Who Needs a Hug?

In the spirit of catching more flies with honey than vinegar, here's a new feature on our blog called "Who Needs A Hug." Because there seems to be a whole lot of negative energy flowing around the Twins blogosphere after last night's loss.

Yes, It was a painful loss. People can say what they want, but after an official Those Girls phone conference this morning, our official line is: We Blame Pudge. Save the venom for the real bad guys.

So we're going to try to keep everybody's chi in line by infusing some happy thoughts into the Twins Universe.

Who Needs a Hug

Matt Guerrier

Here are 10 Positives:

1. We like your hair. Whether it is long or short.
2. You are always SUPER nice to fans. We appreciate that.
   
3. We think you might have an evil sense of humor, and we like that. A lot.
4. You play cribbage.
   
5. Your Pre-Game basketball playing ritual is amusing to us.
6. Your name is really fun to say.
7. Your salary is less than 1/3 of Juan Rincon's and we never hear you complain about it.
8. You like to draw. That's cool.
   
9. You are really good at baseball. (Everyone has a bad day at work once in a while.)
10. This is an awesome story about you. We don't know if it's true or not, but we choose to believe it.
    

"Ever since he was a little kid, Matt KNEW he wanted to be a Major League pitcher. When he was in sixth grade, he was selected to speak at "graduation" and say what he wanted to be when he grew up. When he told administrators what he was going to say, they told him he couldn't JUST do that. . .so he got up to the microphone and said, "I want to play Major League baseball. . .and write children's books. . ."

Then in seventh grade, his English teacher gave an assignment to the class to write about what they wanted to do when they grew up. Of course he wrote about baseball. The teacher returned it to him and said he needed to rewrite it. Rather than grading him on structure/grammar/spelling,

she said he had chosen a topic that was "unrealistic."

After that, Matt stopped writing in cursive (a requirement for the class). The teacher called a conference with his parents and the school principal to deal with the situation. When they asked Matt if it was true and why, he said, "I don't want her to have my autograph when I'm a Major League pitcher." His parents looked at the principal and said, "I think we have a problem here, and it's NOT with our son."

They also sent a copy of Matt's contract to the teacher when he was first signed to the minors."