About

Welcome to SBG Nation, Home of The World’s Greatest Online Magazine. We provide Your Daily Source of Half-Baked Crap.

This site was once a lowly blog, but no more. It is now the WGOM^TM and features a number of authors. But, what is the WGOM^TM? Well, it is a place where a bunch of people talk about things that interest them. We are Minnesota Twins fans, yes, and some of us are Minnesota Timberwolves fans (showing that we are hearty folk), but good grief, there's more to life than sports. We talk beer, kids, food, and whatever we want. There's a little math thrown in from time to time. Here's a little about each of us.

SBG

This website is run primarily by me, “Stick and Ball Guy,” or SBG, as I actually prefer. I really like the name Stick and Ball Guy and I can say that without sounding boastful because I didn’t think of it. I first saw the name in a Patrick Reusse column. Apparently, the term stick and ball guy is a phrase used by Southerners to refer to guys that don’t get into racing. I don’t know if it is a derogatory term or if it’s just a standard colloquialism, but I think it’s a cool name and I have co-opted it.

I am an attorney by trade and prior to that I worked as an engineer, designing Bobcat® compact construction equipment. (I’m sure that my former employer appreciates that I treat their trademark with respect, at least right here.) While I worked as an engineer, I lived in SBGville, a small town in Southeastern North Dakota. I quit my job, moved to the Twin Cities and went to law school when I was 36 years old. While I am a lawyer and from time to time I might talk about legal issues and politics, this page is intended to be fun and focused on sports and the trivial aspects of everyday life. As such, I offer the following disclaimer.

Information contained on this site is for informational or amusement purposes only. Nothing written is intended to be legal advice or legal counsel. You are not a client of SBG unless you have an express relationship with his law firm. Because I do not reveal for which firm I work and do not use the name SBG professionally, I can safely say that “you” are not a client of “SBG.”

Okay, I’m glad to be done with that. I am married and 43 years old. My wife’s name is “Lucy” and she cannot stand sports, especially baseball. You may be thinking, what were you doing, SBG, marrying this woman who hates what you love? Well, Lucy is a wonderful, passionate, funny woman. We have a daughter, BabySBG.

Did I mention that Lucy loves cats? We have three cats: Jags, Theodore Finkle (“Theo”), and Eleanor Rigby (“Ellie”). From time to time (but not too often), Lucy will show up with a posting about the exploits of our felines.

I write about local sports teams from the perspective of an outsider and a fan. I have no contacts with the team, with the local main stream media, or anyone else that has information. I write about the teams and players from my perspective, the common fan, and I comment about the media. Sometimes, I do my own analysis and research articles for your consumption. Sometimes, I write about what I’ve seen, read, or heard in the media. Sometimes, I comment on the play. I don’t have an editor and I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what I write. If I did that, my lovely wife would divorce me for spending too much time on this hobby. Sometimes you get half-baked crap, sometimes I write stuff that’s pretty good (I think). That’s the way it is, and that’s the way I like it.

I like to have fun with my topics and my readers. From time to time we take jabs at each other, but it's not personal. I don't want feelings hurt, so nothing written here should be considered to be a personal affront. What I've found is that the citizens of SBG Nation are interesting people. The folks here are having fun and I enjoy the camaraderie. You might say we have a certain chemistry (heh).

GreekHouse

I am the resident Twolves "expert" here at WGOM and I collaborate with SBG on the Wolves game logs. Back in 2004, I was searching the web for a good Twolves blog but couldn't find one. I realized that one needed to exist, so I started one. Unfortunately, my timing was bad as this was the beginning of the end of the KG era in Minnesota. Eventually, I realized that I enjoyed playing poker more than writing about a bad basketball team. Plus, I could make more money doing that, so I gave up the blogging business for a while.

Eventually, I found my way over here. I am really a terrible sports writer, so for a site that advertises its half-baked crap, I feel right at home. I'm lazy and don't like to do a lot of research, so as a result most of my best writing tends to be more theoretical in nature.

