The name is slightly different, but Minnesota’s pro soccer team – now dubbed Minnesota Stars FC – is still the defending North American Soccer League champions. On Saturday, the team is hosting its season opener at the Metrodome, in what’s inevitably being called the Dome Opener. The team is planning events around the game against perennial rival Carolina, and is hoping to build some buzz around the team for 2012.

Last week, I spoke with Stars CEO Djorn Buchholz about the Dome Opener, the season to come, and the future of pro soccer in Minnesota.

Q: Tell us a little about the background of the Dome Opener.

A: This isn’t an opportunity for us to make a ton of money, it’s more of an opportunity for us to say, hey, for five bucks, come check us out. Give us a shot. That’s all I’m asking people to do. It’s easy, there’s going to be an amazing tailgate taking place on the southeast corner of the stadium in that picnic area starting at 4:30, with Bud Light and a live band and media partners. It’s gonna be a heck of a day. For me, I want this to be the place to be that day. For five bucks, come check us out, and hopefully you like what you see.

Q: How are ticket sales doing for the game?

**A: They’re doing very well. Things have really picked up here in the last couple of days, now that people are realizing, “Oh my gosh, the opener is ten days away.” I expect before we get into the stadium that day, we’re going to be at around six or seven thousand tickets sold, which I think will put us anywhere between about nine and eleven thousand on game day. It wouldn’t surprise me if we got more. I think that’ll be obviously the biggest crowd in Minnesota Stars history, and I think it’ll be a pretty great event if we get ten or eleven thousand people.

Q: Do you feel like it’s had an effect on season ticket sales as well?

A: I don’t know if it necessarily has, yet. What I hope to see is that you get a lot of people in the Metrodome, and you get a lot of people introduced to our product. Hopefully we put on a good show on the field, and then we’re going do to another big season ticket push between Saturday and our actual home opener at the National Sports Center on May 5.

Q: What kind of things do you do to try to convert people from the Dome opener into people who regularly go to Stars games?

A: We’re going to try to gather information about the people that are coming. We did things like Groupon, and sold about two thousand tickets. Those are people that I don’t recognize any of their names. We’re going to try to capture those people.

But I think the biggest thing that we can do is put on a good show and put on a great event. As was evident at the final game we hosted last year, the championship series, people walked out of there like, “I wish I’d have been coming to these things all season.” I think we can create something like that in the Metrodome, and let them know that it’s is even more intimate, a very cool atmosphere at the National Sports Center. We’ll be gathering information, but it’s mostly just putting our product on display.

Q: With a game like this, you’re obviously trying to draw a big crowd. What kind of people are you trying to draw and get them up to a Stars game for the first time?

A: I’m always telling people to come up here to the NSC. One of the things people always say is, “It’s too far. It’s too far of a drive for me.” I think this is an opportunity for us to come out of the gates with a home game, which I don’t think a pro soccer team here has done in probably as long as I’ve been around, because of the weather. We can host a game early, in a central location, where we get rid of that excuse of it’s too far away, and everyone can get there now – by doing the free bus or train rides if you’ve got a ticket in hand. I’m trying to make this game as accessible as possible, just so I can prove to people that it’s worth a drive to Blaine because there’s something very cool here.

Q: Looking past the Dome opener into 2012, what are some of the things that you have in store for 2012 for the Stars and the fans?

A: We’re trying to revamp the whole beer garden situation up here at the NSC. We understand it’s a big marketing and atmosphere piece for us, because we all know that the NSC took down the beer garden about three-fourths of the way through the season last year, to put up a new building. That building is in the process of being completed – it’s not going to be ready for our first game up here, so we’re going to create some other beer garden areas.

We’re just trying to enhance the game experience. That starts as early as people tailgating, and trying to do some cool things out and around there so people want to come out and hang out because it’s the cool thing to do. That’s what we’re trying to do – we’re trying to make this the cool thing to do in town, and put a bunch of elements in place to hopefully achieve that.

