I’ve always felt sorry for the AL East’s “other” teams – Tampa, Toronto and Baltimore.    They have to compete for limited playoff spots against the financial power of the Yankees and Red Sox.

Plus, in the “unbalanced” schedule,  they can’t even demonstrate how much more worthy they might be when compared to AL Central or West contenders – their record carries the damage of so frequently fighting hard inter-division battles.

This year the Twins will be a de facto AL East team early, at least for six weeks.  Their early record might reflect it.

Consider this:

• 15 of the Twins first 20 games are on the road – all road games against AL East teams.
• By May 15, the Twins will have played 25 games against AL East opponents, 26 against the rest of the league.

If it seems like the Twins are fighting a headwind this season, it just might have to do with a prevailing wind from the East in the first part of the season.

Of course these things do even out, more or less.  The sailing should be smoother later for the Twins than for Detroit (only 14 games against the East by May 15) or the White Sox (12 games against the East by May 15).

I can’t tabulate the psychological impact of fighting from behind all season – if that’s how things set up in the early stages of the season’s race.     As an agnostic to psychological factors – they may exist but they are unknowable  –  I’d like to think that it just won’t matter by Judgment Day of September 28 (season’s end).

BTW,  I’m only now realizing that the new schedule is WEIRD.  Opening Day is a Friday.  The final day is a Wednesday.    Did I get the memo on this?

And one last gripe on the schedule – as a Pacific Northwest based fan, I’m not happy (or any other dwarf except probably Grumpy) about the fact that there are only two games scheduled in Seattle this season, both on a weekday.    Curses, MLB schedulers.

Tough schedule or not, bring it on.

Courtesy xkcd

There’s a story I once heard, surely apocryphal, about a college philosophy final exam with one question:

“Prove that you exist.”

According to the story, some daring student stapled to the exam a parking ticket that she had received that morning.   Adding nothing else she handed it in.  She got an ‘A’.

As an engineering graduate I was annoyed by this story — philosophy majors can get full credit for the correct answer without showing their work?   But to the extent this student exists (she didn’t prove it to me), I have to hand it to her.  I think she got it just about right.

It’s not the big things in life that really define our existence.   Love and Death and Tragedies and Winning Lotteries – we call these things “dreams” or “nightmares”, because there is something surreal about them.  These are our memories hallucinogens – or the places we can’t bear to look.

But a sure way to knock yourself out of any solipsistic mindset is all those frustrating little things or even the tepid pleasantries that there’s just no way you think up if the world is just a figment of your imagination.

So, to the management of the Minnesota Twins this past offseason – thank you for proving that I exist.

I’d have to ask if I was dreaming if the Twins had landed Cliff Lee or Zack Greinke.   But Alexi Casilla, starting shortstop – a dream for no one other than Alexi.  Dusty Hughes (a reliever not even wanted by Kansas City) claimed off waivers– there’s no way that I’m fantasizing about that.  In fact, let me staple the entire bullpen card to a philosophy exam.*

*At this point I’m considering the loss of Billy Bullock only to be a parking ticket type of life-confirming annoyance.  If he shall someday blossom as the next Mariano Rivera, then perhaps this offseason has been merely a bad dream.

It was an offseason of Cuddyer’s wart, Mauer’s Head and Shoulders commercial, Morneau’s persisting unease.    It was a winter to prepare oneself for 200 plate appearances by Drew Butera and a future without Nick Punto.

The only really intriguing move all winter was the acquisition of Tsuyoshi Nishioka from Japan.    He is one of only two projected 2011 Twins starters that hasn’t seen action as a Twin (Dusty Hughes being the other).    But Nishioka’s addition led to musical bases, with J.J. Hardy being the odd middle-infielder out,* and I don’t think that’s an overall plus.

*After J.J. got traded, I was really hoping that Nishioka would win the shortstop position.   Not based on any optimal defensive arrangement, but because I wanted to hear John Gordan make a double-play call as ““Roku-Cuatro-Three”.  I might have to settle for a call of “Seis-Shi-Three,” which is kinda okay, but not as cool.

It was just that sort of off-season.  Nothing gawd-awful, nothing special.   A few paper-cuts.  A move here or there that, as my uncle might say, is “better than a sharp stick  in the eye.”  Things that I can turn to if I ever feel life is just too vivid to be real.

