Target Field: New Year, New Scoreboard and most important, NEW FOOD!

As a lot of you found out last year, Target Field had some really good/great food compared to the day/week old hot dogs offered at “The Dome”. This year, there is a whole new crop of food coming in. I have listed them in order of the things I am most excited for. Man, this is almost as exciting as opening day itself. No, not really, but it is still pretty cool.

Turkey to Go: A favorite at the Minnesota State Fair since 1959, the Giant Juicy Turkey Sandwich -- marinated overnight, served hot and fresh, and pulled from the bone -- makes its Minnesota sports debut in a portable stand behind home plate on the main concourse. Turkey to Go also has a food truck at Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. The sandwich is served with Ken Davis BBQ Sauce, created in Minneapolis in 1972.

• This has been my favorite thing to get at the state fair. If you like turkey, you have to try this thing. It will blow your mind.

Lift Bridge Brewery: Added to the local beer offerings this year is Farm Girl Saison from Lift Bridge Brewery based in Stillwater, Minn.

·          This is a great brewery. I have tried a few of their selections. You might even see an appearance from them on STOB.

Hebrew National Hot Dog: For Twins fans seeking a Kosher selection, the Hebrew National Hot Dog comes to Target Field this season. The preparation of the main attraction at Target Field’s first kosher hot dog portable cart will be supervised Sunday through Thursday by a Rabbi or one of his representatives. The cart will remain open Friday and Saturday, but in observation of the Sabbath, it will not be supervised. All food items – including bread, condiments and specially packaged soft drinks – fall within kosher standards.

·          I remember the first time I tried one of these hotdogs…..it was awesome. These might be the best hotdogs money can buy. I like that there are now about 4 hotdog choices at Target Field. Everyone knows, no matter how nice the food is at a ballpark, you can’t leave without trying a hotdog.

Kramarczuk’s Sausage: Twins fans can enjoy two Food Network takes on the highly-popular Kramarczuk’s sausage in addition to the bratwurst, Polish and Hungarian sausages already served at Target Field. The new Food Network specialties are a smoked bratwurst with horseradish cream and a wild rice bratwurst with pickled red cabbage and beer mustard. The sausages will be made fresh daily just one mile away from Target Field at Kramarczuk's and will be served at a Food Network cart at section 114.

·          I can’t lie; I have never tried the sausage from this place. This is way it is 4th on the list. People rave about them, so they must be good.

Walk A Taco (El Burrito Mercado): A tortilla-based cone, stuffed with authentic taco ingredients. Owned by the Silva family, El Burrito Mercado has featured its Walk A Taco at festivals like TwinsFest 2011, Taste of Minnesota, Cinco de Mayo and Grand Ol’ Day.

·          This sounds like a walking taco (Doritos and taco fillings all in one small Doritos bag), but better. Depending on price, could be worth a try.

Minneapple Pie: Apples inside a deep-fried, flaky crust and topped with cinnamon and sugar. For an additional cost, the pie can be topped Blue Bunny Ice Cream. Armed with a century-old family recipe, the Atsidakos family developed this individual apple pie in the 1960s at Peter’s Grill in Minneapolis and now serves it in the family-run Cottage Grill in Rogers, Minn. It’s featured at the State Fair and will now be at the State Fair Classics stand at Target Field.

     *        Another product I have never tried. It is last on my list because I just don’t see pie as being something you eat at  a game. I know the saying, “As American as Apple Pie and Baseball”, but I’d rather have a beer and a turkey sandwich.

It’s Thursday! Ok, more like Tuesday, but Thursday sounds better than Wednesday.

