If NDSU had beaten Minnesota in football, we could have maybe had two "resignations".
Sid:
Monson received an extension before the 2002-03 season and would have been due a $1 million buyout had he been terminated. By agreeing to the resignation, he and his lawyer were able to negotiate a buyout of slightly less than $1.2 million [...]

One last day in November. It's been a pretty good month -- not insane like October -- but good.
Albert Pujols thinks that the MVP should come from a playoff team. So, if someone from Tampa Bay hits .475 with 120 home runs next year, he wouldn't be eligible if the Yankees hold off [...]

I had a conference call with a client late last night (different time zone) and I missed the Wolves game. Oh well. Actually, it wasn't that late and the game was on (fourth quarter) as I left work. I walked by WCCO and saw Dark Star hustling from the lounge at the [...]

I'm not exactly inspired these days on the WGOM front. I've got a few irons in the fire, but I thought I'd check in.
The Wolves lost in Dallas, but made a huge fourth quarter push to get back in the game. They were down 20 in this game but tied it up with [...]

Smells like a loss, but if this turns into a win, my won't the interest level shoot up?

Coming to you live from SBG World Headquarters in beautiful Eagan, MN, it's your morning Cup of Coffee with SBG! We made it back from the van Pelts' and we are now home with the cats. Last night, we went over to Sis's place and visited with Sis and family as well as [...]

Last night, KG reached 9700 rebounds for his career.
Tonight's game pits the Wolves against a good young team with a cagey old leader in SamIAM Cassell. I mentioned the Baby Bulls the other day. Just think if the Bulls had held onto Elton Brand instead of trading him for Tyson Chandler. Wow, [...]

Still coming to you from the father-in-law's basement. We are heading back to SBG World Headquarters today. We've had a good visit. The van Pelts have enjoyed seeing the little bump on the front of their daughter. This is their first grandchild. It'll be either number 11 or 12 on [...]

The Wolves travel to OK City to play their second game of the year against the NOK Hornets. The Hornets won on a buzzer beater (so Hornet like) in Minneapolis last week and look to remain undefeated at home.
Here's the tale of the tape:
W-L PF PA [...]

It's early Friday morning and Lucy is asleep. We are at her parent's place, so I'm using my father-in-law's computer. His computer has slowed down considerably since the last time I've used it. I am pretty sure he's running without anti-virus software and it runs like it has a bazillion worms or [...]

Since the NBA began keeping track of steals and blocked shots in 1973, a player has reached 100 steals and blocks in the same season 51 times. KG has done it 8 times, third behind Hakeem Olajuwon and Julis Erving, with 12 each. KG's not a premier shot blocker and I think that's [...]

• Another thing to blame on Bob Knight. Isiah Thomas:
"If I had it to do all over again, I'd never, ever want to play for any other coach other than him. There'd be no way in hell I'd be president of the Knicks had I not played at Indiana."
• [...]

Simmons isn't exactly the last word on things, but I think this is a reasonably good take on KG, even if it's not completely accurate. The entire article is pretty good, actually.
But maybe KG is too passionate for his own good. By all accounts, he's so wound up before games, it affects everyone around [...]

Here are the ballots of the two writers who voted on AL MVP from the Minneapolis paper:
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL
Joe Christensen, Minneapolis Star Tribune
1. Morneau
2. Jeter
3. Thomas
4. Ortiz
5. Mauer
6. Dye
7. Hafner
8. Guillen
9. Giambi
10. Santana
Jason Williams, St. Paul Pioneer Press
1. Morneau
2. Jeter
3. Dye
4. Thomas
5. Ortiz
6. Thome
7. Santana
8. Guerrero
9. Hafner
10. Mauer
I have no idea, NO IDEA, how Kyle Lohse [...]

• From the If You Repeat it Often Enough, It Becomes the Truth Department: I heard the following on ESPN radio tonight (don't know who said it). Joe Mauer won the Gold Glove this year.
• BabySBG is halfway here. I'm telling you that she'll be a Twins fan. And a Daddy's girl.
• Marc Stein [...]

I'm stunned by that, actually.
Update: Keith Law of ESPN.COM is not amused (subscription required):
The reality of baseball is that a great offensive player at an up-the-middle position is substantially more valuable than a slightly better hitter at a corner position. And when that up-the-middle player is one of the best fielders at his position [...]

Lucy and I went in this morning for another ultrasound for BabySBG. This is the ultrasound that most people have, the one before was because of Lucy's age -- she's over 35, so they gave her an earlier one. We now know the sex of the baby and all indications are that BabySBG [...]

• Well, it turns out that my brother was cheering for the Bison after all. He had a Bison sign up at work before the game and he was sitting behind some guys from Brookings who wanted to know why he was cheering for the Bison. Because that's where I went to school. [...]

I was driving home from work last night and my brother Putzer called me. It was late and I was tired after a long and punishing week. I hadn't talked to Putzer in some time and it was good to hear from him. He was excited. SDSU women's basketball team beat [...]

LeBron James is almost too good to be true. He's still 21 years old and already he has 6,536 points, 1635 rebounds, and 1615 assists. He's also logged a gargantuan (for his age) 10,201 minutes on the floor. If he stays healthy and plays till he's about 40, he'll be the league's [...]

What could possibly be a bigger story in college football than Michigan/Ohio State this weekend? Well, how about this: longtime Michigan head football coach Bo Schembechler has died today.

• If you remember correctly, there was some speculation last off season about a Hunter for Cano and Wang trade. I think it was the Yankees who were balking at that one. Who among us doesn't wish that we could go in the way-back machine and throw in a prospect in to sweeten that [...]

