The Rake Magazine

It would truly be folly if, as has been rumored, the Twins end up keeping four catchers on their roster (two real catchers, and two imposters) and cutting Michael Restovich loose. I still have a hard time believing that's going to happen.

It's all a result of a bizarre set of circumstances, of course, what with the Twins having a surplus at several positions and a dearth of satisfying alternatives at a couple others. I know they feel they need a safety cushion in case Joe Mauer's knee flares up, but four catchers is both more and in this case less than a safety cushion, when two of those guys (Matthew LeCroy and Corky Miller) would be nothing but last resorts. Miller has done absolutely nothing other than presumably being able to crouch and don the catcher's gear to deserve a spot on the major league roster, and I don't see how he's any kind of an upgrade from last year's desperate measure, Rob Bowen. If Mauer's knee truly becomes a concern they're going to have to do something to address the problem sooner rather than later, and certainly none of the available candidates allows them to do that or (other than LeCroy) is even likely to be here next season.

I think Mauer's knee will be fine, by the way. I talked to him about it last year on a number of occasions, and I sense this is a case of a 21-year-old kid who's never had an injury of any sort getting used to the idea that his knee doesn't feel quite the way it once did. As anyone who's had knee surgery could tell you --and Mauer's surgery was a relatively minor procedure, particularly when compared to Jason Kubel's reconstruction-- there are always going to be flare-ups of pain and discomfort, and there may well be additional glitches down the road. But for the time being, at least, it seems to me that the whole idea of being vulnerable is just something he needs to get his head around.

The real problem for Restovich is the insecurity involving the guy at second base, Luis Rivas, who has continued his maddening trend of answering questions with more questions. I don't know anymore. I've tried to be positive about Rivas, and have pointed out his age as a potential cause for optimism. After the spring he's had that just doesn't cut it anymore, and how much worse off would the team be with Nick Punto at second? It now seems certain that they're going to keep the switch-hitting Terry Tiffee as a bat off the bench, but let's not forget that there's still always the option of moving Michael Cuddyer over to second --at least from time to time-- and starting Tiffee at the corner.

I wonder if the Twins have ever seriously considered cutting Rivas loose? It would certainly make things a lot easier for the time being, and would allow them to keep Restovich, a guy who they've invested a great deal of time and money in and who's never really gotten a shot to show what he can do at the Major League level. Toss in that he's a Rochester kid, was regarded as a prospect as recently as a couple seasons ago, and has power potential and I can't for the life of me understand why they'd let him go to free up a spot for someone like Corky Miller. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Corky Miller. Corky Mother-Humping Miller. Get serious. That name, I don't think I need to tell you, just isn't going to get it done.

Corky Miller is the name of the grizzled chuckwagon cook in a western round-up.

Corky Miller is the fat, beleaguered first baseman on a little league team in an After School Special.

Corky Miller is the hayseed in the danceline of a Broadway musical.

Corky Miller is an astigmatic junior high school shop teacher.

Corky Miller is the bully with a crewcut in a comic book from the 1950s.

Corky Miller is a Division I women's basketball coach.

Corky Miller is the host of a cable access Christian children's television program.

Corky Miller is a ventriloquist's dummy.

Corky Miller is a golf caddy.

Corky Miller is a gentleman suitor.

Corky Miller is a sidekick, an afterthought, a horse track rube, a meddlesome neighbor, a musclehead with a fake tan.

Corky Miller is not a Major League baseball player. Not in the 21st century, he's not. He better not be.

...Baseball owners, writers, fans and lots of others found themselves beset with questions for which nobody has any real answers. Was attendance keeping pace with the population growth? Were ball parks really outmoded? Was the game declining in popularity? Were ball players getting too commercial? Was the game too old fashioned for an audience getting more and more used to speed and action?

Among some typical squawks [from fans] were these: Tickets sometimes cost too much....Some games are just too darn long and slowly paced. It is sometimes easier and more relaxing to watch the game on television....Apparently fans don't mind spending time in the park; they just don't like to be bored by innumerable mound conferences.