Yeah, I ripped off the “Common Man” from K-Fan there, but that is ok, he is used to people stealing his material by now. So, what does everyone have going on this week? I see that there has been an increase in readers of the blog, love it. What I’m hoping will happen now is you guys giving me some feedback. I’m always ready to hear whatever it is you guys have to say. Be it good, or bad. I want to make my site and my combined site with Mr. Duke http://sportstearsinourbeers.blogspot.com/ as user friendly as possible. So, for this blog, you can email ksmi136@yahoo.com and if you want to contact the S.T.O.B crew, you can email sportstearsinourbeers@yahoo.com This is a good way for you and us, to interact and have a good time. If you have any topics you would like us to write/podcast about, let us know. If you have a beer that you think is the best and we should try it while podcasting, let us know. Don’t worry, we won’t steal your ideas, you will get full credit for any topic we use and you can even send in a picture of yourself that we will post next to the topic. So please, visit one, two or all 3 of the blogs and share with us, while we share with you. Also, if anyone has any good band recommendations, please share those with us as well. Just remember, it can be about anything, doesn’t have to be just about sports. Mr. Duke and I hope to hear from you guys soon and have a great day. Also, shout out to all the people in India that seem to be reading the blog. Thanks, that is really cool of you guys…or girls out there.

On a side note, I have come up with a prescription for any day of the week. It is the new, “hot girl of the day”. Here is today’s picture.

Sidefx of a Monday = Boredom and trying to figure out how to get through the workday.

    Prescription = New Yellowcard CD "When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes"

I just purchased this cd on Friday before a road trip to Omaha and I gotta tell ya, it made the trip go by pretty quick. Yellowcard took off right from where they left things. The come out and punch you in the mouth with the first song “The sound of you and me”. It is about 4 mins long and is everything you would expect a Yellowcard song to be. It is fast, slow, soft, hard, powerful and amazing. They continue on with the first single “For you and your denial”. This was the first song I heard off the cd and I loved it. However, this might be the song I listen to the least, even though it may very well be the best, as I have had it for a few months and it was the only new Yellowcard out there. There are 8 other tracks, for a total of 10 that will make you feel like Yellowcard never took a break. If you just want a few samples of the songs, check out this link http://www.amazon.com/Youre-Through-Thinking-Digital-Booklet/dp/B004R98LSI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301329512&sr=8-1. I think that you will be happy you did. Not to mention, you can get it for $10 at Target, so instead of getting you and your girl a classy dinner of two $5 footlongs, pick up a cd that you can enjoy forever.

Another day, another Gopher thinks the grass is greener on the other side and the Twins are hoping to play on some of that grass.

This time, it is Jr. Colton Iverson. He would have been a senior this coming year, but I kind of think he saw the writing on the wall. He didn’t get much playing time last year (which was a mistake I believe) and he probably would not have gotten very much this coming year. It is still strange that he would leave going into his Sr. year. I think he will probably transfer to a D-II school so he won’t have to sit out a year. I hate to see Colt leave, but we do have enough size to where it won’t hurt the Gophers. The have Trevor, Ralph, Mo and Elliott (who Tubby is ga-ga over). This is a good move by Colt, just comes at a bad time as it seems like Tubby is losing someone every month.

Well, on a brighter note, the Twins get started with real games this Friday. They are playing in Toronto against the Blue-Jays. I think this will be a huge coupld of games for Justin. I for one want to see him break up a double play in the first inning and have nothing happen. That will get whatever scare that is left of getting hurt, out of his mind. I have big expectations for this team this year. I would like to see us run away with the central by winning 100 games and hopefully getting out of the first round. I don’t think I can take another first round exit. But hey, that is a long ways off. For the time being, we can just hope they get off to a fast start and starting thinking of that first game at Target Field on the 8^th. Hopefully by then I won’t be ordering chili to stay warm, but just because it is so good. I just looked at the forecast on accuweather.com and it is showing 68 on the 8^th. That would be amazing. We know the place will be packed either way, but it would be great if the temps were warm and the twins were coming in at no worse than 5-2. That will be tough with the first 7 on the road (3 @Bluejays & 4@the devils…or Yankees.) But, we should be ready to go and our line-up will be in full swing. Now all we need to do is get through this work week and than we will be good to go with sports for the summer. Have a good day and we will see ya later.

Side note: Mr. Duke and I are starting a blog/podcast together. It is http://sportstearsinourbeers.blogspot.com/ it is under construction, but check it out soon, it will be amazing.

I was really feeling the sidefx of a crap MN sports winter, but I'm back baby!

In the words of the great Slim Shady...."Guess who's back".