Q: What would you say you’re most excited about this year for the Stars?

A: It’s hard to pick. I’m curious, and I’m excited, and maybe even a little bit nervous to see how we come out of the gates after winning the championship. I don’t want to come out of the gates like the Dallas Mavericks did (laughter). The guys on this team have a lot of pride, and they want to keep that trophy in Minnesota. I’m excited about that. I’m nervous about that.

I’m also excited about continuing to build this thing.  It’s no secret that we need to find an owner for this team. The more that we can build our season ticket base, and our sponsorships – I’m excited about the future of this club. I’m excited about finding the right owner to come in and take this over and ensure the long-term viability of the organization.

I would say the third thing that I’m excited about is the custom uniforms that we’ve created, that we’re launching Thursday night at Brit’s Pub. They are unbelievable. The away kit that we’ve done this year is something that I don’t think anyone else in the country, maybe even in the world has done before. So I’m excited about the reactions and I’m excited to have these guys wearing these uniforms. I just saw them completed today and they’re unbelievable.

Q: You mentioned winning the championship last year. Do you feel like it’s a struggle to get local fans and local media to take notice of that?

A: During our championship run last year, in my experience it was the most that we’ve been out there in the community and the public from a media standpoint since probably David Beckham came. Even when Beckham came with the [Los Angeles] Galaxy, people were talking more about the Galaxy than the Thunder.

The media paid great attention to us. But it took us winning, and getting in the playoffs and making a run. Fair enough, I get it, we’re in a cluttered sports market and it’s hard to be heard. But going into the home opener, I actually feel as we’re reaching out to the media outlets – I think we’re going to get a decent amount of coverage, more than we’ve had leading into any previous season than I can remember, and that comes down to being a championship team.

Q: When I go to games, I kind of get the sense that it’s families on one side of the field and fanatics on the other. Do you feel like it’s a struggle to try to have those two separate groups?

A: I actually don’t think it is. I think they’ve done a fantastic job, and by moving the Dark Clouds [the fanatics group] over to the east side of the stadium, I think it actually enhances the experience for people on the west side. Now they’re not sitting next to them, the yelling and the chanting – now they’re on the other side, and it’s that group over there that creates the atmosphere. I think that has actually enhanced [the experience] for the families and the individuals that sit on the west side.

Q: What’s the ownership situation as we head into 2012?

A: We’re a league-owned team right now, and in all reality, the league doesn’t want to own this team forever. I think last year was the year some of us got brought back in to kind of fix this thing up, put a new roof on the house, new shutters on the house, mow the yard, and get it to a point where it needs to be attractive for somebody to come in and take over. I think this year is really about going out and finding the right group and the right ownership group. Do we have that person yet? No we don’t. We’re having discussions. We’re still actively looking for somebody to come in and take this club over.

Q: How do you feel when you hear Zygi Wilf talking about bringing Major League Soccer to Minnesota?

A: I certainly don’t think you’d ever see a situation in which there’d be two pro teams in town. Anytime the media’s talking about soccer, it’s good for us. Whether it is Zygi and the Vikings talking about an MLS team, a lot of the time the article at least makes a mention of the current pro team that we have here, and I’m okay with that.

As people are thinking MLS, there’s been a proven track record of four of the last five teams that have moved to MLS have come out of this league. And there’s a proven track record of getting the right people involved and invested in this level that’s not nearly as expensive as MLS, so that when you do make that transition to MLS, it’s a lot easier than starting from the ground up. You’ve got a foundation.

There’s people out there that are interested in an MLS team, and I encourage them to take a serious look at this organization. It’s coming off a championship, it’s got a great facility – although not always in the most ideal location. Somebody coming in and building this thing up to make an easier transition to MLS makes a lot of sense.

Q: Obviously the NSC has been a great home over the past few years – but in a perfect world, where would the Stars play their home matches?