But I have to keep in mind: paper-cuts and improvements-over-eye-poking-sticks aside,  this is a team that won 94 games last year.      If the moves seem pedestrian, I do get to root for a realistically-contending team again in 2011, for the eleventh year in a row.     Try convincing the childhood me – the one whose baseball memories  began with the Not So Good Twins Years, Version I (1971-1986)  – that I’m not living a dream.

Pretend that you are Gardy and you are filling in the DH slot in your lineup card sometime in the upcoming season.    You’ve got some pretty good options:

• Jim Thome – Second place active career home run hitter, still appears to have something left.
• Jason Kubel – The numbers were down last year, but over 20 HRs each of the last three years in a less-than-full-time role.
• Joe Mauer – He’ll need breaks from catching twice a week, but you need to keep his bat in the lineup most days.
• Justin Morneau – There’s a thought that post-concussion Justin should rest more this season and one way to do it would be to give him occasional hitting-only days.

That’s four pretty damn fine options for DH’ing.   But there’s just one thing – every one of them is left handed.

Fortunately for the Twins, only about 25% of innings thrown in MLB are tossed by southpaws (unfortunately, it seems to be 90% for Yankee playoff pitchers).

Below is a table with the versus-Lefty and versus-Righty splits (2010, last 3 years, and career) for the four options.  I also include the number of plate appearances each got at DH last year.

An all-left-handed DH assault could work.  In fact it already did – last year.  The Twins only gave 66 Pas to DHs other than the above. And the Twins had an overall OPS+ at DH of 127.    It worked quite well.

Fine-tuning that a bit, I’d try to work in as many Mauer and Morneau DH days as I could on days when the opponents start a lefty – since they both have handled lefties tolerably in recent years (well, 2010 Mauer, not so much) and will have their positions taken over by right-handed hitters.

But then I started kicking around this other idea.    I feel like I need to take a shower just for thinking it, but should the Twins consider trading Jason Kubel for a right-handed bat?

I heart Jason Kubel.  He’s perhaps my favorite Twin – just as Gardy likes slappy, middle-infielders because they remind them of himself, I like soft-spoken guys born in the great state of Dakota.

But being on the same team as Jim Thome doesn’t give Kubel much chance to shine.

This is the last year of Kubel’s contract.   I don’t hold out much hope of the Twins trying to resign him after this year, though with potential draft picks looming, the Twins will be tempted to offer him arbitration. (Elias has deemed him a Type A Free Agent at the end of 2010  — which includes Jason’s sweet 2009 numbers, so his status might yet drop below A level.)  He’s owed $5.25M this year.   The Twins have indicated they want to increase team speed – so his outfield play doesn’t play into that plan at all.

So, should the Twins identify a few candidates and make a few calls?   The target might look like this:  a right handed DH/Corner Outfielder on a team looking for left-handed hitting.

I guess it would take a lot to impress me.

First of all, a righty in the DH platoon only gets so many at bats.  A new righty wouldn’t complement the righty corner outfielders of Young and Cuddyer.   There are plenty of injury scenarios (Thome, Morneau, Cuddyer, Young) where Jason’s value and opportunity significantly increase.   Kubel could earn the Twins some draft picks if next year’s arbitration dance follows an offer/decline choreography.   And if he does stick around, he might not have to share the lefty-DH spot with Thome in 2012.

Maybe, most of all, I’m blinded by my Kubel affection, and I’d like to have at least one more year of him around to see if he can find his 2009 self again.

When the web developed into something with enough waves to “surf,”  baseball was one of the waves I dove into.   Think about it — “surfing” — that is, mass casual reading —  was not really a form of communication that really existed before.  At least not for me.

And one of these one-way conversations I voluntarily placed myself in front of, was the baseball writings of Rob Neyer.  He was probably the main “national” voice, while TwinsGeek and Stick and Ball Guy were the two Twins voices I first tapped into.

Rob Neyer announced his departure from ESPN.com today.   Tomorrow or maybe sometime soon, he’ll announce where he’ll end up.    Speculation is that he’ll have a new gig soon, so maybe I’ll just change the channels where I hear him.

On the channel of ESPN.com, Rob was the guiding voice into a re-thinking of baseball for me.  It’s always been the one sport I loved.   And with Rob leading the way, I got to fall in love with it all over again in the liberating ways a fresh look can bring.     Rob championed some arguments that were easy enough to accept — such as the overvalue of the RBI, and some I’m still trying to get my head around — such as the pitcher having so little control over the destiny of a batted ball.