It was nice taking a little break away from all the crap that we called sports. I mean, my favorite team, the Gophers' Men's Basketball team really went in the dumps. I'm not even going to get into the Favrings, I mean Vikings. That team was more of a train wreck than Charlie Sheen. That's OK though, we have the Twins starting and a few months for Tubby to right the ship for our Gophers next year. So, today, that is what we will be talking about. Let's take a look at next years Gopher team shall we.

Roster:

Andre Hollins
Austin Hollins
Rodney Williams
Mo Walker
Trevor Mbwake (maybe)
Ralph Sampson
Colt 45
Joe Coleman
Julian Welch
Mavrick
Chip Armelin
Oto
And some others that probably won't see the court.

So, who would you put in your starting line-up? I would have my starting 5 be Julian, Andre, Coleman, Trevor and Mo. I know that gives a young back court, but Andre and Coleman are no joke, they can flat out play. It also gives us a lot of size inside. If Mo can cut down his weight, he could be our Draymond Green. Trevor will be Trevor. It also gives us some great bench players with experience. We all know Tubby likes to play two 5 man squads, so this could be a good idea. I mean, here would be the 2nd five. Chip, Austin, Rodney, Ralph and Colt. Not to mention, the 11th and 12th players would be Mav and Oto....not bad. I don't know about you guys, but I'm excited about this team. Granted, I say that every year and it never really works out. However, I think the 2011-2012 team can really be different. Finger's crossed I guess.

On a side note, is winter ever going to end? This is just getting crazy. Granted, we did see an amazing day on St. Patricks day (Best outdoor drinking day ever), so that was nice. Come on winter, we are all yelling uncle...can you not hear us? I can't even get myself pumped to write about the Twins. If the Dome was fixed, would they have moved games there if snow was still in the air?? Meh, probably not.

On another side note, I want to give a shout out to my buddies blog http://mrdukesthoughts.blogspot.com/ He has some good basketball stuff up there.

Well, that is it for today. See ya soon. Don't forget to vote on the poll.

I know it's a little late, but I wanted to say Welcome to Twins Territory to Tsuyoshi Nishioka. I think this is a great move by the twins and will really set us up in the middle for some years to come.

Welcome (Kangei)   

Twinks and Vikes

I'm pretty busy at work today, so this post will be short.

Tigers win again this afternoon giving us a nice 6 game lead. That is the biggiest lead we have had all year. Thank you Tigers.

Vikes start off the year tonight and I don't think it will be pretty.

Vikes 14
Saints 31

Sorry for such a short post. I will have a recap of the vikes game tomorrow and a preview of the Twins and Indians as well.

Thanks and go Vikes!

Sidefx of Playing softball...

Yep, good ol' tennis elbow. After playing through pain this past couple of weeks, I finally went into the Dr. They say I have some ligament damage....great. That is why the blog post have been lacking lately. My elbow is feeling a little better so I will do my best to get back on here and update all of you on the happenings in the sports world.

Gopher Basketball Eh

As you probably now, the Gophers played 3 games in Canada this weekend. They came out 3-0 and played pretty well for it being Sept. I'm most impressed with Devoe and Mo Walker. Walker is huge and will cause a lot of problems for teams that like to drive into the lane. With Mo, Trev, Colt and Ralph....watch out. Devoe looks like he started right where he finished...on fire. Everyone says he is better at the 2 spot, but I like him at the 1. It allows Blake to play more and will also allow Rodney to get some starts. Nolen is fine, but I think he should start taking the role of a 3rd-4th qtr defensive specialist. He can kind of be our "closer". I know we drop off a little on D when he is not in, but letting Devoe run the show and do is own thing seems to be the way to go.

The Twins are on Fire.

That's really all that needs to be said here. If we can get into the playoffs by winning the division (don't count us out of the wild card if chi-town passes us) than we have all but sealed up home field against the wild card team. I say don't count us out of the wild card race because we are only 2.5 behind Tampa for that spot. So, I would say our chances of getting into the playoffs with 23 games to go sits at about 90%. I think we have a great shot of winning the first round, no matter who we play. We have the 3rd best record in the league right now, so if there are any doubters...just leave. Yeah, we know you like the field, but if you don't like the team....WE DON'T NEED YA!

Vikes start Thursday

I will have more on this either tomorrow or Thursday.