I spent most of Saturday watching the Minnesota Cricket championship match, and wrote about it for CricketSota.

Short version: it was cold and a lot of runs were scored.

*Since I know you’re wondering how I live my life: I spent seven hours at a cricket match today, then drove straight to the University to watch the Gophers beat Syracuse. That’s the kind of odd, curious, frankly inappropriate dedication you get from us small-time internet bloggers. Anyway, these links appeared first at RandBall, your home for being big-time. *

I think we can all agree that the situation with the scab referees in the NFL has gotten out of hand. They’re clearly terrible, to the point of ruining games, and so we need to send a signal to the NFL that it’s unacceptable that this labor unrest drags on. By this I of course mean that YOU need to send a signal, because I can’t possibly stop watching the Vikings. I’m not even sure I like watching the Purple, particularly, because every week I look at the schedule and say to myself with a sigh, “Well, I guess I’d better not plan to do anything Sunday afternoon, since we’re the noon game this week.” It feels like a sentence, especially when the Vikings are awful, but it hardly occurs to me to stop – or that others have avoided this particular feeling.

Intellectually, I realize that there are probably millions of people in the immediate metro area who do not watch the Vikings, who could not care less about their exploits, and who are free to spend their Sundays burning ants with a magnifying glass or whatever it is non-Vikings fans do with their time. Even so, in my mind I always imagine that every family in Minnesota is huddled around the television when the team is on the field. Austin Murphy, in his book “The Sweet Season,” describes trick-or-treating with his kids during a Vikings game, where he discovered that following the exploits of Jeff George and company was perfectly possible while on the sidewalks, since every house they stopped at was watching the game and had inhabitants that were perfectly happy to provide game updates. I know it’s not true for everybody, everywhere, but I can’t help but imagine that’s what the entire state is like. I went to the grocery store during the second quarter last week, and was shocked to find that not only was the store not broadcasting the game over the P.A. system, the store was genuinely crowded with people who were shopping and did not have a radio crammed into their ear like I did.

I suppose that’s why I’m so unwilling to miss Vikings game; in my head, I imagine that all Minnesota is Vikings fandom, and so if I should miss a game, then I won’t be able to discuss the pathetic state of the Viking secondary in detail, something that could cause me to be branded as a dangerous eccentric and possibly as a freedom-hating, anti-American potential terrorist – or worse, as a Cheesehead. This sort of thing has never happened yet, but I fear that it’s coming.

So if you wouldn’t mind, please figure out a way to let the league know you’re not going to watch football until the owners stop allowing the replacement refs to make it actively awful. I can’t do it. I need to have specific insults for Harrison Smith ready to go for Monday. No, I’m not sure why. I’m just sure that I will.

*On with the links:

*If you haven’t seen it, Tim Keown profiled Joe Mauer for ESPN the Magazine, and it’s nothing short of fascinating. Mauer comes across as incredibly even-keeled – so much so that I’m starting to worry that his lack of celebration is a result of an epic level of unhappiness.

*Ben Polk at A Wolf Among Wolves writes about the supposed ‘whiteness’ of the Timberwolves, and how it’s really not the truth. I have been arguing this for awhile, but Polk sums it up with the phrase that makes the whole article worthwhile: “the Stockton-Hornacek-Ostertag matrix.” Beautiful.

*I found this history of the great cricketers of Philadelphia at the turn of the last century, by David Mutton, to be remarkably fascinating. Maybe you don’t like cricket, but if you like well-written and spotlessly-researched sports history, you’ll like this.

*And finally: I’m just glad that I finally found the greatest article in NFL, and possibly internet, history.

Today at SB Nation Minnesota, we imagine just how Don Fehr and Gary Bettman are spending their time, since they’re certainly not using it to end the NHL lockout.

I can’t help writing fictional screenplays. It’s just easiest, somehow.

ELSEWHERE: the Twins and Tigers got rained out tonight, so my series preview at Twinkie Town is still prescient and timely.