A: I think you see where soccer is succeeding in this country, when you think about Seattle and Portland and Toronto and even in Vancouver now – it’s taking place in the heart of the city. And ideally, for this thing long-term, it makes sense to be in the heart of the city.

There are some options. We’ve got the beautiful Parade Stadium facility down there, but it needs some upkeep. It would need bleachers. It would need all of that stuff that it doesn’t have right now. So if there’s somebody that wants to come in, I think that would make a lot of sense for somebody to look at, okay, I’m going to take this team, what are the other options to play in? This facility [the NSC] is great, but it does have its limitations, and has its excuses for some people to not make it to the game. There’s a lot of people in the southern Metro, and I get it. It’s an hour drive to get up here, but a lot easier to get downtown. I think ideally at some point in the future, this organization needs to make its way downtown.

Opening Day for the Twins is Friday – which is why it’s so important that we take a look back at the 2012 season now, before it even starts. It’s the 2012 Minnesota Twins Season In Review.

This is the sixth edition of this column, and it gets harder to write every year, mostly because I have to think of new jokes for the same players. There are almost no Joe Mauer jokes this year, for example; I’m kind of fresh out. Nevertheless, it might be my favorite thing to write all year.

I didn’t win the lottery last night, which I think we can all agree is unfair. My lottery-playing technique involves not looking at the numbers that I get, just for that minute’s worth of excitement after the numbers are drawn and I can go find my lottery ticket, imagining what it’ll be like if the numbers happen to match. Anyway, with no millions of dollars in my future, here’s the weekend links. As always, these appeared first at RandBall, your home for a swing like A-Rod’s.

Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day. If you’re the type of person who loves the first of April, I’m going to ask you a favor: please stop. Just stop. Whatever you’re planning for tomorrow, it’s not going to be funny – in fact, it’s probably going to be anti-funny. It will be un-satirical, non-humorous, and mirth-hindering.

26 years ago, the great George Plimpton invented Sidd Finch for Sports Illustrated, in what one ranking has dubbed the second greatest April Fool’s Day hoax of all time. It’s hard not to like the story of Siddharta Finch, but that’s mostly because Plimpton wrote it; his other writing carries the same sense of wonderment. Ultimately, the only fun April Fools’ Day hoaxes are those that are simply tongue-in-cheek or whimsical. Like Finch, or Terry Jones and the colony of flying penguins, they exist to make us laugh, not to make us believe.

So tomorrow, if you’re thinking about promulgating a hoax or pulling a prank, ask yourself – who am I trying to entertain, today? If you’re trying to make the world laugh, then you’ll probably fail, but okay. But if you’re only trying to make yourself laugh, if you’re trying to make yourself the only smart one in a room of confused people, then congratulations – you’re joining the long list of otherwise talented people who, like drunks trying to scale a curb at a Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade, fall on their faces in the attempt to be funny on April Fool’s Day.

On with the links:

*We lead off this week with a twenty-year-old piece about minor-league baseball, because that’s how we live, here in the Weekend Links. Miami Herald humorist Dave Barry made the trip to Erie, Pennsylvania, to then-Marlins affiliate the Erie Sailors. Things have changed in the past two decades, and perhaps today minor league baseball is not run quite so casually. Still, though, a thousand monkeys banging on a thousand typewriters about the thousand glories of baseball couldn’t capture them any better than Barry does.

*Earlier this year, I wrote about why female athletes posing for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue didn’t seem right to me. The Freakonomics blog highlighted some interesting new research on the same topic.

*I love both sandwiches and soccer, so I can hardly describe my excitement at this article that involves both: an examination of how the term “prawn sandwich eaters” became a pejorative among English soccer fans.