In real life, I am a math grad student. As an undergrad, I double majored in math and computer science. After working for a year, I went to the University of Minnesota in the computer science PhD program. During my second year there, I took a math logic course as part of my CS curriculum and realized I wanted to get back to my roots. I finished up there with a Masters and am now at Iowa State.

After I dropped out of PhD program at Minnesota and switched to the Master's program, I lost my funding from the school. I had a job doing web programming for my alma mater, but they ran out of money to pay me after about 3 months. I didn't really find another job and sort of became an online poker pro by default. I had been playing online since I had started grad school and had been using it to supplement my meager grad student income, so I knew it wasn't a huge risk for me. A lot of people think that being a poker pro would be a really great job, but it was really pretty awful. It got pretty tedious having to play so much and downswings are really hard to deal with when you need the money to pay your bills. After I got back to school, I quit playing for over a year and only recently started up again.

Despite my bad experience, poker has really influenced my world view and my view of sports. I will occasionally talk about poker or use analogies to gambling when talking about sports.

Andrew

I don't know how to properly or adequately describe who I am with regards to the WGOM, but I'll give it a shot. I am originally from Indiana, where I lived until just after my 12th birhday. We moved to Algona, in Northern Iowa. Until that point in my life, I was an Indianapolis Indians fan, and to a lesser extent a Cincinatti Reds fan. After the move, I began watching some abyssmal Twins teams on TV, but for some reason I liked them. Soon, the team started improving and winning division titles. Baseball has always been my first love when it comes to sports, both participating and spectating.

Around the WGOM, I do quite a few different things. Although I would not consider myself a soccer expert by any stretch, I did cover the 2006 World Cup and comment quite a bit on soccer. I was the interviewer of the series "Better Know A Citizen" which profiled members of the WGOM Nation. Currently, you can see me working on the SBG HOF and commenting on my Drake Bulldogs.

I currently live in Des Moines where I sell electrical equipment. I graduated from Drake with a BA in History as a part of the Class of 2007. I've been accepted at Trinity College Dublin for the 2008-2009 school year where I'll be studying for my Masters in Modern Irish History.

brianS

I think I wandered over to the WGOM from Gleeman, but I don't really remember anymore. My initial role here was in needling the Boss about his relationship with the doyenne of Twins bloggers and trying feebly to critique ubelmann's work. I began carrying far more than my weight in game logs, which shot me up the comment rankings. Somehow, that growing mass of commentary compost, plus my constant pestering SBG about musical requests led him to offer me the authority to post and the invitation to help out with the VJing. The rest, as they say, is history.

I contribute regularly to the musical selections and irregularly to the main content, through barley pop-oriented offerings and occasional baseball-related bits. But mostly I'm known for offering comments on damned near anything and everything.

I grew up in Spamtown USA and am a proud graduate of Carleton College (alma mater of Twins Geek!). I hold a Ph.D. in political science and spent the past 15 years as an academic, but have since moved to applied public policy work for the Golden State. I live in the Sacramento area, which makes me the go-to-guy for NorCal scouting (A's prospects in particular). My non-Twins' passions, beside Mrs S, the Boy and the Girl, are beer, cooking and science fiction/fantasy. But my doctorate authorizes me to comment on (almost) every subject. After all, I have a Ph.D. in science, so I know more than you do.

E-6

DJ and citizen. I'm probably best known as the pretentious "artsy" guy with far too many opinions about pop culture and an a borderline obsession with linking. I love baseball. I used to love basketball. I'm an amateur foodie who enjoys an adult beverage from time to time. I'm a big fan of books. Math makes me sleepy. As my colleague brianS might say, I provide "post-modern angst" to the site (stupid burrow-crat...)

I got the DJ gig by wearing down bS and frightwig with requests and comments. I think they came to the conclusion that it would be easier to let me join in than to have me killed. If it's not obvious, I love music. All kinds of music. I get a huge kick turning someone on to new (or old) music. I couldn't be happier that SBG lets me do what I do here. Whatever that is.

For the past 20 years I've operated a fine art painting studio in Minneapolis.