I get to live in the same town as Rob.   I got to meet him for a beer once, due to a mutual friend.  It was after book-reading by Rob in a local bookstore.   After the reading and after the book-signing — but before the beer and before Rob had to run off to conduct a late-night baseball radio interview — I saw Rob combing the aisles of the bookstore looking at books on bird watching.   I concluded that he wasn’t merely a sports nerd, but something better —  a man with a curious mind.  (Who happened to land a damn fine gig applying the curiosity toward baseball.)

Last year on this website, I wrote a farcical piece offering Joe Nathan my tendon for use in his Tommy John surgery.    The said mutual friend forwarded this piece onto Rob.  By that time Rob read it, the piece was long past relevant, but here is what Rob said about it via an email reply…

”  That’s awesome. I wish I’d seen that at the time, would have dropped into the blog. Next time…”

Oh.  If only.  A Neyer Link.   I’d pray for  a Friday Filbert, or maybe a mere Monday Mendoza.

I also once got a personal wave from the Dali Llama (I swear this is true.  Some future post.)   Rob’s personal seal of approval ranks right up there.

Good Luck Rob.

Jesse Crain goes to the White Sox and so goes one of the best Cruel Nicknames the Twins ever had.

Jesse  has been at times a top-notch reliever for the Twins, and he’s had his down periods where he was tagged, not always fairly, as the Crain Wreck.

Cruel Nicknames – I’m sure they’ve been around as long as the game.  But how were we to know them until the internet came around?    The beat reporters traded kindness for access, so the behind-the-back dugout nicknames never made it to me.    Maybe I would have overheard some in a bar, but unlikely, since I haven’t been geolocated in Twins Territory since the mid 1980’s.

But then along came the internet, where snarkiness knows no bounds.

My personal favorite Twins Cruel Nickname:  Hansell the Regrettable – a reference to Greg Hansell, one of many otherwise undistinguished  Twins relievers of the mid 90’s.  I’m not sure how I even ever heard of the nickname.  I must have read a posting by some irreverent fan on some Twins bulletin board back then, before TwinsGeek, Stick and Ball Guy, Glleeman and the like pioneered the modern Twins baseball blog.

More recently, I’ve seen some bloggers referring to Delmon Young as ‘elmon Young– presumably because he provides no D.   The joke’s been around a while – often attributed to football teams in ‘etroit or ‘allas or ‘enver in years when they have a poor defense.  Glad to see it imported to baseball.

There are several characteristics that make up a good Cruel Nickname:

1)  There must be some performance basis for the nickname.    A good Cruel Nickname can not be an ad hominem attack.   Back in the 80′s, David Letterman called the Braves reliever Terry Forster a “Fat Tub of Goo” – that doesn’t work.   If Letterman had called him a “Fat Tub of Goo With a High Walk Rate” – well, that wouldn’t be catchy, but at least it has some basis.

2)  Though they need basis, they need not be fair.  They can’t be.   Major League baseball players are an elite class.  They all have extraordinary skills.  Few really deserve their nicknames. But, still, a few disappointing losses, some poor plays, a bad streak — and a good Cruel Nickname can stick.

3)  They must be clever.*  A play on the player’s name works.   So is an appropriate pop reference.  Perhaps the best of all baseball Cruel Nicknames is that of Dick “Dr. Strangeglove” Stuart . When the movie of the similar name came out in 1964, someone needed that nickname and Dick was just the bad fielder to get it.  When “Major League” debuted in 1989 with a character known as Rich “Wild Thing” Vaughn – someone needed to inherit the nickname in real life – and there was Mitch Williams all ready for the name.

* I can hear my inner Tyler Durden asking “How’s that working out for you?”

Do you have any favorite Cruel Nicknames you remember?  Do you have any you want to enter into the lexicon of Twins fans?

Now that the Crain Wreck is gone, there’s a much-needed void to be filled for Twins’ Cruel Nicknames.   Here’s one I propose:  as a tribute to his propensity to get picked off at first, henceforth, the Twins center fielder shall be known as: Denard “Short Attention” Span.*

* Denard’s thought bubble when on first:  “Okay.  Take a little lead off of first.   A few more steps.  Focus on the pitcher’s leg…watch…watch …hey, look at that babe up behind home plate…damn, she’s fine…oh shit…Oh Shit…DIVE!!!…CRAP!!!!!!….Picked off frickin’ again?!…Jeezus!!…Gardy’s gonna kill me…Damn, I’m am so f…hey, I wonder what they’ll have at the postgame spread…”

I just learned that the Twins are playing the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs this year.