*While we’re on the subject of soccer, the English newspaper the Guardian wrote a nice piece on the Independent Supporters’ Council that promotes fan welfare in Major League Soccer

*And finally, there are two ways to respond to the latest local-sportswriter kerfuffle. Craig Calcaterra at the Hardball Talk blog posted a rumination on the dangers of access a few weeks before the latest blowup. I would call this the “measured” way of thinking about the issue. On the flip side, the great Stu responded at Twinkie Town with hilarity, and disdain for all parties. This may be less measured, but it’s far, far funnier, and if you didn’t read it yesterday go read it now.

It’s an off day for the Timberwolves, so I’ve taken the opportunity to introduce my new silly feature: Timberwolves Point / Counterpoint. It has the potential to be stupendously dumb, which is what I always aspire to be.

The first edition has Kevin Love, the superstar, and Michael Beasley, the league’s most easily distracted player, talking about the playoffs.

Masaood Yunus is the president of the Minnesota Cricket Association, the Twin Cities-area cricket league. On March 22, I had a chance to talk with Yunus about the MCA, and about the future of cricket in Minnesota and in America.

In part one of the interview, we discussed developing cricket in America in general. In part two, we discuss Minnesota cricket, and the future of the game here. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: What would you say the biggest success for Minnesota cricket has been over the past few years, and what have been the biggest challenges?

**A: The biggest success for the Minnesota Cricket Association in the past few years really has been the operational excellence that we have reached, that we have achieved. It’s obviously an evolving process, but our finances are very transparent, our operations are very transparent, we have a very fair election process, [and] there is a lot of opportunity for a lot of people to come up and do work. Being declared a compliant organization [by the American governing body of cricket], I think what really stood out for me is an acknowledgement that MCA runs a transparent organization. It shows a real operational strength, a real operational maturity, that brought us where we are today.

The three challenges for the MCA today, number one is seeking out donations and sponsorships from local organizations. We are a state with several Fortune 50 companies. I consider it a struggle that we are not able to get any of those organizations to give us assistance, donations or sponsorships.  So that’s something that we are working on. I am very keen on moving that direction, but that’s a challenge, obviously.

Second challenge is our facilities. We basically rent out our facilities from the Park Board. Though we enjoy excellent relationships with all of the park boards that we work with, cricket is a sport that is not very well known to Americans. We will continue to struggle finding further good facilities to keep pace with our growth; we are growing at a rate of one new team a year. For example, recently I tried to reach out to a few park boards in different cities, but [their] preference is for American sports. Unless cricket has visibility at the national level, it will continue to be a challenge to promote the game at a local level.

The third challenge is development opportunities – how do you develop the sport.  Volunteer-based organizations only go that far and have limited operations. You need to bring in some kind of administrative maturity by bringing in people who are focused on some work, getting paid for it, can bring a lot of value for the work that they are doing for an organization. We are full-time employees [at our day jobs], and then we are part-time, full-time volunteers for this cricket work, all across America. Unless we are able to get some kind of strong financial backing and set up our organizations just like any other organization that can operate with a full-time, at least two or three full-time staff, it will continue to be a challenge.

Q: What should we look for from the MCA in 2012?

A: We are mandated by the USA Cricket Association to have a functional youth program by 2014, and then have a functional women’s program by 2015. We have to invest time and resources in development; you have to show that you are doing some productive work so that you are also eligible for some grants, some kind of help or assistance from that expertise perspective.

So I am very much focused on upgrading and exploring better facilities. I am very interested in fixing at least one or two turf pitches, to align with the national standard, and to promote competition on the local cricket scene. MCA is very focused on finding some sponsorships, or maybe some city grants or something like that, to lay out at least one turf pitch by the end of this year. [Editor’s note: While cricket is generally played on a grass pitch, the  parks don’t have the maintenance capability to allow the local league to do the same. They currently stretch out a matting over a strip of sand to approximate the bounce and playing feel of a grass pitch.]

My second focus really is youth cricket development. We have had some development programs in the past, but lack of consistency let the programs die. We should start developing something on a consistent basis, that’s how you build organizations. And that’s what I’m really looking at gaining. Youth development is really high on MCA’s agenda.

