Today at Twinkie Town, it’s the beginning of the week leading up to the trade deadline. I have no idea what’s going to happen – today’s rumors were sendig Denard Span to the Nationals, which would be incredibly stupid if the Twins actually did it – but not knowing what’s going to happen didn’t stop me from writing some fake upcoming headlines for the week.

(Fake headlines seem to be my go-to this year when I can’t think of what to write.)

This week’s RandBall column was written on a dark Saturday morning, with the first India-England Test match going on in the background. As I’m sure you can imagine, I got engrossed in England’s attempt to shift Rahul “The Wall” Dravid, and therefore didn’t write much in the links this morning. So it goes. Anyway, these links appeared first at RandBall, your home for avoiding the follow-on on the internet.

Good Saturday morning to you, the dedicated weekend readers of StarTribune.com. It’s a bit of a rumbly Saturday out there, a warm and stormy July day, so let’s dispense with the pleasantries and get straight on with a bit of reading while the storms roll through:

*We must begin this week with Chris Kluwe’s response about the life of a punter (warning: punters use bad words sometimes, kids.). Kluwe was taken to task by former Broncos tight end Nate Jackson for, effectively, daring to speak even though he’s a punter. But Kluwe’s a good writer, he’s funny, and he simply doesn’t care what Nate Jackson thinks – and the result is great.

*In pirate news, Spencer Hall went down to Key West to interview college football coach Mike Leach – and ended up on a fishing boat with Leach for eight hours. Key quote from Leach: “Fish aren’t smart. It’s not like they have advanced degrees.” You have to admit, his point is inarguable.

*In Twins news, Jesse at Twinkie Town looks at Tsuyoshi Nishioka’s splits from each side of the plate, and concludes that maybe someone should tell Nishioka never to hit right-handed again. He also breaks down, by position, the average amount of time it takes players at each position to reach the majors – and applies it to the Twins’ top minor-league prospects.

*And finally: if you’re looking for a little more whimsy in your Twins links, how about your two new favorite Twins animated GIFs?

That’s enough for this week – please, enjoy your Saturday. Rand will be in with the Great Baseball Road Trip ruminations all week. Be sure to get any and all Carolina-related jokes ready for the comments.

Talk about things spiraling.

Sunday afternoon, I was still figuring out who was going to pitch the next day’s doubleheader for the Twins, so that I could write the game preview threads for Twinkie Town. Around then, the team announced Scott Baker was headed to the disabled list, and that lefty Scott Diamond was on his way to Minneapolis to start Monday’s nightcap.

This caught me by surprise. And the Twinkie Town interface didn’t have a single bit of info on Diamond. Usually we at least have access to a little widget that shows a photo, height and weight, and that sort of basic information. This time we didn’t.

So I started making up my own biography for Diamond. About the time I wrote, “His mother was a Cape buffalo and his father was a bolt of lightning,” I realized that purely by accident, I had stumbled into potentially the silliest post I’d ever write. So that became my Monday column: A Questionably-Sourced Bio Of Scott Diamond.

Monday morning, I got an email from Greg Layson of the Guelph Mercury, Diamond’s hometown paper, requesting that I call. I did, and we chatted about why I’d choose to write something so goofy, and about why the Twins had so many Canadians.

The resulting article marked three milestones:

1. It’s the only time I’ll ever be quoted in the same article as the father of a major-league baseball player.
2. It’s the only time I’ll ever be quoted making fun of myself in a newspaper in another country.
3. It’s the only time I’ll get a chance to suggest that the Twins are more Canada’s team than the Blue Jays are.

The internet is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

This week in the weekend links, I write about the strangeness of sportswriting, and attempt to make up for foolishly forgetting about the Women’s World Cup. As always, these links first appeared at RandBall, your home for deleting not-terribly-funny similes and saving both of us.

It must be hard to be a pro baseball reporter. They end up having to take part in this great kabuki, The Dance Of The Postgame Quote, in which nobody (except Ozzie Guillen) ever says anything interesting. After Matt Capps completed the final stage of his transformation into Ron Davis, those reporters had to go down to the clubhouse and talk to Ron Gardenhire. And one of them had to take one for the team and ask Gardy if he was about to replace Capps as the closer. And then everybody got hit with the shrapnel as Gardy jutted out his jaw and got mad at the question like he always does. And then all those reporters headed back upstairs to write what they were going to write anyway. It’s a goofy game they have to play. (As you can see from that lede, I couldn’t do it.)

But that’s not why you called, so on with the links!

*It seems like a good week for a bit of American legend Spencer Hall. In fact, let’s have a double dose: first, in his own inimitable style, Hall compares ESPN’s short-lived disciplining of writer Bruce Feldman to Chiang Kai-Shek handing out watermelons. Second, Hall takes to the road to visit the great state of Oklahoma and do some catfish noodling. It’d be hard to find a writer anywhere as consistently fascinating as Hall.