--John T. Casey, "Seven Answers to What's Wrong With Baseball," Baseball Magazine, July 1956

Would you rather hit .340 with absolutely no power or .240 with 45 homeruns?

Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est (The designated hitter has got to go). Agree or disagree?

Greatest season of all-time: Rogers Hornsby in 1922 (.401, 42 HRs, 152 RBIs) or Lefty Grove in 1931 (31-4, 2.06 ERA)? Is there someone else you'd like to enter into the discussion?

Pick an Evans: Dwight or Darrell?

What was the most lopsided trade in history? (I might take Houston's swap of Larry Anderson for Boston's Jeff Bagwell.)

Has an outfielder ever thrown for the cycle (thrown out runners at every base in a single game)?

Has a centerfielder ever recorded a put-out in foul territory?

Who is the most underrated player of the current era?

You have the first pick in your faux-baseball draft. Which player do you choose?

Who is the worst player ever to wear a Twins uniform?

Who was (or is) the most unslightly player ever to wear a Twins uniform?

Do you sometimes feel like people are laughing at you behind your back?

Who was the greatest disappointment in Twins' history (in terms of failure to live up to potential)?

The Wave: do you participate, or sit it out?

Which player's name was embossed on the mitt you used as a kid?

Wrigley Field or Fenway Park?

What is the greatest baseball book of all-time?

Wally the Beerman: Pro or con?

Pitcher's duel or slugfest?

Finally, A bit of memorabilia for the fan who has everything...

You have to admire a guy who does something for as many years as Bob Casey did something, and to its credit (and occasionally to its detriment) the Twins' organization has always rewarded loyalty. Casey was treated like a local treasure, and his career was allowed to run its course on his own timetable.

The man was the only public address announcer the team ever had, which is truly astonishing considering his by-now legendary and well-documented difficulties pronouncing his way through the dramatis personae (a phrase he would surely have butchered until it sounded like a passable approximation of a Dominican shortstop's name) of a Major League lineup card. He was also a curmudgeon and a company man through and through.

Loyalty breeds loyalty, I guess, but this last quality was always the most frustrating from a purely personal standpoint. I chatted with Casey behind the batting cage on dozens --perhaps hundreds-- of occasions over the years, and he was a master of gruff small talk. He was always happy to talk about his kids and his grandchildren, but grew wary whenever the subject turned to him and his career. It wasn't about him, he'd say, and that was always the end of that discussion.

The year the Twins inducted Casey into their Hall of Fame, I stalked the poor man for weeks, trying to get him to agree to a profile, but he would have none of it. That remains my one big frustration from the years I've spent around the team. I've always been attracted to what I think of as baseball's lifers, the folks like Casey who've spent so much of their lives wrapped up in the routines of the ballpark.

A guy surely builds up a pretty impressive trove of stories over more than forty years in any job, but Casey had a truly unique job, and he was clearly a unique character. I also knew from my small talk with him that he'd had another life as well, before he settled in behind the PA microphone for the Twins. Some of those details have come to light in the various obituaries and tributes of the last couple days --Casey's World War II service, his PA stints with the Lakers and Millers-- but I always wanted to know more. I was curious about the guy, and determined to break down his cranky reserve.

Casey, though, wasn't going to get hooked into telling any tales out of school --those were his words-- and he also wasn't about to leave school until he was forced out kicking and screaming or carried out in a box. He pretty much got his way in the end, and good for him.

All the same, I still wish I'd gotten those stories out of him. And there's no doubt it won't ever be quite the same without him duck-walking around the Dome and serving up his regular assortment of head-scratchers and belly laughs.

In Cuba, when they have tornadoes, they kill them. When they see one coming, they start shooting it with their rifles and shotguns, and the explosions make the tornadoes disappear. When I tell people in America that they shoot tornadoes in Cuba, they don't believe me. But I believe because I've seen it happen; I've seen the dark funnel drop out of the sky, then disappear when the men from the farms start shooting it.

--Tony O! The Trials and Triumphs of Tony Oliva, Tony Oliva with Bob Fowler. Hawthorn Books, 1973.