Not an expert on sports

After 10 games, the Twins have demonstrated that there are plenty of questions about the 2012 season. Hitting still seems to be an issue — not enough timely hits. Pitching has been spotty, but no one expects the staff to give up just a run or two a game. The Twins have to score at least four or five runs in most games if they expect to win.

The good news — they opened in New York with a win Monday night, maybe it will be the catalyst to turn things in the right direction during this tough road trip.

After watching the 2012 Twins open the season at Baltimore last weekend, I have come to the following conclusions:

–The 2012 Twins look remarkably similar to the 2011 Twins — at least in the early going. They still have no hitting threats, still are inconsistent on the mound and in the field. My son and I often talk about how Twins hitters make very average pitchers look like Cy Young. It happened again in all three games at Baltimore and was capped on Sunday when the Orioles Jason Hamel took a no-hitter into the eighth inning.

On the hitting side, have you ever seen so many weak ground balls and popups? It has to get better. I thought early on that pitching was a bigger concern than hitting.

–The Twins will be challenged to come out of April with any sort of positive flow. The Twins next 16 games inlcude: Angels (3), Rangers (3), Yankees (4), Rays (3) and Red Sox (3) . That’s a tough schedule for a team that’s playing well! But, unless the Twins get the bats going and the pitching in a groove, every game will look tough on paper!

Grapefruit play continues in Florida, but the number of questions surrounding the Twins continues to keep fans from knowing where this team is headed.

Some of the questions:

–Will Justin Morneau be able to play? If he can play, will he play in the field, will he DH, will he stay healthy at all?

–Will Joe Mauer stay healthy and be able to catch this season? Will he have to play some first base?

–Will the starting pitching be effective? Will the bullpen and middle relief be effective and can Matt Capps be an effective closer?

–Will Denard Span be able to stay healthy?

–There are infield question; there are outfield questions — I don’t remember a spring training with so much uncertainty.

The bottom line is that no one can answer these questions until the answers unfold on the baseball diamond. As the spring continues and the season begins, all the questions will be answered — one way or another. For the Twins, hopefully most of the answers involve positive results. We’ll have to wait and see.

As approach the middle of February, we are just days away from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training. The Twins will open training camp this season with more questions than they have seen in many years.

The bottom line, however, is that the Twins must have good health from both Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. That is the starting point! even if the fomer MVPs are healthy, you still have to look at a number of positions that need players who will perform better than average.

The starting point is pitching. Pavano, Baker and Liriano have to be strong starters if the Twins are going to think about contending. Then comes the bullpen. Do they have the people to hold games until the late innings? Can Matt Capps be a consistent closer?

In spring training, everything always looks rosy — hopefully that optimism can carry into the season.

The New York Yankees are out of the baseball playoffs — as is Tampa Bay, and Boston (never got in) — so much for the great American league East. I’ve been getting too many doses of ESPN, but I had started to believe that there was the AL East with three great teams, and then the rest of baseball with not much more than chopped liver!

True to ESPN fashion, however, they spent most of Thursday night and Friday trying to explain how the Yankees lost — oh, and by the way, Detroit won.

The Brewers play Friday to see if they can advance. The televison world is probably dreading the possiblity of a World Series involving any combination of Detroit, Texas, St. Louis or Milwaukee — all middle of the country. You can be sure TV executives are hoping the Phillies advance.

The Packers go for five straight Sunday night. The Vikings hope to avoid “five straight.”

The Badgers continue to roll, but will have a hard time getting much higher than number 4 in the country. All they can hope for is that the teams above them lose somewhere along the line (that’s assuming the Badgers keep winning).

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It would have been hard to predict last spring, but the Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers are on two very different paths as we enter the final weeks of the baseball season.

The Twins, of course, are in danger of finishing in last place in the Cnetral Division. Injuries are part of the problem, but it is hard to believe that they can play so bad in the filed and that the hitting has just evaporated! The pitching is also spotty — nobody stepped forward this year to lead any aspects of playing baseball — hitting, pitching and fielding.

The Brewers, menawhile, are going the opposite direction. They are hitting the ball with authority. When a Brewer hitter comes to the plate you almost expect him to do something good. The Brewer pitching has also stepped it up. I think Milwaukee will have a shot at getting to the World Series. Of course, the Ntional League representative will have to get past Philadelphia.