*This week, six more college hockey teams announced they were breaking away from the WCHA, forming the American National Generic Hockey Conference Association, or some other equally generic, vague, and meaningless name. Chris Dilks at the Western College Hockey Blog has been making fun of them every step of the way. I’ve tried to decide on my favorite post from the saga, and I think it’s this one. Or maybe this one. It’s hard to say.

*And finally: the Empire State Building will display the colors of whichever team wins Sunday’s Women’s World Cup Final – even if that team isn’t the USA. On the one hand, fair’s fair. On the other hand, for somebody who a couple of weeks ago forgot entirely that the Women’s World Cup was even being played this summer, I’m not very happy about this. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Seriously, though, I know I’m always exhorting you to pay attention to some overlooked sporting event or another, so this plea may fall on deaf ears. That said, I’m sure there are people out there that don’t want to watch Sunday’s final (1:45 pm, ESPN), simply because it’s women’s soccer. If that’s what you think, then you now and me three weeks ago aren’t that different. I forgot the World Cup was even happening; now the final is must-see TV. Flip over when you get a chance. The British Open will probably be over by then. Give it a try.

Today’s a tough day, sports-wise; about the only thing going on is the Home Run Derby, a fun idea that turns out underwhelming, every year. Also, for the first time since 2005, neither Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau is on the American League All-Star team. So today at Twinkie Town, we imagine what they might be doing today.

It’s nice to be writing goofy things again.

I’m always fascinated by the headlines that Rand chooses for my posts. For example, the headline he chose for today’s edition – which is below, but appeared first on RandBall – is “What makes a good color commentator + Matt Capps’ struggles”. Which is fine, except that the post also includes British automotive shows, hockey, and Canadian football. I feel bad for poor Mr. Rand – he has to try to come up with a headline that will draw people in to my goofy collection of links. He has a hard job.

Happy Saturday! I’ve been thinking about Rand’s post about Tom Kelly in the broadcast booth, which touched off a discussion about what makes for a good color commentator. Near as I can tell, there are two things that make for a decent color guy on a sports telecast: first, less than ten games of experience in a broadcast booth, and second, a distinct inability to filter the content of what you say. Every person who becomes a color commentator for more than ten games eventually gets polished and bland, and starts saying the same things over and over again. Meanwhile, you stick somebody like Kelly in the booth – who knows baseball, and who couldn’t care less about anybody hearing what he says – and it’s gold. Another example: when FOX put Al Leiter in the booth for the NLCS while he was still playing, he was a joy to hear as a broadcaster. Now that he does regular work on the MLB Network, he can put you to sleep in three seconds flat. Lack of experience and lack of a filter – that’s the key.

But that’s not why you called. On with the links:

*First, I’m not sure that automotive “journalism” fits into the sports category. Second, I’m pretty sure I’ve cajoled you on behalf of this show before. Nevertheless: Jalopnik put together a viewer-curated list of the ten best episodes of “Top Gear”, a British automobile-related television show that includes equal parts wildly inexpensive cars, stunning film photography, and British people running into each other and falling down. (Think Benny Hill, but in a Bugatti Veyron.) I find the show delightful

*At least one person thinks that hockey’s about to be America’s winter sport again, and not just because the NBA might not play again for awhile. The post strikes me as a bit over-optimistic, but he’s right about one thing – the NHL is a lot more fun to watch than it was fifteen years ago, the last time it was poised to “break through.”

*Since Parker Hageman examined Matt Capps’s extremely hittable fastball, the portly righty has finished two games in a row without allowing so much as a hit. That said, this was mostly due to Chicago’s hitters only blasting the ball as far as the warning track, rather than out of the park, so it’s not as though the problems are over for Capps.

*And finally: if you want to know why the Twins have beat the White Sox nine times in a row, this picture might sum up the whole thing. And if you’re just getting into the “planking” craze, I have some unfortunate news for you: when Canadian football players start using something as a touchdown celebration, that particular fad is probably over.

That’ll do it for me – stay cool out there. I’m already sick of the heat. When will fall be here?

This post was written on Thursday pre-July 4th weekend, though it appeared on the 2nd. This is always tougher because I have to choose subjects that Rand won’t link to or talk about – hence, the mini-essay about soccer television ratings. One of these weeks I’m just going to write entirely about super-niche sports – Australian Rules football, South African rugby, and that sort of thing – and I’ll see if Rand actually puts it up. Anyway, the following appeared first at RandBall, everyone’s favorite Independence Day sports blog.

Happy Fourth of July Weekend! If Memorial Day is the official beginning of summer, then Independence Day marks the weekend when you realize that summer is slipping through your grasp and is in fact already one-third over. That summer list you made – you know, back in February when you were stuck inside and cursing your lot in life – is starting to look a bit daunting now. Let’s face it: you are not going to buy a motorcycle and ride it to Saskatoon, just for the pure thrill of the open road. You have chores to do. But you can still spend a weekend sitting in a lawn chair and blowing stuff up, and frankly, isn’t that all you really wanted out of summer, anyway?