One of the attorneys that I work for is a pretty big Twins fan. I had to talk with him about a file this afternoon and mentioned to him that our guy Johan Santana won the Cy Young Award. While he wasn't at all surprised, he was thrilled that the vote was unanimous. [...]

But, you knew that already.

• I hear that they are playing a football game in Columbus, OH on Saturday. That ought to be interesting.
• Lucy goes in for another checkup today. We are getting close to the halfway point of her pregnancy. She's in her nineteenth week and doing well.
• Another long day in store for me. I'm [...]

OJ Simpson is coming out with a new book and will have an interview on FOX television.
The title of his new book? If I Did It.
In an account his publisher considers a confession and some media executives call revolting, O.J. Simpson plans a book and TV interview to discuss how, hypothetically, he could have [...]

ScruFi finishes second for the third time.

• The T-Wolves win in a laugher last night over Portland. The Wolves blew out to an early lead and coasted the rest of the game. Nice win for the hometown squad.
• I added a plugin last night on the left hand column that includes the top commenters here at SBG. I'm number one! [...]

Must win this one to stop the bleeding. This is also an open discussion on KG, the player.
T-Wolves Win!

Katherine Kersten, a writer that I spend very little time reading (because I pretty much disagree with her), writes a column in defense of the Fighting Sioux nickname for the University of North Dakota. I'm not going to get into the politics of that issue, but I wanted to give you her hilarious opening [...]

• Yesterday was a crisp 16 hours in the office. Not today. I'll limit it to ten or twelve. It's been an extremely tough stretch.
• ubelmann points out that Sporting News named Terry Ryan executive of the year as voted on by his peers. I think he won it for the Pierzynski trade, [...]

F-Bomb is third in the AL ROY voting, behind Verlander and Papelbon.

• Two weeks ago, I flew in from Raleigh, NC and drove to work just before noon. I was listening to PA and Dubay. Paul Allen remarked that if the Vikings could beat the New England Patriots that night, they’d most likely be 9-2 heading into their week 13 matchup with the Bears. [...]

On Saturday night the Wolves lost again, this time at home to an Orlando team that lost on Friday in Indiana. The Wolves had three days off since their loss in Los Angeles, which one would think would give the Wolves an advantage. However, the Magic stuck it to the Wolves early and [...]

Grant Hill is in the last year of his contract. Imagine if Detroit, instead of Orlando, had signed him. No championship for the Pistons.
Wolves Lose

• Hey, it's me, SBG! How are you all doing?
• A word on spam. No comments are being allowed for Antivert or the like, all of those spammers are sending trackbacks, or links to my site. I would like to enable trackbacks, because if a site links here, I'd like [...]

I'm a baseball guy by nature, so I'm really much less knowledgable about basketball than baseball. The other day, SBG posited:
It’s tough to win on the road in the NBA. Even good teams rarely win much over 50% or so of their road games (of course, it does happen that some teams play better [...]

It's just one game of course, but beat LA is a perennial cry. I'm not optimistic.
Wolves Lose

Game 3 of a four game Western trip. This will be a tough game for the Wolves. Brad Miller is out for the Kings and considering the sinkhole that is the center position for the Wolves, it doesn't hurt to have Miller out. I'd try out Eddie Griffin if Shareef-Abdur Rahim is [...]

Top Jimmy with a new record 5,437 corny references in his latest column on the Vikings "performance" on Sunday.
What was missing, though, was his impassioned argument about how Brad Johnson deserves a pay raise. Probably hit the cutting room floor to make way for his legion of witticisms.

It's early in the season, but that Saturday night loss in Portland was a discouraging loss. It's tough to win on the road in the NBA. Even good teams rarely win much over 50% or so of their road games (of course, it does happen that some teams play better than that). [...]

Post any newsworthy articles that you found outside of the Twin Cities media in the letters to the editor. This can be anything from any source other than Twins Blogs, the Star Tribune, Pioneer Press or any other Twin Cities news outlet. You can post on the Twins, baseball, the weather. Whatever.

Found some half baked crap? Let SBG Nation know about it! Add it here.

Now, this is a game that the Wolves need to win. True, the Wolves are coming off of a back-to-back with a tough game last night in Denver. But, the T-Blazers were in Golden State last night and got beat by 13 against Nellie's crew. Plus, the T-Blazers stink. The Wolves [...]

The Timberwolves went into Denver on Friday night and beat the Nuggets 112-109. I watched about the first 15-20 minutes of game time, before falling asleep and carrying my carcass off to bed. I woke up this morning and went to the web to see that KG lead his team to victory, scoring [...]

I'm no Denver fan, that's for sure. 'Melo doesn't do it for me. I will admit that he played a lot better last year than I anticipated that he would.
After one game: KG outside of the fourth quarter: 19.93 points per 40 minutes. KG in the fourth quarter: 36.43n points [...]

As mentioned first by Beau in the GG post, Francisco Liriano is set to go under the knife. There's a Strib article here and an espn.com article here.
This is certainly bad from an '07 standpoint. In the longer term, Tommy John surgery is quite successful, though certainly not 100% successful. If "shoulder [...]

There's no denying it now, denizens of SBGville--Torii Hunter plays great defense. He now has a sixth Gold Glove to prove it.
A Golden quote from the article:
"I know I can't do as much on defense, but I'm trying to do it on offense right now," Hunter said in late August.
There you have it--straight [...]

I probably won't see the game, but I will have one eye on the computer gamecast.
T-Wolves Win!

I caught about 5 minutes of the Chicago/Miami game last night before I fell asleep. Tonight it's the Wolves. I will post game logs on the Wolves. I am fearful of a long, tough season.
But, as long as the guy who is 61st in career scoring, 35th in career rebounding, 89th in [...]