I wrote a review of Steve Aschburner’s new book, “Harmon Killebrew: Ultimate Slugger.” You can read it at Twinkie Town.

You can tell these are late, because Wednesday is in no sense a weekend. As always, these links first appeared at RandBall, your home for life being a marathon, not a sprint.

Two weeks ago, Johan Santana threw a no-hitter. If you already knew this, you probably also know that it was the first no-hitter by a Mets pitcher in team history. And if you knew that, you probably also know that the third-base umpire blew a call in the sixth inning, calling foul a Carlos Beltran line drive that caught the chalk line and should have been called fair, thus ending the no-hit bid. It’s the latest in a long line of high-profile blown calls that stretches back to the beginning of baseball, because with any entirely human-run system, many, many mistakes will be made.

I’ve got the replay system that can fix this issue, and that will allow for any calls – not just fair or foul and trap plays, but everything, including balls and strikes – to be reviewed. Here’s the deal: pitches will be tracked with ball-tracking software, the same system that is used in tennis and is being tested for possible inclusion at soccer’s 2014 World Cup. Everything else will use the TV technology already in place. Replays involving the “TV umpire” will have to be clearly wrong to be overturned – all calls will otherwise stay with the umpires’ decision. As for balls and strikes, more than half the ball must be within the strike zone, or the call will not be overturned. Each team will be allowed to be wrong once without losing any challenges, but once they are wrong twice, they can no longer challenge calls. This removes the incentive to challenge borderline calls, as they’ll likely not be overturned, since borderline calls will usually end up staying with the umpire’s decision. Umpires will also have the ability to refer decisions to the “TV umpire,” thereby letting the guy with the eye in the sky make the correct call. The TV umpire also means that the umpires won’t have to run off the field to make the call – the guy in the booth will make it.

Of course, Bud Selig is on record as saying, “I’ve had very, very little pressure from people who want to do more,” which is likely code for “the owners don’t want it, nor does anyone want to pay for it.” Also, at some point someone is going to discover that I lifted pretty much this entire system directly from cricket, and probably call me names.

The system doesn’t work perfectly in cricket, and there is plenty of argument about whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing for the game. India, one of the pre-eminent teams in the world, simply refuses to use it. But as far as I can see, this system accomplishes its most important task – the awful umpiring decision, the how-could-he-miss-that, ump-are-you-blind, Don-Denkinger-reborn kind of call has been eliminated. And really, isn’t that the baseline for what we want a replay system to accomplish?

On with the links:

*Steve Adams at Twinkie Town has an interesting look at top Twins draft pick Byron Buxton, who may well be the organization’s new top prospect.

*Aaron Gleeman breaks down the surprising success of Twins lefty (and Guelph, Ontario’s own) Scott Diamond.

*Seattleites are not happy that the OKC Thunder are finding success in the South, but as Jeremy Repanich points out, without demonized owner Clay Bennett, GM Sam Presti – who built the Thunder – would never have been hired.

*Tim Marchman has heard much about this game called “hockey,” and so, he decided to head to his local bar and try out being a hockey fan. (Note: hockey-loving readers such as Rocket may not want to read this too closely as it may provoke volcanic hatred.)

*And finally: I need to warn you that the following link is, in terms of percentage of words that are swear words, the single most profane thing ever included in the weekend links. If you are offended in any way by profanity, do not click. However, if you can stomach the f-word used as every part of speech, then I can promise you that this is the best poem that will be written about the England soccer team at the European Championships.

Monday is usually the day on which my goofy Twins column of the week is posted, but Monday night happened to be the first round of the MLB Draft. Since the Twins are terrible, and had three picks in the first round and first supplemental round, fun was shunted aside in favor of one of the more exciting days the team is likely to have this year.

As for me, I previewed the draft, previewed the week ahead for the Twins, and compared Byron Buxton to B.J. Upton like three different times.

How far can you stretch an article about climate change? Below, you’ll find my attempt to stretch it all the way to baseball, which… let’s say the elastic band on this pair of wedgied underwear has just about snapped. As always, this column appeared first at RandBall, your home for the Olympics.

There’s a new study in Nature magazine, as reported by The Economist, that I think has big implications for baseball. Oh, sure, if you actually read the study or the article, you’d conclude it was about climate change, but I think we all know the real truth: it’s about baseball, and specifically about people like Joe Morgan.

The upshot of the study is that increasing scientific literacy does nothing to increase whether people believe, like the overwhelming majority of scientists, that climate change is a real thing. In fact, for people with a “hierarchical, individualistic worldview” – i.e. Ted Nugent – an increase in scientific literacy actually makes people less likely to believe that climate change is real. In the words of writer David Roberts, “Getting smarter, in other words, only makes us better at justifying our own worldviews.” We sports fans can recognize the type. All of us, no matter what sport we follow, have at some point covered our ears with our hands as an otherwise-expert commentator spouts some half-baked opinion that grates on our ears.

