Games I can remember

I have a pretty basic policy when attending sporting events: Save something that proves I went to the game. This is the old "no-hitter theory." If someone throws a no-hitter at a game I'm at, I need something to prove I was there. Usually it's the ticket stub but maybe it's the program or something else. To this point, I've already mentally archived a lot of games. Dozens of Twins games, pretty much every SDSU football home game from 2010-13 and most of the other sports as well, a handful of Gophers sporting events, one Timberwolves game and one Vikings game. Trips to other venues, both pro and college and otherwise. It's all in this brain of mine. I've even kept tickets from shows and visits to special places like the Statue of Liberty and the Gateway Arch and other national landmarks. There's a couple bins of programs and ticket stubs in the basement of my home that will go somewhere at some point (Mom is counting down those days). It's by no means a complete collection. I know there's games I've been to that are lost to history; half filled out scorecards that will leave us in the sixth inning of some game (A personal mission will be to find out what happened in those games, at some point).

So that's what we'll eventually do here on the blog. We'll go back and replay some of the highlights from these mostly non-descript games.

June 10, 2001 - Pittsburgh 11, Minnesota 8: Of all the games I've gone to, I probably remember this one the most vividly. Our whole family went as part of a church trip and I'm pretty sure it's the only trip the church ever did of its kind. We rode a school bus and I remember being ecstatic about the game. I was nine years old at the time and what 9-year old kid doesn't love baseball. Even at the old age of 21, I'm still in awe of when you come up the concrete tunnel and you see the fake grass of the Dome. In my memory, it will be the game where my friend smashed open a bag of cotton candy on the nice Asian family sitting in front of us in the left field seats.

What I didn't remember was the specific details of the game. Quinton McCracken was the Twins' leadoff guy in 2001? J.C. Romero was the starter and went 6+ innings before the wheels came off in the eighth inning and the Pirates scored seven runs. The pitcher in the ninth inning of that game? Johan Santana. Those roles for Romero and Santana would soon be reversed, with Santana becoming one of the best pitchers of his time and Romero having a mostly average career and cleaning up his fair share of 9th innings.

October 24, 2004 - Minnesota 45, Illinois 0: What got into the Gophers on this day, I'll never know. Dad and I were sitting in the endzone in the third row. I don't exactly remember how we got those tickets but it was so awesome. Truly a kid in a candy store moment and right near that damn cannon they launch after every score, which went off plenty because Illinois sucked. Two Marion Barber III touchdowns in the second quarter made it 17-0 and then Barber hit one of my favorite Gopher receivers of all-time, Ernie Wheelright, on a halfback pass midway through the third quarter. A Lawrence Maroney touchdown and a Paris Hamilton (who?) 82-yard TD catch from Bryan Cupito made it 34-0 going to the fourth. Amir Pinnix had a touchdown that day and I remember thinking, "Oh yeah, he could be the next in this line of great Gopher runners." Yeah, not so much. The Illini were on their way to 3-8 season and Ron Turner was headed out the door. The game came in the midst of a typical Glen Mason season at Minnesota, except Minnesota was actually ranked to start the year. 5-0 out of the gate, rise to No. 13 in the polls, the Big Ten season comes, Gophers aren't as good as we thought, salvage a win against crappy Illinois, lose the rest of the games but make the Music City Bowl. Play Alabama and beat them because they weren't good yet. (Even then, I remember thinking "Minnesota beat Alabama. That shouldn't happen.)

May 11, 2008 - Minnesota 9, Boston 8: Another time where I saw history, folks. The only game in Twins history where both Adam Everett and Craig Monroe hit a home run and in the same inning, no less. In fact, Monroe hit two home runs, including what would be the eventual game-winner in the 7th inning. Monroe played just 58 games for the Twins with 8 home runs and Everett made an appearance in 48 contests, hitting just two blasts (the other one would be three months later at Yankee Stadium off former Twin Sidney Ponson! Fun fact: Sidney Ponson is only 38 years old in 2015!) Together, Monroe and Everett helped Minnesota build a 5-0 lead with two homers in the second inning on Sunday Night Baseball. I remember sitting in my seat and looking at the light blue screen behind home plate, knowing that they were showing virtual ads against that on ESPN.

The box score reminds me that Tim Wakefield pitched this game, allowing 7 runs in less than 3 innings and 6 of the runs were earned. It actually was a 2-run single from Mike Lamb, playing third base that night, who chased Wakefield, scoring Justin Morneau and Carlos Gomez. Nick Blackburn was the starter, posting a largely unspectacular game with 6 innings pitched and 4 runs allowed. Minnesota led 7-1 after three innings but the lead dwindled to 9-6 going to the 8th inning. Thankfully, Dennys Reyes pitched a solid 8th inning before Joe Nathan came in during the 9th inning. He allowed two runs but picked up his 12th save of the year. He had 39 saves in 2008 and 260 for his career (out of 288 save opportunities, by my count. He converted 90 percent of his save chances for the Twins. Not bad.)

I remember it was Mother's Day and Mom got something when we went in but I don't remember what that was. We sat down the right field line in the lower level, not far from the milk jug that they put in the corner where some of the seats were stored. Not enough foul balls hit that milk jug. (That wasn't my favorite Twins related advertisement at the Dome, though; mine was in right centerfield, where it said Old Dutch chips were "the best two-bagger in baseball" because they came in a box with two bags of chips.)