This summer, we have forged a partnership with the University of Minnesota. They have a sports program during the summer where hundreds of kids get together. So cricket will be offered as one of the sports, and some of our players will be teaching. Then I’ve talked with the park board that we already rent out our facilities from, and I’ve offered them to partner with them, to offer cricket as one of the sports during some of their own programs too. Then I’m trying to reach out to athletic complexes as well and see if they will be willing to let us come in to introduce the game, or at least show what we plan to do. Not much success there primarily due to lack of exposure to cricket as a spors. But that’s a push that I’ll continue to make.

In a few years, I won’t be able to play the way that I do today. I am a player, and I am an administrator too – but I know in three to four years I won’t be able to do that. And I see that in my league, that people are aging but probably not realizing that they need to get reinforcement for their teams and introduce youth or more players. The youth will be able to replace the existing crop in next few years and keep the game alive and competitive. It should be an evolving process

And then last piece is a big push towards sponsorship and donations. I’m doing my best reaching out different organizations, making some connections, trying to garner some kind of support as we try to put our names out there. I’m leveraging a lot of resources within MCA, for people, we have a lot of professionals who work for big organizations like Target, 3M, UHG and all those. I am hoping that we will be able to capitalize on that and get some kind of a long-term commitment for three to five years, primarily for our development program and for facilities improvement. If I am able to get something like that done in 2012, next year MCA will probably be able to bring in a national tournament to Minnesota, as we did in 2009 when there was a lot of visibility around it. We went out on the news media, and radios and all that kind of stuff. I would like to try to get some kind of similar limelight back to Minnesota as soon as possible.

**Later, in part three: Yunus talks about the national organization in charge of cricket. **

Masaood Yunus is the president of the Minnesota Cricket Association, the Twin Cities-area cricket league. On March 22, I had a chance to talk with Yunus about the MCA, and about the future of cricket in Minnesota and in America.

In part one of the interview, we discussed developing cricket in America in general, and in part two, we discussed Minnesota cricket, and the future of the game here. In part three, we talked about the national board. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: Can you give a short overview of how the Central East region [the region of USA Cricket that Minnesota is a part of] works?

**A: We have a national organization, called the USACA. Then under the USACA there are seven different regions. Our region is called Central East Region, which is comprised of about eight to nine states. We have a Central East administration that generally is comprised of regional presidents, and the regional presidents elect a small regional board, that is comprised of a secretary, a treasurer, a director, and a [regional] rep. The CER rep is basically a connection between the region and the national organization. That is a elected position by the region itself.

Q: Last year, the Central East rep for the national board was recalled. From a regional standpoint, how do you prevent something like that from happening again?

A: So it’s a very tricky question. Restating the public facts, we recalled the CER rep; that should have remained recalled. I have no problem making that statement. A 10-0 vote from the same elected body, who initially elected the CER rep, speaks for itself.

I think what really matters is, we live in America, the land of the brave and free. No matter how things go around, we are committed to the democratic process that we all must follow. We will continue to maintain that level of respect, and that level of engagement and trust, in the democratic process, and let the democratic process take over everything and run things through that. Once in awhile we’ll get hit, like the CER example, but we will continue to do what’s right, and follow what is prescribed in the laws and regulations of the land.

Q: The USA national team, they’re over in the World Cup qualifier right now, and they’re doing okay – not particularly well. They’ve kind of struggled in the past few competitions, whether it’s in Division Four or the T20 qualifiers last year. As far as the national team, do you think there’s anything that can be done to improve the national team?

A: Honestly, I have never been engaged in any kind of selection or any kind of discussion for the national team, so I think my comments would be very premature. … I think there are good players out there, I think they need more exposure and competition at this level – for example, I was watching the game between Pakistan and Bangladesh today. Bangladesh took the game all the way to the wire, and no one would have expected them to do so. They played marvelously, there’s no question about it. They took the game right to the end, no doubt about it. I think the USA national team is moving towards the same kind of – for lack of a proper word, I guess, I think they are hungry, let’s put it this way. I think they are really hungry. A lot of support is needed from national board, regional board, and all of us, and it will make a difference. I’m very optimistic.