I’ll give you an example – and this is not to pick on the commentator, only as an illustration. Bert Blyleven is the color guy for the Twins. He is a Hall of Fame pitcher and threw perhaps the best curveball in baseball history; all available evidence shows that he’s one of the few to master the art of throwing the baseball so that players can’t hit it. He is, by almost any definition, a baseball expert. If you replace “scientific literacy” with “baseball literacy” in the above paragraph, Bert would score far higher on the scale than you or I would. And yet, I heard him the other day say the following, about a player he was trying to compliment: “He’s like a Nick Punto, or a Denny Hocking-type player.”

Now, I could have launched into a whirlwind of statistics, pointing out that both Punto and Hocking were equally likely to get hits if they held the bat upside down, such was their lack of offensive talent. But literacy here isn’t the problem; worldview is the problem, and as the study shows, education – which in this case would take the form of long, number-filled screeds – won’t actually change anything. It’s a change in worldview that would be required. And honestly, I don’t think there’s any changing that, unless you can invent a time machine and go back in time to replace batting average, RBI, pitcher wins, and other such old-fashioned baseball statistics with newer, more-useful stats.

On with the links:

*The Vikes Geek is, to put it mildly, unhappy about the public obligations as part of the Vikings stadium deal.

*Eric Nusbaum educates us all on Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis, who is the greatest folk hero you’ve never heard of.

*In Florida baseball news, Charlie Pierce checks in with the Rays, the most fun team in baseball, while Aaron Gordon reviews the Marlins’ new stadium.

*Last Sunday was the Indy 500, the race formerly known as The Crown Jewel Of American Racing. (Proof it’s not: for the eighth time in nine years, it lost to the evening’s Coca-Cola 600 in the ratings.) Despite this, Mark Titus was at his usual place in the Turn 3 infield, and he’s fully of the opinion that it’s still the best party in America.

*Brian Phillips thinks that the US Men’s soccer team is turning a corner, for real this time, not like the 4,378 corners that the team has turned over the past ten years or so.

*And finally: Here’s this week’s entry in the “Oh ESPN, you used to be cool, what happened?” file.

Monday at Twinkie Town, I compiled a list of some do’s and don’ts for fans of a terrible baseball team – in this case, the Twins.

Keep this list handy – as Grantland points out, this list could be useful for quite a number of years.

I’m taking on that thing that’s on everybody’s mind this week – financial results in English soccer! (This seems about par for the course for me.) As always, these links appeared first at RandBall, your home for great baseball road trips.

This week, The Guardian published a story about the profits of soccer teams in England’s Premier League. The talking point was that despite being in the world’s most popular sports league, eleven of the 20 teams lost money in 2010-11, the most recent year for financial results. The absolutely shocking thing was that two teams lost nearly unreal amounts of money; Chelsea lost $106 million, but this paled in comparison to Manchester City, which lost a staggering $308 million.

The two clubs are able to do this because of filthy-rich owners. Chelsea is owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, while Manchester City is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, and both owners have enough oil dollars to regularly use hundred-dollar bills as Kleenex without feeling any financial pinch. Not surprisingly, the clubs’ new-found ability to spend any amount of money has been successful for both; Manchester City just won its first title since 1968, and Chelsea won its first European championship one week later.

Obviously, this financial disparity is patently unfair. Imagine if the New York Yankees were able to spend $500 million on player salaries, and you’d have some idea of the unbalanced playing field we’re talking about here. For all of the complaining that we baseball fans do about revenue disparity – and I’ve done plenty – we should thank our lucky stars that baseball doesn’t have oil gazillionaires owing teams. But at the same time, it’s worth mentioning that for all of the unfairness, this is exactly how most fans want their team’s owners to act.

Every off-season, the Twins have a rough idea of how much they want to spend on payroll. And every offseason, this number gets out, and the team is roundly excoriated for not having a larger payroll. Many fans seem to feel that the Pohlad family should lose money every year, out of some implied and possibly stadium-related social contract. Some will tell you that they wonder why $10 million more isn’t plausible; some seem angry that the Twins didn’t sign both Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder this year, no matter how much this might cost. Many of these fans might also tell you that they hate those rich Yankees and Red Sox, but it’s clear that if the Twins somehow generated the financial wherewithal to have a $250 million payroll, those people wouldn’t feel guilty at all.

Ultimately, I’d rather be a fan of a non-oil-soaked soccer team. I’d think I’d feel impossibly guilty celebrating the victories of a team with unlimited finances, just like I think I’d feel guilty if I was a Red Sox or Yankees fan in baseball and my team had the resources to spend double what most other teams could spend. But I know both Manchester City fans and Chelsea fans, and as far as I can tell, not one of them feels this way. Maybe the truth of fandom is this: we just want our teams to win, and we don’t particularly care how that’s accomplished.

On with the links:

*Steve Adams of Twinkie Town looks back at two Twins trades that were frustrating at the time, including the Scott Diamond trade that everyone hated.