On with some holiday weekend links:

*John Bonnes looks at the Twins’ lineup cards this year and comes to a realization – they’re almost like snowflakes, not a one alike.

*Meanwhile, Parker Hageman examines Scott Baker’s season, looking for the reasons that the shoulder-slumping righty is so much better this year than last.

*In television news: last week, I encouraged you to watch the Gold Cup final between the USA and Mexico. For those of you who did, and had to squirm through the home team’s embarrassing 4-2 loss to the Mexicans, I apologize… but you were not alone. Almost nine million people watched the game – more than Game 7 of the Stanley Cup and almost as many as the final round of the US Open. Now, eight million of those viewers were watching the Spanish-language broadcast on Univision, which indicates that Mexico’s presence in the final may have been a driving factor in that number. Even so, to me it’s yet another indication of soccer’s status as a non-niche sport in America.

*And with that in mind, it’s time for Episode 2 of the NSC Minnesota Stars documentary, in which the crew talks to team CEO Djorn Buchholz, and interviews midfielder Ely Allen, who managed to give himself a possible concussion in the kitchen. Also look out for interviews with assistant coach Carl Craig, the only person in the video whose language had to be edited. (He’s from northern England, so I find it hilarious; he sounds like’s about to jump through the screen and smash a pint glass over your head.)

That’s enough for the Fourth – now get out there and get those fireworks! No, not those. The good ones. You know the ones I mean.

Usually at Twinkie Town on Mondays, I write a sarcastic joke post in the morning, and then a serious game recap following the game in the evening. Well, this time around I started the day off with a serious review of Alex Halsted’s “100 Things Twins Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.”

Then, that night, the Twins lost 15-0 to the Dodgers… and I couldn’t help myself from writing my most sarcastic game recap ever. These things happen, I guess.

This week in the weekend links, I forget about the women’s World Cup, we talk soccer, and local humorist Stu makes fun of Joe Mauer. It’s all happening! As always, these first appeared at RandBall, your home for goofy pictures stolen from the internet.

Ah, summer; it’s a time for baseball, and for the NBA and NHL drafts, and for breathless, pointless coverage of NFL minicamps. For those of us who are soccer-inclined, it’s also a time for international soccer, and for USA fans, it’s a Gold Cup summer. Quick summary for the uninitiated: the Gold Cup is a biannual soccer tournament in which all of the North American and Caribbean teams play each other for three weeks before the USA and Mexico play in the final. The USA can’t beat Mexico in Mexico, and the Mexicans usually have trouble winning in America, mostly because America helpfully schedules most of the matches for Ohio in February when it’s about 23 degrees outside. (I think Bud Grant may coach the team.)

Anyway, the final is tonight, at 8pm, and while it’s in America, it’s at the Rose Bowl, which if anything is usually a road game for the USA. Unless you’re really looking forward to the Rugby World Cup, this might be your one chance this summer for some good old fashioned nationalistic cheering.[Proprietor note: What our misogynistic friend meant to say was, the Women’s World Cup also starts Sunday!]

And the first two links are about soccer in America, so away we go!

*Spencer Hall muses on the one-year anniversary of Landon Donovan’s goal in the World Cup against Algeria, certainly the best USA soccer moment of the recent past. It turns into a few thoughts on what it means to be a fan. It’s the same reaction I remember having at the time: that right there, that is why we are sports fans.

*The Run of Play thinks that soccer is like that woman you know you shouldn’t chase. The only issue I take with this piece is that it seems to wonder if America will ever embrace soccer, a question that I find to be about ten years out of date. Occasionally, you still read the “soccer’s about to catch on!” article, or the “America will never like soccer rabble rabble” opinion piece, but I have some news: while we were all talking about it, soccer arrived. Kids play it. The games are on TV. Die-hard crowds show up for MLS games across the country. Believe me, I know from niche sports, and soccer isn’t a niche sport in America, not any more. Like it if you want, hate it if you want, but arguing about it won’t change that it’s already here.

*Enough about soccer; let’s talk Timberwolves! Most of the local basketball literati had a strange reaction to the Timberwolves draft – they actually think there’s now a light at the end of the tunnel. The Wolf Among Wolves blog is upbeat, always a surprising reaction for a Minnesota basketball fan. (Granted, this was before we found out that the Wolves had mistakenly drafted an ineligible player, which while unfortunate, is also hilariously funny – but still.)

*And finally: RandBall correspondent Stu is funny, which you already knew. Joe Mauer is boring, which you also already knew. But the former teased the latter for his dullness this week, and frankly, that’s a combination that we like to see. Well done, Stu. Well done.

That’ll do it for me; I’m off to make sure that RandBall correspondent Dave MN doesn’t punch anybody in the face. (You know how he gets when discussions about hops get started.)