from St Johns. A couple other St Johns players worth noting, Malik Sealy and Jayson Williams. OK first Jayson Williams. Not only did he kill someone, even more crazy in my opinion is that he bought huge earth movers to play with in his yard. So basically he created a life sized sand box with real Tonka trucks. Crazy? Not to mention (going to hell for this) Malik Sealy. Now I was a big Malik Sealy fan, still am. I loved watching him in college like nobody since, honestly. When Garnett picked 21 because that was Malik’s number in college, I thought that was very cool, and it is reason # 342 why I like KG. But how does a guy making at least a million dollars a year (taking home at least 500K a year) drive a 10 year old Range Rover. It is so old it doesn’t even have air bags? Now that is crazy, and probably contributed to his death. So the moral of the story is stay away from the Red Storm.


1991
OK by this year I am getting pretty pissed off as a fan, we totally suck every year then we end up with the 6th through 9th pick in the draft? It will get a lot worse in the next few years though. This year we have the #7 pick and it is a stronger class than the previous 2. The duo from UNLV Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon are both coming out in addition to a dominant center from Georgetown named Dikembe Mutumbo. Throw in Kenny Anderson another dominant guard. How about a Terrell Brandon or Dale Davis. So with the number 7 pick we take... Luc Longley another stiff center. My God what are we doing, so far we’ve wasted 2 picks on stiff centers. Mutumbo, Johnson, and Anderson are already gone of course. GAAAA why don’t we ever get the #1 pick. My pick at the time would have been Stacy Augmon. A solid defender and scorer for many years. What is wrong with these GM’s? Do they even watch these guys in college?




I have always been a big fan of “Plasticman”

1992
This is the year the franchise took a horrible turn for the worse. In the most anticipated draft since 1984 which went 1-5 like this:

1 Hou Hakeem Olajuwon
2 Por Sam Bowie
3 Chi Michael Jordan
4 Dal Sam Perkins
5 Phi Charles Barkley


In 1992 though we ended up with the #3 pick in the draft for Shaq. Not only that but the #2 pick was a unanimous Alonzo Mourning. We take Christian Laettner the third stiff center in a row! Now anyone that knows me knows that I am a huge Duke fan, but Duke players just aren’t great pro players, for whatever reason. Maybe coach K is an even better coach than everyone gives him credit for? In my unofficial list of draftees since 1989, there have been 16 first round picks from Duke. Probably more than any other team (well North Carolina also had 16).



Hmm what is that a Hammerhead? Wierd!


I was fine with the pick at the time (given that we had to pick after Shaq and Mourning) since I was such a huge Duke fan. He had the two tools that Longley and Spencer did not have: quickness for his size, and a competitive nature. I’m not sure what happened to his quickness, maybe he just got old fast with the 82 game schedule, probably the other pros were just as fast as him. After all there were several excellent Centers in the league in his time, Olajuwan, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Robert Parish, Vlade Divac, Dikembe Mutumbo, Mourning, and of course Shaq. Plus incredible inside non-centers like Rodman, and Malone. Well since he wasn’t even in the top half of centers in the NBA, his competitiveness was actually a detrimnent, spiraling him into greater and greater frustration until he alienated everyone else on the team. Something he also did in college, but it was overlooked since they were winning national championships. Here is a quote by teammate Cherokee Parks regarding a well publicized stomp by Laettner on Kentucky’s Aminu Timberlake’s chest "It's so Laettner. He's supposed to be like this all-America, this glamour boy, Mr. GQ. If you know Laettner, it's such a Laettner move to do something like that." What a zero. Amazingly, although we would eventually have nearly every player in this first round draft (LaPhonso Ellis, Tom Gugliotta, Malik Sealy, Anthony Peeler , Oliver Miller , Latrell Sprewell ) we would of course never get the two best by far (Shaq and Alonzo) who even at this point in their careers are helping The Heat nearly to the finals, up 3-1 over the Pistons. Last night’s third win was highlighted by Shaq going coast-to-coast a-la Dr.J. This was probably the worst draft day in the history of the Timberwolves. We had the worst record the previous season, notching just 15 wins, but got the #3 pick. Shaq would not have stayed here unless we could get the wins, but Wasn’t Michael Williams as good as Penny Hardaway in Orlando? How about if we had taken Tim Hardaway instead of Pooh Richardson? And if Shaq and Willimas had us going on all cylinders, wouldn’t even JR Rider have shaped up for a couple of years to make a run? Or if not would Shaq have ridiculed him into leaving sooner? Uh my head hurts. The good news, this is the low point, the bad news, only one good draft out of the next 13! And yes I am including the years we didn’t have a pick due to the Joe Smith debacle.