Q: You mentioned earlier about MCA being listed as one of the compliant leagues. I think that’s really something to be proud of. Were you surprised that so many members of the USACA did not clear that bar?

A: It is obviously a surprise. 47 leagues, and twelve leagues were compliant, and three leagues were voted into being compliant. It is definitely a surprise, but obviously I don’t know enough about a majority of the leagues. I can brag about MCA. The truth be told, we have done our best to be very transparent to our members. I think I can say this with authority, that within [MCA’s] organizations, teams and board members and so forth, we all command respect among each other, because that’s the kind of relationships that we have cultivated into our organization. It’s a good acknowledgement, because we respect each other, we are very transparent and open with each other, we openly and freely discuss items and issues, and make amendments and vote on stuff. I think that really translated into recognition at the national level. MCA also takes pride in the fact that we are one of the most diverse sports organizations across CER, and possibly more.

So that’s only about MCA. Then there is the Midwest Cricket Conference for example, probably one of the biggest leagues, with the highest number of teams, in America. 38 or 40-something. MCA shares excellent sporting relationships with those folks out there. They’re a really good league, they have really good development programs, they have a lot of visibility, they have really good players!  And on top of that they bring in international players once in awhile. It’s obviously kind of a disappointment that they couldn’t make it, but obviously I don’t know how much of the criteria they were not able to meet. From the surface that I see, I think they have been a pretty engaged organization and that needs recognition. There are a couple others as well in similar circumstances.

Q: As far as USACA, the news coverage of the national board has been almost uniformly negative over the past few years. Do you think that’s fair, or not fair?

A: I really have nothing much to say about that.

… I’ve never been actively engaged or involved with the USACA board, until very recently. I think it’s too early for me to make an opinion on that. I always tell people, to me, the first impression is not the last impression. I would need to get to know the people well before I can really make any impression. I think it’s pretty clear how USACA operation has been running in the past decade or so. There’s definitely room for improvement for MCA as well as USACA, and I would really hope that, by voting in this upcoming election, we’ll voice our vote.

Masaood Yunus is the president of the Minnesota Cricket Association, the Twin Cities-area cricket league. The Abu Dhabi native began playing in the local league in 2001, then got involved in administration in 2005. Since then, he’s been league webmaster, assistant vice president, vice president, and now president – a pretty typical path for someone in any volunteer-run organization.

The league’s teams play Saturday or Sunday matches pretty much every week all summer, at five parks around the Minneapolis area – and we’re not talking beer-league softball kind of games, either. Think of the MCA as the same as town-team baseball, except entirely concentrated in the Twin Cities, and based less on geography and more around the two dozen clubs that make up the league’s members.

I had a chance to talk with Yunus – who came across as remarkably passionate about growing the game in America – about the MCA, and about the future of cricket in Minnesota and in America. In part one of three of the interview, we discuss how to develop the game of cricket in America:

Q: As far as developing the game of cricket in America, do you think it’s going to be important to get people like me – mainstream American sports fans, white guys, etc. – playing the game?

A: Being blunt, the sport can only go forwards if mainstream Americans are involved, are engaged, are playing active roles, not just in the field but also in the administration of the sports organizations that run all of these tournaments. I’m a firm believer in that. We are running it today, but I really think that we need to have more American involvement or engagement to this. If Americans are not adopting it, it will stay as a second-level sport which will likely not get much traction at the highest levels.

… I can live in that bubble where I think, “Hey, I’ve got 600 people in my league today, and we’re doing really great,” but the truth is that 90 percent or 95 percent of those people are migrants. We need a good balance of migrants and local players.

Q: How do you propose getting more Americans interested in cricket?