I learned this after coming back from a visit to the labs at Lacuna Corporation.*  This doctor there, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak, perfoms a medical procedure of selectively erasing memories.  I went there for some reason, I forgot.  Maybe to erase some sort of heartbreak or something.    It must have been over some girl from New York, I’d bet — since Dr. Mierzwiak said for best results, I should refrain from reading New York newspapers.  Maybe she was someone famous since Dr. Mierzwiak has famous clients — I saw pictures of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in his office.   Of course, I’m not famous.  I don’t think.

Anyway, I’m glad to see the Twins are playing the Yankees.  I don’t think they’ve ever faced them before in the playoffs.  It’s good to go into a series without any history getting in the way.   Because sometimes if you lose over and over, especially to the same team, this sense of being cursed builds up.  You play to not lose instead of to win.  Thoughts creep into your head.  Maybe your closer grooves one to their best player to blow a save or the do-the-little-things-right guy runs through the third base coaches’ sign or you blow leads in extra innings.   You get the sense that fate is throwing nothing but vicious bean balls.   Those that don’t remember history may be damned to repeat it, but those that do remember history seem to repeat it a lot too.

So Twins, you drew the Yankees — no history, a blank slate.  You are not boats against the current, you need not be borne back ceaselessly into the past.

You know the Yankees did pretty good against the Twins this season, but that was the regular season.  The playoffs are different.   The Yankees may do pretty well in the playoffs most years, but its not like they’ve faced Gardenhire before when the season is at stake.   Gardy knows how to win when things are on the line.  The Twins were awesome last year against Detroit in the only time that the Twins have gone to a 163rd game in the season.  (For the life of me, I can’t recall what the Twins did next – damn! I must be getting old).  And back in 2002 against the A’s — Gardy’s Twins rocked the A’s (Go Brad Radke! — though how’d that turn out in the long run, anyone recall?)

So Twins, go out there and play like those games, like there’s no tomorrow.  Because if you don’t, there just may not be a tomorrow for me to remember in my future.

* In this amazing ether of the internet you can discover things like there are two versions of the script from Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind.   I discovered both the script as filmed [link], and the original Chalie Kaufman script.  In the original script it turns out that Joel and Clementine have their memories erased 16 times over the course of the lifetime of their rocky relationship.    Imagine that.  Needing to erase your memory 16 times over the course of your life.   That could never happen, could it?

It’s going to take a miracle now.

When we first heard of Justin Morneau’s head injury, the thought was “yeah, a few days as a precaution.”   Then came the trip to the disabled list and it was “okay, you don’t want to mess around with concussions, let’s give it a couple of weeks.”  Then weeks turned into months; a 15 day DL turned into a 60 day DL.    Yes, we were told from an early point that concussions were serious business — and that this could take months and even cost Justin the season.  The Twins are (rightfully) taking a thoroughly enlightened approach to let Justin come back only when the time is right.

Yet we have hoped.  We always held out hope.   Even now, as we see the Automatic-Garage-Door-of-Hope closing fast, we still stare at the gap and wait for Justin to roll through, like a Canadian Indiana Jones.    Maybe he can be a bat off the bench in the ALDS.   If the Twins advance, maybe he’ll be ready by the ALCS.

Well, the A.L. Central is clinched and we’re two weeks away from the playoffs.  Even if Justin’s bad days were suddenly to be diagnosed to be behind him, there’s still the rehab.  The minor leagues have shut down.

But maybe, just maybe, we are in the trying moment just before the miracle occurs  – Roy Hobbs staring at his broken bat, Kirk Gibson limping in the locker room.

I apologize to my Very Catholic Mother  that I did not think of this earlier.  But as she taught me, when you need a miracle, you turn to the Patron Saints.

My first thought was the obvious:  St. Jude, the Patron Saint of Desperate Cases.   But in doing some research, I learned there is a Patron Saint of Head Injuries.*    For the miracle I am seeking, I’m going with specialization, and will go with Saint John Licci.

* My research also pointed out that there is a patron saint of hangovers (St. Vivian).  Why didn’t I know this in college?