1993
Not too much to say here, we once again did not get the top pick, and the draft had only one blue-chipper, Chris Webber. We are tied for the second to worst record in the league, and end up with the #5 pick. Orlando who had the #1 pick the year before, gets the #1 pick again, despite winning 41 games. This caused a rule change (I call it the T-Wolves Rule) where beginning with the 1995 lottery the chances were weighed even more, so that the best non-playoff team would only have a slim (0.5%) chance of receiving the top pick. So basically the NBA from office could no longer fix the draft, and teams that really suck could get high draft picks. After Webber, there is only one pick I would have liked to make using hindsight. We took JR Rider whose tenure was tumultuous at best, I guess we thought we learned our lesson by not taking Tim Hardaway because he was viewed as not being as good a citizen as Pooh, now we went the other way, Rider having well known off-court problems. Maybe Vin Baker would have filled in nicely until his drinkin’ (and eating) days. Not much here though. Sam Cassell a relative unknown from Florida State is the hindsight favorite in the first round.



1994
OK here we go again. 3 blue chippers in this draft, Glenn Robinson, Jason Kidd, and Grant Hill. What pick do we have? #4. We took Donyell Marshall but there was not really anyone taken later that was much better. Juwan Howard went #5 and Brian Grant went #8. At least we didn’t take Eric Montross. Howard notched Double Doubles almost as frequently as the morons lose 100 grand on "Deal or No Deal". Well on to 95.



1995
Well this is it, the pinnacle of our drafts. We ended up with a crappy #5 pick again, in a fairly deep draft. The top picks were Joe Smith, Antonio McDyess, Jerry Stackhouse, and Rasheed Wallace. Also there was Bryant (Big Country) Reeves who I was afraid we would take (that was the consensus pick at the time). We went out on a limb though and took a high Schooler named, of course, Kevin Garnett. The reason we made it to the Western Conference finals in 2004.

1996
Here we are with a fairly deep draft and we should have a high pick again. The #1 pick is the best by far though with Allen Iverson. We passed on Marcus Camby and Shareef Abdur-Rahim and took Ray Allen. Then immediately traded with Milwaukee who took Stephon Marbury right after us. Brilliant. Well Stephon ended up giving us some very high highs, but the Mini-Apple could not hold Starbury. He eventually had to move on to his destiny in New York playing for the Knicks, now under the dubious leadership of Isaiah Thomas. What an idiot. He still gets booed when he comes here. I have no idea if AI would have stayed here if we got the #1 pick, but Ray Allen probably would have, he stayed in Milwaukee for 7 years!


1997
At this point KG is starting to gel , and Laettner is peaking to all star material, so we have mounted 40 wins. Here is the biggest draft since Shaq - Alonzo. Unfortunately we have only the 13th worst record for the Duncan Draft and we get pick number 20! We hearken back to our early days and take a horrible Paul Grant, yet another stiff center (YASC hereafter). Let me tell you he looked a lot better in a siut than he did in a uniform. I remember watching him in college and he walked like Kevin McHale did at that time, not in his playing days. How they thought he would be able to move around in the paint in the NBA just boggles my mind. Unfortunately since the pick was so low, there is no one else worth taking either. Bobby Jackson from Minnesota went 3 picks later and was by far a better basketball player. If it was a pickup game it would be like me (Grant) playing against Muggsy Bogues (Jackson). By the way that reminds me of a time I played against a former Gopher Nate Tubbs, within a few months after his college career was over. He just happened to be playing in a pickup game at my local club, which I was a fairly new member. Well I just got there and found 4 others for the ‘next’ team, then before I knew it we were matching up. I usually went under the basket but my teammates were pretty big if not tall so I went out by the 3-point line to find someone to guard. I ended up matching up with the point guard. Well I crouched down to play D, and he tried to break my ankles with fakes, but held my ground, then he fell back and jumped like 3 feet in the air and launched a shot. Well it missed luckily, but I knew I was out of my league already. Then I heard his teammates yelling ‘Nate’ the next couple of times down the court. And I finally put it together that it was Nate Tubbs. I couldn’t believe how short he was like 5'9", I learned a lot about college basketball that day. Height doesn’t matter as much as quickness. At 6’2” I was towering over this guy but he probably scored 7 of their 11 points. Now I know why no-one wanted to guard him. Well on one breakaway, I kept up with him all the way down the court and fouled him just as he was laying it in. Lets just say he wasn’t real happy that I was challenging him, and drove by me like I was standing still the last two times down the court, scoring the 10th and 11th point. On to next year.


1998
Well now we are over .500 so our picks are not that important anymore. We took YASC in Rasho Nestorovic at #17 who averaged only 7 points and five rebounds in a european league. Nice scouting! The name of his Italian team was Kinder which is German for Child, wierd! There were several good players early in the draft, but we sat tight: Vince Carter, Dirk Novitski, Mike Bibby and Paul Pierce. The #1 pick, one of the biggest flops in NBA history was Michael Olowokandi. Glad we didn’t have the #1 pick or we probably would have taken him too. The best “known” player was probably Mike Bibby, with the two North Carolina players right behind, Carter and Antawn Jamison.