**A: From what I have seen, and I might be wrong too, number one the sport has to be a duration of three to four hours; that generally appeals to an American sports fan.   I think at a bare minimum, Twenty20 games are the only way forward for people to adopt the game, learn the game, and move along with it. [Editor’s note**: here’s Wikipedia explaining what Twenty20 is.] That’s one piece of it, from the sports perspective of how do you want to introduce the game to anyone, not just mainstream Americans but also to other ethnic groups as well.

The second item is, I think is forging partnerships with park boards, athletic complexes, and schools is absolutely important and a good start.  You can try to pull parents into a field, but if their kids are not interested in sports, they will be disinterested. I have two kids, and if I go out looking for schools, cricket as a sport isn’t on offer.

I live in the city of Eden Prairie. I walked in to the city office one day and inquired about offering cricket as a sport during the summer. The first look I got was, “What is cricket?” And the second answer is, ‘Well, we haven’t really seen much demand for cricket, so we don’t even know if someone would be interested in it.’ And it puzzles me a little bit, because many of these cities have a huge Southeast Asian population, a Caribbean population, or other people from cricket-playing nations.The cities are not realizing that, by keeping them engaged into the sport that they play and love, is very important for the cities to keep them as good residents as well.

I keep hearing about development models like lacrosse, or soccer to be used as a benchmark for introducing cricket across America… but my point to that is, you cannot just pick up lacrosse and soccer and just run with it, and say that model was successful, let’s run with it. One of the biggest advantages of lacrosse and soccer was that Americans started to play. And then Americans started to get into the administration. I think it’s really important to understand the process, the mindset, of how the sports spread into a particular region, like America for example. The native people are the ones who will be in a better position to spread it and take it forward.

… We haven’t done a good job at being inviting to mainstream Americans. I’ve seen people come in and show interest. But I don’t know, whether they don’t feel they fit in, or some other sports take them away- but I don’t see them stick around. So that’s definitely a challenge and I’m trying to work around, and see how we can be more inviting. We have some programs in place this year, that we are trying to work and see if we can invite like neighborhoods and get them involved.

Q: Let’s say, hypothetically, you had the power to move cricket in America any direction, and the money to make it happen. What would be the first thing you’d want to do?

**A: If I’m in that situation, and I have to move things around in America, and move the game into something more productive, I would be going all across the country and forging partnerships with the cities. Building up facilities – absolutely important. And especially engagement at the school level – I’m going to [use] a quote from United States Youth Cricket Association: “You cannot undermine the power of schools.” That’s really where your future cricket generation will come from. If you’re not teaching the kids, from the age of five to sixteen, this sport will remain where it has been for decades. Even though the history of cricket is more than a century old in America itself, mainstream Americans don’t really know about it.

Another driving factor is finances. You need to get some really big donors and sponsors, and invest in the facilities, and utilize the facilities.  I will give you an example. There’s a stadium out there, a cricket ground in Fort Lauderdale. It’s a beautiful stadium, probably one of the premium facilities here in America. The Sri Lanka and New Zealand teams came in last year and played out there. Even though there is visibility around that for a new stadium,  it hasn’t really materialized into inviting more international teams for the past few years.  Just by building facilities and leaving them out there, it’s not going to help. Building facilities, introducing games to the youth, at the school level, at the college level, and giving them perks to come in and play cricket, that will make a huge difference.

**Later, in part two of the interview, we speak about the Minnesota Cricket Association in 2012 – and in part three, we discuss the national organization in charge of USA Cricket. **

The Twins finished last in 2011, something they hadn’t done in the eleven years prior. After winning two World Series during my formative years, the team was godawful for most of my teenage years, an experience that made the division titles of the past decade all the sweeter. But I realized that for many people, for even those approaching the end of high school, they’ve never known anything but a dominant Twins ballclub.