Of the miracles attributed to St. John Licci, there are three incidents of curing people whose heads had been crushed in accidents.  Hence, he is known as the Patron Saint of Head Injuries.   To see Justin in the playoffs, I think it’s time for Twins fans to turn to St. JoLi.

I figure it can’t hurt and it just might help Justin Morneau.  And this might work out well for St. John Licci too.

You see, despite the “patron saint” designation, John Licci isn’t officially a saint.  As near as my quick internet research can tell (Google’s search archives don’t go back to the year 1511), his followers dubbed him a saint but he’s never been officially canonized by the Catholic church.   This is sort of like St. Bert of the Holy Curveball being in the Twins Hall of Fame, but not in Cooperstown.

Officially St. John Licci is only “beatified”.*   Perhaps a new miracle might push him over the edge to sainthood.  In comparison to his attributed miracles of ressurecting a dead boy, curing a paralyzed man (when St. JL was an infant!) and providing perpetual food for a poor widow and her six children, the healing of a concussion of a multi-millionaire first baseman might seem a bit trivial.  But if Justin was to come back and have a big post-season, a new and well-publicized miracle might bring some attention back to his previous impressive work.  If a few Cardinals (no, not Pujols and Holliday) catch wind, they just might check into what can get done.

*Sainthood is Catholicism’s equivalent of the Hall of Fame, equivalent right down to the disputes over what standard should qualify.  It helps to have a penultimate level in a hall of fame.  Cooperstown should look into a beatification process — a place for the not quite Hall of Famers, Hall-of-Famers-but-for-steroids-or-gambling, and designated hitters (though it would be tough to keep from canonizing a guy nicknamed Big Papi).

Official saint or not, he’s a holy man (and holy cow, he lived to be 111!).  And he’s the guy to talk to about head injuries.   So tonight, I am going to light a votive candle and beseech the intercession of St. John Licci to cure Justin Morneau’s concussion.

As I said, it can’t hurt.

Now, is there a Patron Saint of Catcher’s Knees?

No doubt you’ve heard about Paul, the World-Cup predicting octopus — correctly selecting the fate of the German World Cup team throughout the South African tournament.

Well, I was wondering if my dog, Mazzy, had any prognostication skills in selecting the winner of Twins games.  Before Saturday’s game (July 10), I put down two snacks, one I designated for the Tigers and one for the Twins.  She initially ran toward the Twins snack, sniffed it, and then passed it over for the Tigers snack.  Things didn’t look too good for the Twins… and sure enough, the Twins went out and lost 7-4 to the Tigers — with another starting pitching performance so bad that Mazzy would roll in it.

Mazzy’s record was 1-0 in predicting Twins games, so far.

So now I’ll be recording her predictions, posted before each game.  The most recent predictions are at the top.  I’ll keep this going until she gets one wrong.

UPDATE 7/15:  Mazzy gets one wrong.  White Sox win 8-7.  I think she properly envisioned the events of the game.  It’s just that I forgot to tell her about the “balk” rule.   Oh well.  Experiment ends.

UPDATE  7/14 :

Mazzy got last Sunday’s game correct.  She’s now 2-0.

The video below is Mazzy’s prediction for the first game back from the All-Star Break — White Sox at Twins.  Mazzy predicts a Twins Win.  Sorry about the sideways video.  I didn’t think it through, that YouTube would only support horizontal video.  Mazzy says “Go Twins.”

UPDATE 7/11:

So this video is her prediction made before Sunday’s game (July 11, 2010) between the Minnesota Twins and the Detroit Tigers — posted before I know it’s results.  Let’s hope she’s right and the Twins world has a little something to wag their tails about before the All-Star Game.

[NOTE:  I swear I already had this written, with just some clean up to do earlier in the week.  The subject matter meant it needed to be posted sometime during the World Cup, but the Cup was continuing for another 3 weeks – no hurry.  But then that Posnanski guy, in the middle of a post about the US-Slovenia tie game, drops this line:

Michael Bradley …would …deflect the ball into net for what soccer fans like to call “the equalizer.” I tend to think we should try to fit “the equalizer” into our baseball lexicon as well — it’s just better than “tying run.”

…which is just about the opening segment of this post.  Oh well, I’m going to go with what I had written.  Poz beat me to print and he’s got the influence that just might make ‘equalizer’ a baseball term.  So listen to that Posnanski guy -- henceforth, it's not a tying run, its an equalizer.]