Saturday’s the day that Minnesota cricket’s champions will be decided. (Champions, plural, because there are three divisions – named in grand English soccer style as the Premier division, Division 1, and Division 2).

I wrote a fairly short preview of the matches for CricketSota.

*Note: These links appeared first at RandBall, your home for 20-mile runs. *

The NHL lockout begins today, and by all accounts, it looks like it’s going to be a long one. Bryan Reynolds at SB Nation Minnesota says NHL fans need to find a new hobby, because it’ll be awhile, and poor Michael Russo sounds positively despondent at his blog. (We may need to all pitch in and buy Russo a puppy or something, because the guy just sounds depressed.)

With this in mind, I was going to try to go big picture and have a little fun with it, and give you a list of other things that you, as an NHL fan and a Wild fan, can occupy yourself with this winter. I got about three sentences into that column before I realized something: Wild fans aren’t exactly at a loss around here, nor are they suddenly going to be looking at yawning stretches of nothing on the sports calendar.

It would be stupid to write that Wild fans won’t miss the team; there was genuine excitement about the team this year. But there’s probably even more excitement about the Timberwolves’ possibilities this winter, or the Gopher basketball team’s. Not a basketball fan? No problem; Gopher hockey’s always been there to fill our hockey needs, and they’re looking for a return to the Frozen Four. We can check in with Houston, with Mikael Granlund and the rest of the Wild’s prospects in the AHL. And on your doorstep, pretty much wherever you are in Wild territory, there’s the best prep hockey league in America, and those kids are playing the next town over tomorrow night, and the junior class is selling hot dogs at the concessions stand.

We’re going to be fine, fellow Wild fans. We’ll hardly even notice they aren’t playing. It’s become clear that Craig Leipold and Gary Bettman and the rest of their cronies in the owners’ boxes don’t care about us, but this winter, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to send them a message that should, but clearly doesn’t, concern them: fellas, when you’re not around, we don’t care about you, either.

*On with the links:

*We’ll start by continuing the hockey theme, with Down Goes Brown making jokes about NHL ’13, along with an excerpt from a Bettman quasi-biography on Deadspin.

*For the football fan who’s X and O inclined, here’s a great Grantland breakdown of how the Redskins are helping Robert Griffin III succeed.

*Anyone who’s ever read an edition of the Best American Sports Writing series will want to check out Kevin Koczwara visiting editor Glenn Stout for The Classical.

*Also from The Classical: Matthew Callan writes about umpire Ron Luciano, who umpired in the majors and wrote a great sports book and did television, but ended up dying by his own hand, in seclusion and living with relatives in his howmetown.

*And finally: A’s pitcher Brandon McCarthy is still recovering from the liner that fractured his skull, but his sense of humor is in mid-season form.

Twins AAA catcher Rene Rivera wasn’t happy that he wasn’t called up to the major leagues; apparently the team had made some promises that they didn’t keep. At Twinkie Town, we look at a few others that the team might have made this year that also weren’t kept.

In the interest of bringing the number of sports I write about regularly ever closer to double digits, I’ve started writing a blog for the local cricket league’s website. The Minnesota Cricket Association is probably best compared to town-team baseball in Minnesota; it’s decidedly amateur, but at the same time, much more serious than rec-league softball.

I’ve written a few posts now – I’ll put up more as I go along – but for now, here’s my preview of this weekend’s league semifinals.

I wrote a column about Joe Mauer for SB Nation Minnesota, specifically about why the Twins’ best player seems to make some Twins fans so unbelievably angry.

So far, I’m only in one ongoing discussion about it; more anger may build up throughout the day.

Covered what could be my last Stars game of the year on Tuesday night – the full game story’s here. The Stars are in the playoffs after a 4-0 in, but could well end up without a home game, so it could be the last one.

I also put together some Twins news and notes for their series with Kansas City. They got killed 9-1, so not so good there.

It is quite rare that I can write a post that pokes fun at Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Tommy Herr at the same time, but today at Twinkie Town, I managed it.

I also got shots at Otis Nixon and Ryan Mills in there. I feel kind of proud of that.