That’s weird – weird enough that I went through and did some arithmetic and worked out some of the other ages you’d have to be to remember certain things about the Twins. It’s the Twins Mindset List. (Key finding: You have to be nearing 30 to remember the World Series win in 1991. Holy crap, I’m old.)

This week’s post could be titled “Answering the Questions Nobody Asked.” Nevertheless, it appeared first at RandBall, your home for collaborating and listening.

With Opening Day less than two weeks away, I’m making a promise to myself: this year will finally be the year that I do not get caught up in the word-wars about baseball statistics. Somewhere, even now, there is an online skirmish erupting over the mathematics of baseball, and I vow that this year I’m not going to be a part of it.

I vow that I’m not going to get riled up when some old-guard newspaper columnist starts trotting out tired tropes about underpants and basements. In this characterization, because I’ve used numbers in a discussion about a baseball player or team, I’m lower-level-dwelling, unkempt, female-averse cave troll. I’m not going to get insulted about this, because frankly, it isn’t true. You might as well call me a wine-addled Polynesian rickshaw enthusiast. This is true of most of the baseball bloggers I’ve met; they have real jobs and families and live in their own houses. My vow is that I won’t get offended at insults that, while aimed at me, miss by a wide mark.

Nor will I get riled up when I read the latest stats-only missive. I like when numbers illuminate something I didn’t know, or when a narrowly focused statistic provides support for some hypothesis. “Danny Valencia is not disciplined enough at the plate, as he’s swinging at more balls out of the strike zone than any other player in the American League”; now that’s good stuff. But too often you read a post that goes something like, “Danny Valencia is walking less than all but four other third basemen in the league.” So? What does that mean? Maybe nobody’s thrown him anything other than a strike in a month. Maybe he hasn’t walked because he’s swung at the first pitch 82 consecutive times. Stats are not the argument, they’re the support for the argument, but too many people confuse the two. My vow is to not get involved.

Every year, I get sucked down into the maw of this argument. Every year, I spend hours refuting columnists, or criticizing logic of online writers. This year, I’m staying out of it. This year, I’m going to do what any normal person does: criticize Joe Mauer for having the temerity to get hurt, while thinking of new hurtful things to say about any of the rest of the Twins that happen to be 0-for-2 to begin a game.

On with the links:

*Kevin Love had 51 points last night, a franchise record. As Zach Harper writes at Wolf Among Wolves, it’s all part of how the arguments about Love are changing this year.

*Over at Grantland, Brian Phillips writes about the near-tragic on-field heart attack suffered by Fabrice Muamba, and how it made us learn about the man inside the jersey, and how once we did, we needed him to get through it.

*In Twins news, Twinkie Town’s Jesse Lund compares shortstop prospect Brian Dozier to another middle infield prospect who won a job in spring training – Chuck Knoblauch. Meanwhile, it’s probably time to start the panic about Justin Morneau, according to Parker Hageman.

*I like when Pat Jordan writes for Deadspin; it’s like he’s competing to be as grumpy as possible. This week, he profiles Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma.

*And finally: this video of a fourth-grader doing her first ski jump is awesome, if only because I think we can all relate to the sense of terror and the sense of exhilaration she makes plain. And, just for you Joel Pryzbilla fans out there, here’s a quote from the big guy, who was at the University of Minnesota for a year and a half: “I went one semester, I don’t even remember. … I was drunk the whole time.” Ever been so drunk you forgot a year of college?

Pretty much every time Darko Milicic gets a mention in the news, I end up writing an I, Darko post. This week, Rick Adelman basically came out and called Darko fat and lazy. I have to imagine that this would hurt the big guy’s feelings. Or it would, if Darko showed any evidence of having feelings, other than the mild annoyance he shows every time he’s asked to play basketball.

In the world of I, Darko, though, he is sensitive to such slights. And so in the latest installment at Canis Hoopus, Darko lays out his plan for getting back in shape – and also reveals why he’s scared of Nikola Pekovic.