Football

The Packers and Vikings are close to starting the regular season. The Packers look like they are ready to pick up where they left off. If Rodgers stays healthy, the Pack is capable of beating anyone! The Vikings have a few more questions marks, but look a bit stronger with Donovan McNabb at QB.

I completed a whirlwind baseball trip last week with my two adults sons. I’ll probably write more about it in a future column in the Hudson Star-Observer, but here are the stats in a nutshell.

We put on 2,500 miles in five-plus days with stops in Cinncinati, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Milwaukee. To make it six games, we went to the Twins-Dodgers game Monday night at Target Field.

We actually left Tuesday (June 21) at about 2 p.m. and drove to Indianapolis that night and went to Cinncinati for a day game on Wednesday. After the game we drove to Cumberland, Maryland. On Thursday morning we drove to north of Washington DC and took the train into Washignton. After a day game, we actually walked the mall and visited several memorials in DC. We then drove to Gettysburg that night.

On Friday morning we toured Gettysburg and drove to Pittsburg for a Friday night game. After that game we crossed into Ohio for the night. On Saturday we toured the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland before going on to Detroit for a Saturday night game.

After the Detroit game we drove to Battle Creek, Michogan and on Sunday morning went from Battle Creek to Milwaukee for the afternoon Brewers-Twins game. We arrived back in Hudson at about 9 p.m. Sunday night. My son had tickets for Monday night’s game, so we made it six games in six days.

My youngest son has only three stadiums left to visit. We had a great time.

I’ve met Harmon Killebrew a few times in my life and was sorry to hear that he died Tuesday. Whenever I met him (sometimes just in an autograph line) he was always very gracious and interested in what was going on in my life.

My best Killebrew story, however, happened back when I was in high school. My buddy and I would go to Twins games and always hang around and try to get autographs. For most people, getting autographs at the old Met stadium meant finding a spot outside where the players came out after the game.

Unlike today, security was pretty relaxed and we often were able to get into the tunnels under the stadium and would sometimes be standing right outside the locker rooms of both teams.

One afternoon we made it into the tunnel and were milling around the entrance to the Twins locker room — not sure who was in there. The game had already been over for a while.

Out of the locker room came the equipment manager — his name as Ray Crump. I’m sure he was a nice guy, but we had been in the hallways under the old Met enough to give him the nickname of “Crump the Grump.” That was because he was doing his job — telling us to get out of the tunnel and back upstairs!

That day he said something like “get out of here, what are you doing down here?” I came up with the answer, “we’re waiting for Mr. Killebrew to get his autograph.” We had no idea if Harmon was still around, but the answer made sense.

Seconds later a voice rang from the locker room — “That’s okay Ray, send them in.” The voice was that of Harmon Killebrew and he invited us into the Twins locker room. Even then, he not only signed the autographs, but talked with us for several minutes as he sat on a bench alone in his uniform in the Twins locker room.

His willingness to give royal, gracious and courteous treatment to a couple of brash kids stuck with me for a lifetime.

I attended Tuesday night’s Twins game and was part of the rain, hail, tornado sirens and all the other elements.

Oddly enough, when the sirens went off, the game went on. It was five or 10 minutes later that it began to rain and the teams were pulled off the field I was expecting an announcemnt for fans to go to the corridors, or some other place of safety. All that was said, however, was some generic message about getting under a roof to avoid the rain. Either the twins had a close eye on the radar, or do not have a plan in place when storm warning sirens are sounded.

Probably not very smart, but we stayed in our seats under the cover of the top roof (Our seats were in the last row of the upper deck down the first base line). When the hail started, it was a bit erie at the old ballpark!

The outfield turned pretty white with hail — but eventually it all stopped. Then we watched the grounds crew clean the hail off the entire field — apparently it’s not enough to wait for it to melt.

The game itself was a bust. The Twins minor leaguers again proved they cannot compete at the major league level. But it was worth the price of admission to see the storm, hail and cleanup!

As I was watching the Twins play the Boston Red Sox the past few days, I almost had to laugh at the lineup — guys hitting .081, .117, etc. How does anyone really expect this hodge-podge lineup to compete with major league baseball teams?

The sad thing is, I don’t see any immediate end to the rag-tag lineup. The Twins better get some people healthy soon, or they will be in a hole that they won’t be able to get out of until next year!