April 30, 2010 - Cincinnati 3, St. Louis 2: When I was a senior in high school (that very short period of time ago), we went to St. Louis for a band trip.

They handed out Snuggies at the game. St. Louis Cardinals snuggies with an AT&T logo all over them. Nice. The game was marred by a fit of rain and severe weather, delaying the game for two and a half hours. That was not good for our bus load of fans. Because we had one bus driver on the trip and federal regulations cap the number of hours they can drive in a day, the game would basically have to fit into a three-hour window in order to get back to the hotel in time. It didn't and we had to leave during the rain delay. They were showing the radar on the out-of-town scoreboard at Busch Stadium and there was reports of tornadoes in the Missouri suburbs of St. Louis.

From the official box score in that game:

THE GAME HAS RESUMED IN THE TOP OF THE SIXTH INNING AFTER A 2 HOUR AND 30 MINUTE DELAY. SITUATION: 2 RUNS IN, R HERNANDEZ ON FIRST, J GOMES ON SECOND, O CABRERA ON THIRD, 3 OUTS CURRENT SCORE: CINCINNATI 3, ST LOUIS 2

I remember being pleased that I didn't end up missing any more runs, as the Reds bullpen locked it down. But I wasn't pleased with having to leave. 

The news doesn't discriminate

For the second time in a few months, I was left shaking my head about the reaction to the news. 

Not so much the news itself, but people online -- primarily on Facebook -- complaining about the local news media reporting on bad news. 

A few months ago, there was a fatal one-vehicle car crash in Mitchell which came at the end of a pursuit through town. A bad deal all the way around, made only worse when it was revealed a week later that the driver had a blood alcohol content level of nearly four times the legal limit. 

People were furious. A bunch of Facebook comments, saying our paper wouldn't let the person rest in peace (or my favorite, rest in piece). I took a phone call from a woman who seemed to be a family member. She was angry, but also biased. I wasn't going to be able to understand her pain or try to get through her tears to have her understand my point. Sometimes you just let people have their say, if even they call you some unprintable words about a story you didn't write. 

I'm not one to speculate, especially on death but it seems plausible that the blood alcohol level played a role in the decision making and the crash. But there were people irrationally upset that my newspaper reported on the man's previous history of run-ins with the law and that the paper reported on the blood alcohol content level. It was important to the story, no matter what people say. 

Sioux Falls outlets were the target on Friday when they reported the news circumstances surrounding the death of a Valley Springs volunteer firefighter in April, who had a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit when he died fighting a fire. 

Dozens of Facebook comments poured in on the story, claiming that the news stations and newspapers had no business tarnishing the hero's reputation by reporting his blood alcohol content level and blaming one outlet for "ruining lives." This time, I was an outsider, a consumer of the news who knew exactly what it was like to be blamed for that. 

The general public doesn't understand how the news is made. For a newspaper, as an example, they don't care if sources didn't cooperate with you or if there was a tight deadline to turn in the story. They just expect the full story online as quickly as possible and then the story in their print edition the next day. They don't care how difficult your job is. And they have that right. They subscribe or pay $1 each day at the gas station and buy the paper and readers have standards. I'm glad they do. 

But when you get the news, you get all of it. You don't get a watered down version. You get the facts. And if the facts suddenly don't fit what people want the story to be or their personal narrative, they get defensive. 

In both cases, there were a few who understood that the stories were important because both provided key context to the story. That's why news outlets have the jobs they have. You have to dig into stories, and go beyond the basics. 

In addition, when you're talking about death or serious incidents, 99.9 percent of the news outlets are willing to wait for confirmation from authorities regarding who died or what happened. All of this information comes from the cops or the investigators. TV stations and newspapers don't make it up or take their own liberties. It's not worth getting sued over. Most outlets are going to try to be respectful as possible when you're talking about something this serious. 

But there's still people that blame the outlet and that's interesting. I'll put it this way: if members of the public found out that news outlets were holding onto information that fundamentally changes the story, they would be pissed. They wouldn't trust those places for news and they shouldn't. They wouldn't be conducting journalism. It would be censored and disingenuous. 

This information about the firefighter's death didn't come through "sources." It came in a press conference, directly from Brandon's police chief. From the police. If the police didn't release this information, it would be a pretty big piece of the story that was being held back, so the authorities here deserve some credit.

And the metrics -- the website clicks, the social media impressions which are so closely watched in this media landscape -- clearly indicate that the general public isn't nearly as interested in "good" news as they are in "bad" news. People don't read good news like they read bad news. I would know. I've spent a lot of time on a really nice feature about someone courageously fighting cancer that is barely read in comparison to a story about a local meth bust that contains only the bare bones reporting and information. 

Like I mentioned off the top, most of this vitriol was on Facebook. And in my opinion, there's more of that on Facebook than any other outlet. People say things that they often wouldn't say in person or things that usually lack common sense. I'm not sure what it is about Facebook (and Twitter to an extent on other issues) that makes people do this but you don't see a lot of good in people on Facebook when responding to stories.

People say they want good news but they don't read it like they read bad news. There's comments on the firefighter story, complaining that "this isn't news." The response, readership, comments -- and above all, journalism instincts -- would indicate otherwise.