Seasonal Sports Depression

This last month of summer is typically the worst when it comes to sports. Baseball drags through the middle of its season and except for the occasional NASCAR race or fight the sports landscape is barren. Every year I dread this period and salivate for the upcoming pro and college football seasons but this last couple of weeks have been far more interesting in an even more depressing way. Last week I touched on the latest two sports scandals that were dominating the headlines, Michael Vick and the NBA ref scandal. I wondered whether we’d ever get back to sports stories that focused on the sports. Sadly for us Minnesota sports fans that did happen this week and the results were just as depressing. On Tuesday, our dysfunctional sports city took another giant step backward as our plucky, never say die but never say win, baseball team cashed in their chips for the season and our dysfunctional basketball team said goodbye to the face of the franchise and one of the 50 greatest players of all-time.

Living in a small market city, you’re bound to suffer with your sports teams especially when it comes to baseball but the Minnesota Twins have always bucked the system…to a point. The team has done a fantastic job of growing its own talent through their minor league system and maintaining relevant both on and off the field. Management has perfected a cycle of stringing together a few winning seasons then suffering through some miserable ones and then rebounding back to more winning years. This is fine and dandy and something say the Kansas City Royals or Tampa Bay Devil Rays can only dream about but for both the fans and the players here, it can be frustrating. The Twins seem more interested in maintaining this cycle then achieving any higher goals. On Tuesday the team traded second baseman and leadoff hitter Luis Castillo for a couple of minor league prospects partly because they knew they wouldn’t sign the free agent to be in the off season. The result is that the fans see this as a white flag on an already disappointing season (the Twins have hovered around .500 all year) and the players see it as a sign to jump ship. Cy Young winner Johan Santana, AL MVP Justin Morneau, and long time Twin and all around good player Torii Hunter are all due new contracts in the next year or two and all have expressed concern about how much this team is willing to do to win it all. As such, the team might see an exodus of stars and once again enter a rebuilding cycle with hometown boy Baby Jesus (Joe Mauer) left as its sole star. It’s hard to believe that management would let that happen especially with a new stadium on its way but perhaps they’re counting on the stadium to sell the team. Ask the folks in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee how that turns out. Milwaukee is just now digging out of years of lousy teams and fan apathy and Pittsburgh has become the Royals of the NL. I’m fine with the Twins rebuilding but the key ingredient missing from this cycle is a World Series ring. The last two rebuilding cycles were punctuated by wins in the 87 and 91 series. Instead of trading away a leader of the team perhaps the team should have tried to add a few pieces because that rebuilding cycle is coming quick and if the players and fans don’t have championship memories to tide them over this time it could be a rough one.

Meanwhile on the other side of downtown, the Minnesota Timberwolves were busy digging themselves into an even bigger hole in the Twin Cities sports scene. The Tuesday trade of Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics was expected but the particulars of the trade were both dissatisfying and depressing. The Timberwolves have cemented their status as one of the five worst franchises in professional sports by trading Garnett for a group of maybes, has-beens, and never will-bes. While trading Garnett had almost become a necessity the management did the team and themselves a disservice by settling for a deal that will make this team obsolete for another 3 to 4 years. In this increasing competitive environment for the consumer entertainment dollar that’s bad business as well as bad management. General Manager and former NBA star Kevin McHale was named last year by Forbes’ Magazine as the top GM in all of sports (for an encore they later named Britney Spears Mother of the Year), and clearly the man believes his own hype. Only someone who has his head stuck so far up his own ass could possibly make this deal and continue to walk around with a sense of arrogance and smugness. I stopped being a hard core NBA fan years ago but never stopped following the Wolves and Garnett to some extent. Now I’ll probably keep an eye on Boston to see if Garnett can take that step to championship glory that he never did here but I won’t have to keep an eye on the Wolves for they’ll be solidly in the basement and most likely on the move out of town before the decade is done.

And so here I sit at the end of typically the most boring sports month and to my surprise it’s actually been full of news…too bad it was all negative. From the scandals to the local incompetence this has truly been one depressing summer. Let’s not forget the absolute tedium of the Bonds Watch as he takes weeks between homers to just end the circus, and this is coming from a die hard Bonds fan. Of course as I stated football season is right around the corner and while I enjoy the preseason optimism we’re all entitled too, I can’t help but think I’ve got a college team in Wisconsin facing huge expectations which surely means disappointing results, and a pro team whose quarterback hasn’t been able to take snaps from center in a consistent manner since training camp started. Maybe its time to start taking up an interest in our local indoor lacrosse team…