Wallyworld? Sorry folks parks closed Moose out front should a told Ya
1999
Here is where we lost our momentum and we could have made some progress. We got the #6 pick from trading Steph in that 3 team trade with Milwaukee and the Nets. This also started the Terrell Brandon era. This draft class was pretty good. So once again the draft is several players deep probably 6 deep by most people. The nets had the 4th worst record in the NBA, but do we get lucky in the Brand Draft??? Of course not, we get the #6 pick. There were very good players available at that pick, and Wally Szczerbiak was not a terrible choice. If we would have taken Steve Francis, he would have pouted like Steph anyway. Baron Davis, Lamar Odom, Richard Hamilton, and Shawn Marion were other blue chippers. The latter two were available with the #6 pick too. We really needed to do well with this pick too, since we lost Steph to get it. Well it goes downhill from here with our regular #14 pick. I remember thinking as I watched this draft that I wanted to take Ron Artest. This was before any of the insane stuff he has done over the years. Here is a funny quote I found regarding Artest written right after the draft:
From CNN/SI Albert Lin
“Ron Artest, Chicago: Does a little bit of everything, but nothing exceptionally. Plays below the rim. Can he guard NBA 2s and 3s?”
That is funny because he was known as an extremely athletic talent, why wouldn’t he be able to play defense? I don’t know where these guys get their info sometimes. Same place as the GM’s apparently. Instead we take another Dukie William Avery, only I am not happy with this one, Brand would have been great, but I knew from watching Duke all year that only Brand would really make it. Remember this is the draft that four Dukies went in the first round (Maggette and amazingly Trajan Langdon, who could only shoot 3’s) . Which reminds me I doubt he will be on the board at our pick this year, my God I hope not, but Kevin please do not take JJ Redick. He can only shoot! He’s like a smaller quicker Wally Szczerbiak, but don’t let that fool you. Sheldon Williams will probably be an average starter in the NBA some day though, but there has to be someone better at our pick???

2000
In 2000 we had the #21 pick. We basically missed our window with screwing up the 1999 draft. We needed those players to mature and jell for the run we made in 2004. We traded our 2000 first rounder to Toronto (Morris Peterson) for getting rid of Michael Williams crappy contract and getting Chauncey Billups. Basically a very good deal


2001
I said it goes downhill from here but in truth, it is more like bungee jumping without a cord as far as the draft anyway. The Timberwolves somehow got caught in an under the table deal with Joe Smith. It seemed a little strange at the time when the Wolves Signed him for under 2 million and he could have re-signed with Golden State for like 10 mil. Why does this stuff always happen to Minnesota teams. So the commissioner fines them 3.5 mil, no big deal, but also takes away our next 5 #1 draft picks! We would have had the #18 pick. Nobody drafted after us has amounted to much yet anyway oh wait, Tony Parker was the last pick. But if the Wolves would have taken him, he may not have met Eva Longoria in a cruel twist of fate.




Mr. Eva Longoria


2002
Same as 2001, would have had the #24 pick, nobody has emerged in the league after that pick in the draft yet. What does hurt us some is we can’t trade the #1 pick either, just like in 2000 we made a pretty good deal for where our team was, trying to get to the finals, we don’t really need draft picks, but you can trade them to teams that do for quality veterans on teams that have bottomed out.

2003
I a show of compassion, the 2003 pick was reinstated, but instead of trading it, we kept it and drafted YASC, Ndudi Ebi first name pronounced doody, as in poop). Now can we make a rule here? Unless the center is the second coming of Bill Russell, we cannot draft another center, ever. I will now stick my head in a snowblower. Oh yeah and Josh Howard went two picks later, he is currently helping his team in the Western Conference finals with a 17-7 in just 30 some minutes per game.

2004
No Pick Blah Blah Blah

2005
At #14 T-Wolves took Rashad Mccants. A UNC guy but we won’t hold that against him. It is too early to tell how good he will be, like most of the Timberwolves roster. He has flashes of brilliance where it looks like he could be special. Plays D pretty well, and has good quickness. Unfortunately, what the team needs are scorers. KG is not nor will he ever be comfortable taking 30 shots per game. He likes to do the dirty work, prefers it, and that is fine. We just need some scorers who can also lock down on D in the final minutes of the game.


Our New GM Part Man...
2006?
Well the Timberwolves have the #6 pick this year, beating the Celtics in a tie breaker for the 6-7 pick. In worse news the Timberwolves have apparently hired Rob Babcock the GM brain trust behind the last place Toronto Raptors. Well maybe between McHale and Babcock we have at least half a GM, I’ll call him McCock. Well mock drafts have the T-Wolves taking Marcus Williams from Connecticut, or Brandon Roy from Washington could slip. I don’t have a strong opinion on this year’s draft. It is an important one though, just like the 1999 draft was important for the 2004 run. I watched Sheldon Williams and JJ Reddick a lot last year, and as I said Sheldon Williams will be a serviceable power forward in the NBA. Reddick looks to be more like a Hersey Hawkins. He is very active on the offensive end, with rebounding and moving all the time. Contrary to the reports he did create his shot a lot in college. After rebounds or as plays went through other people. So we’ll have to see what McCock can come up with. Unfortunately Joakim Noah and Big Baby Davis are not coming out this year for some reason. Maybe we can trade first rounders with a bad team for next year, and we’ll finally get lucky!