I was at a condo meeting until about 8:30 the other night, so I missed the first 9 innings of Twins/Tigers at the Metrodome. By the time I settled in, checked on the baby and kissed the wife, Leyland had brought in Rodney to finish the 9th and preserve the tie. I should admit that I haven’t seen or even thought much about the Detroit Tigers since they lost to the Cards in the 2006 series. As a New York fan, the world sometimes feels like it stops at the Hudson, and I feel really provincial and small about that sometimes, but it is what it is. That’s why I play fantasy baseball, I guess. Keeps me in the loop. Anyway, one lasting impression I had of the Tigers from 2006 was of this crazy guy Rodney out there on the mound rocking his psycho haircut and throwing his voodoo stink eye all over the place. I remember thinking at the time (as I thought about Armando Benitez back in the day) that a good reliever is almost always equal parts stink eye and talent and that it was cool of him to cultivate his look that way. Not so much anymore though, right? Dude looks like a banker now.

Which got me to thinking. I really don’t watch ESPN highlights anymore. If I had, I’d have been in on Rodney’s extreme makeover a lot sooner. ESPN has become for sports junkies what MTV once was for music fans. A place to put names to faces. I mean, unless you went to concerts in the ’70′s, did anyone actually know what Steve Miller looked like? That’s him over there on the right and I’ll bet at least half of his fans today would trip over him in the street without recognizing him. Exposure to the MTV generation would have cured that. Anyway, it’s the same with out of town sports personalities. Thanks to highlight clips on ESPN, everyone in NY got to know just how big Mark McGwire was and how smooth and graceful Junior Griffey looked despite those awful teal Seattle uniforms. Alas, my Baseball Tonight time pretty much evaporated after I got married. What little of it that did remain got sucked out into the vortex of fatherhood. Time does indeed keep slipping, slipping, slipping into the future.

Oh yeah, Twins/Tigers at the Metrodome. Figured I’d watch just to quench my baseball Jones…now that my team’s been relegated to packing out their lockers and making tee times in Arizona. But even this one was nearly unwatchable for me because whoever did win had to travel to NY the very next night to face the Yankees. Some Golden Ticket, huh? I mean, I’m sort of happy for Twins fans and all. It’s nice to win play-in games. Al Leiter, despite his recent shacking up with the Yankees as their color man on YES, remains one of my all time favorite players for his singular, heroic feat of dragging the Mets into the postseason single handedly on the strength of his 2 hit complete game shutout of the Reds in game 163 of 1999. So yeah, I know from play-in glory. But it’s tough getting hot and heavy for all this when your licking your wounds after a season like this.

I actually did watch the rest of the game though and it actually was pretty good. I was pulling for the Tigers just because as a Met fan, I tend to hate teams like the Twins who come from behind late in the season to snatch away so ungraciously what you once thought was yours for the taking. I dunno. Call it a complex, I guess. But when Rayburn didn’t keep that sinking liner in front of him and it dropped to the turf and rolled to the wall, I experienced that same gut wrenching feeling so familiar to Met fans over the past few years. Here we go again. It was cold comfort that former Mets Carlos Gomez and Bobby Keppel played prominent roles in the Twins’ victory. In fact, looking into that Minnesota dugout last night sort of made you want to start humming “The Curly Shuffle”, didn’t it? For the uninitiated out there, Ron Gardenhire actually used to be skinny. And Rick Anderson was traded for David Cone.

So the Twins get to play the Yanks. I’ll keep track of updates from my Blackberry and will watch whatever game Pavano pitches, but that’s as close as I’ll get to this one (aside from dealing with ridiculous Yankee fans on the subway). Got a feeling the Yanks will roll the Twins pretty quickly. I guess a Yanks/Dodgers series will be nice, but that doesn’t mean I’ll root for that to happen. Nothing’s brought me more pleasure than watching the Yanks get eliminated the past 8 years. And when I say ‘nothing’…I mean…’NOTHING’. This year smells different though, so I’ll temper my expectations and keep blogging my neuroses.

According to MLB Trade Rumors and MASN sports,  The Washington Nationals have sent current AAA outfielder Ryan Langerhans to the Mariners for AAA INF Mike Morse.  Check out MLB Trade Rumors for more, but at first glance, it seems a fairly even trade, with possibly a slight edge to the Nats.

The Nats receive the 27 year old Morse who had been hitting over .300 with 10 home runs and Langerhans stats are here, who is 2 years older and is hitting under .300.  This also allows the Nats to get rid of their huge log jam at OF and get some more infielders.