*Speaking of soccer finances, Brian Quarstad at Inside MN Soccer interviewed Minnesota Stars GM Djorn Buchholz after the latter had to make the tough decision to sell the rights to a home game to an MLS team.

*Joe Posnanski has a daughter who doesn’t like sports, really, but loves NASCAR, and Joe is as confused as everyone else.

*I don’t care at all about Justin Bieber. But I like Drew Magary, so when he writes a profile of Bieber, I’m fascinated all the same.

*And finally: the joy of sports, captured in one photo. (That’s Ireland rugby captain Brian O’Driscoll visiting a fan in the hospital last year with the Heineken Cup, and I’m not ashamed to say this photo always makes me teary-eyed.) And if that’s not enough, here’s a portrait of Anthony Davis made entirely out of Kix and Reese’s Puffs.

Drew Butera, he of the weak bat, pitched in a major-league baseball game. This is surprising.

He threw a fastball in the low 90s and changed speeds effectively, striking out former Twin Carlos Gomez and pitching a scoreless inning in the process. This is even more surprising.

I took the time to write a screenplay in which Butera’s father Sal – like his son, a major league catcher – wouldn’t allow young Drew to pitch because “Buteras are catchers, not pitchers.” This is a dumb idea, and so is not surprising, because it was Monday at Twinkie Town and dumb ideas come to the forefront at these times.

If you need more, you’re also welcome to read my preview of the upcoming Twins week, in which I tell you what to watch out for this week. Because, you know, I’m a noted Twins expert*. (*Warning: not true.)

The Norwegian people are free from those Swedish jerks! In celebration, let’s learn something about Norway:

Well, that was… edifying.

This week at Twinkie Town, I invented the top Google searches for a bunch of Twins players. This is as off-topic as it sounds.

If you’re looking for on-topic, I also looked at the week ahead for the Twins, in a weekly post that’s turning out to be the most critical thing I write. In my defense, it’s hard not to be fatalistic right now.

There’s a book review in this edition of the weekend links. How literary. As always, this column appeared first at RandBall, your home for the genesis of weird dreams.

I’ve just finished reading “Out of My League,” the new book from relief pitcher and author Dirk Hayhurst, and I have to tell you: I now feel really bad for Danny Valencia.

Hayhurst’s first book, “The Bullpen Gospels,” was the story of his trips up and down the minor-league ladder. It was entertaining, and it made the nonfiction bestseller list from the New York Times, but it was kind of a mixed bag – more a collection of anecdotes than a book. “Out of My League,” on the other hand, almost reads like a novel, and is the better book of the two for it. However, the chapters in which he goes to the big leagues for the first time – and nearly loses it completely – are a harrowing read. After spending five years kicking around the minors and keeping baseball in perspective, barely a month in the majors is all it takes to nearly drive Hayhurst around the bend.

I never really realized how much of a difference there is between Triple-A and the big leagues – in how players are treated, how they treat each other, and so forth. To paraphrase a player in the book, once you’re in the majors, you realize it’s the only level where you can have an impact – everything else is just glorified practices. I’d always assumed that AAA ball, while a major step down, was at least something comparable – that someone in Triple-A had an accomplishment to be proud of. But judging by the attitudes of the players in the book, Triple-A is to the majors as the front steps of your house are to Everest. No comparison. None.

And so now I’m left feeling terrible for Valencia. He hasn’t played in the minor leagues for almost two years. He’d been a mainstay for the Twins at third base for virtually that entire time. He must have felt like he’d made it. He must have felt like he belonged, like he was no longer a serf in baseball’s feudal system. And now he’s got to go back down and start all over. He’s got to look across the great chasm that separates the majors and the minors, and try to cross one more time, knowing all the while that the guys on the other side already kicked him out once. What a cruel, cruel game.

On the other hand: he did have the OPS of a typical National League pitcher. On with the links:

*At the Classical, Mark Dent looks at the between-the-legs shot in tennis, which is apparently known as “the tweener” – and why Andy Murray is ruining it.

*Sports Media Watch looks at the TV ratings and declares, for the first time since Sports Illustrated famously devoted its cover to the subject, that once again the NHL is hot and the NBA is not.

*This may be 16 years old, but is still worth it: Nationally-renowned humor columnist Dave Barry writing about baseball, his own career, and hating the Yankees.

*Spencer Hall went rallying, by which I mean “went driving through the forest at insane speeds on a dirt road.”

*Charlie Pierce, writing over at Grantland, looks at the beginning of the end of homophobia in sports, through the lens of Nebraska assistant football coach Ron Brown’s recent decision to speak out against an anti-gay-discrimination law in Omaha.

*Parker Hageman looks at the hitting charts, and thinks that Joe Mauer might not be slumping – he might be hurt.

*And finally: though this has nothing to do with sports, I really enjoyed Shawn Fury writing about bodegas in New York City.