It all began the first time I learned of the phrase “equalizer.”  Though, I’m sure it was spelled “equaliser.”

That’s what started this thought that baseball could stand to import some of the lexicon of soccer.

Baseball calls the run that ties a game the “tying run.”  Soccer (in English speaking soccer circles) calls the goal that ties a game the “equaliser.”  I’m no monarchist, but the Brit soccer term is so much better than the American term.  It has as much chance as the U.S. converting to metric, but I’d like baseball to pick up a few terms from soccer.

About the only thing I know about soccer is from my frayed memory reading Nick Hornby’s “Fever Pitch”a decade back.  But since I learned the word equalizer, I’d been on the look out for other words that baseball could adopt.   My list was pretty short – 2 of the terms below, “clean sheet” and “in aggregate” had been stashed in a notebook somewhere over recent years.  But with the World Cup coming around, I dug through a hand full of web-sites that tutor newbies in the lingo of soccer to see if there are other terms suitable for use on the baseball field.

And no, I won’t call the baseball field a “pitch.”   Baseball already has a meaning for that.

My proposal for terms from the language of soccer to be added to the lexicon of baseball:

Equalizer is a tying run (only appropriate to use the Americanized spelling for baseball). As in “Carl Crawford represents the equalizer out there at second base.”

A Clean Sheet in soccer when a goal keeper keeps the other team from scoring.  It’s analogous to baseball’s very suitable term “shutout.”    The term “shutout” can still be reserved for the individual pitching accomplishment. To make room for soccer’s cool term, I propose baseball to adopt the term “Clean Sheet” for a team shutout.   A Clean Sheet is attributed to a team – the starter, the relievers and the defense.  All shutouts are clean sheets, but not all clean sheets are shutouts.

In determining the winner of a series of soccer matches (i.e. a home and away series), it can often come down to who scores the most “In Aggregate” (i.e. total goals) in the series.  Even though baseball resolves all of its games into wins and losses, making the term meaningless, I’d like to see in aggregate results for a series – just for bragging rights.

In the World Cup, when one tournament pairing of a group of four is stocked with good teams such that some otherwise deserving team is going to be held back from advancing (only 2 teams emerge from each group), it is called a Group of Death.  The group of Brazil, Portugal, Ivory Coast, and North Korea has been pegged as the Group of Death for the 2010 World Cup.   From now on, in baseball, the AL East will be known as the Group of Death.

Conversely, the least interesting grouping of teams is called the Group of Sleep.  In MLB, it varies from year to year, but I nominate both Central divisions for MLB’s Group of Sleep.

In soccer, a game against a cross-town rival is called a Derby.   That’s a way-better term than baseball’s “natural rival” arrangement used in interleague play.  From now on, the annual interleague match-ups between (typically) regional teams shall be known as “Derbies,”  as in “The A’s and the Giants are playing their derby this weekend.”

In soccer a Golden goal is an overtime goal that ends a match.   I’m still fond of the recent (if overused) development in baseball as referring to game-ending events as “walkoff” events (i.e. walkoff homer, walkoff walk, walkoff balk).  Still, I’ll go with this and say that a “walkoff hit” and a “golden hit” can be used interchangeably.

I’m lifting this definition straight from the “soccer-training-info.com” website.  The site defines  “Handbagging” as “when players are fighting on the field but just throwing soft punches or slaps, like old ladys throwing their handbags.”  I can’t wait for a baseball announcer to broadcast that there has been a bench-clearing handbagging.

Wikipedia defines “Lost the Dressing Room” as a soccer term used to describe “the situation where a manager of a club is seemingly very near to being sacked. The team will invariably be struggling on the pitch, the manager will be under a lot of pressure and the signs may be that he has lost the faith and respect of his players.”  Chang the word “sacked” to “fired” and the term is instantly transportable to baseball, describing two or three managers even at this moment.

If you have other terms you’d like to export across the pond or across the soccer/baseball divide, suggest away.

The following are websites I used to learn about soccer terms.

http://www.soccer-training-info.com/soccer_definitions.asp

http://www.gq.com/sports/guides/201006/world-cup/soccer-terms-group-of-death-cheat-sheet

http://www.firstbasesports.com/soccer_glossary.html

http://www.shoebacca.com/resources/glossary/soccer.html