The Skolney Blog

Okay, so we did get a few surprises. Nothing mind-blowing, but a few things didn't go as expected. I really didn't think they would pull the plug on Treadwell, considering the young receivers largely didn't impress in preseason. Turns out they only have 4 WRs at all as of now, although that's almost certain to change. They'll bring in somebody for sure. I thought Zylstra was likely to stay too. The Sloterholics mourn. I figured Sloter would stick around another year, but they went with just 2 QBs for the first time in a long time. Jake Browning likely ends up on the practice squad. But hey, chin up, Sloterholics. A year from now you'll all be obsessed with a new late round or UDFA QB project. The Vikes traded away Danny Isidora, and traded for CB Mark Fields, each for a 7th rounder. So that's a wash. They bit the bullet on Kaare Vedvik. It's bizarre how from the moment he got here Dan Bailey was back to being a machine. A glass half full person could...

The Gophers beat South Dakota State in spite of themselves. But man, they didn't take long to prove that finish to last season was an outlier. That defense got run over. The fumble that turned the game was entirely unforced. That pick six was just a horrible decision. The defense really did nothing on its own to win. And I thought the Gophers were supposed to have a potent offense? Tanner Morgan was bad. The OL got overpowered. What's gonna happen when they play FBS teams?

Bills 27 Vikings 23 It's mercifully over. The only particularly noteworthy thing in this game was the end to the kicker competition. Dan Bailey will be the guy this year. He split the uprights twice tonight. And Vedvik pushed his 1st FG to the right, though he did hit his 2nd try. I am not sure if Vedvik will be cut. They could possibly keep him as a punter. Blowing a 23-6 lead with like 6 minutes left would be catastrophic in a game that counts. Here? Who cares? Nobody on the field in that 4th quarter has any chance to be anything more than a practice squad guy. Sloter was fine, but he didn't light it up, to the dismay of the Sloterholics. Jake Browning didn't look all that good, so he may not even be a practice squad candidate. Cuts over the next 2 days. Last year had some big surprises, but I don't see anything too significant coming other than possibly Vedvik. I really don't think Treadwell gets cut.

Okay, since nothing else is really happening on this rainy Monday night I'm gonna live blog the VMAs. These shows used to matter to me, as did popular music. I probably haven't even attempted to watch the VMAs in many years. ____________ Ugh...Taylor Swift? Are we still doing this? I think she's doing the song where she equates generations of LGBT discrimination to people saying bad things about her. ---------- Hmm, well, I at least do recognize a majority of the names.of performers. ___________ This host is like a 4th rate Andrew Dice Clay. Man, the VMAs used to get top level comedians like Chris Rock to host. Now we get this irritating douchebag. ---------- Pepa from Salt n Pepa is completely unrecognizable. -------' Absolutely nothing about Cardi B is tolerable. Nothing. ------ I will always confuse Shawn Mendes with Shawn Mullins. -------- Lizzo is alright. She's one of us, so that's cool. -------- So Lil Nas X isn't a parody? Are we sur...

Considering this show, which had a nearly perfect 1st season that already used up the whole source material, and expanded on it very well, certainly never should have had a 2nd season(and season 2 was bumpy as hell as a result), it's kind of amazing how its THIRD season, which is now far afield from both the book and 1st season, is actually okay . I mean, I was into it enough to do the whole 13 episodes in one weekend. The promo for the season was the tagline "who killed Bryce Walker?" so we know going in that the season will basically be a whodunit. And more or less each episode is designed around investigating a new possible suspect, until we find out at the end that, no, they didn't do it. It's at times annoyingly repetitive. The big change for this season, and one that has been the biggest target for fan hate, is the new character of Ani. Ani is the new girl at school. The season takes place in a couple different timeframes, with one being right after seaso...

Twins 7 Tigers 4 Twins game #6 for me this year was the last of a 6 game homestand that already had become a failure on Friday when they lost the opener to Detroit. That made them 1-3, so winning the next 2 only salvages a split of a homestand where they really needed to do a lot better. But today was a rare easy win. Martin Perez pitched 6 mostly good clean innings. The bats knocked around Matthew Boyd quite a bit, with a 3 run Cron bomb and a 3 run laser shot by Schoop the highlights. They played a clean game defensively. The more dramatic stuff was saved for Cleveland, who trailed 8-3 in the 8th to Kansas City, before rallying to tie on a 2 outn3 run homerun by Franmil Reyes. But then the Royals won in 10, a nice flip of that game here a couple Sundays ago. So the Twins only split 6 games against scrubs, but wind up gaining ground overall this week.

We know how you feel, Colts fans. Almost 3 years to the day that we lost our franchise QB very suddenly with the regular season looming.

Vikings 20 Cardinals 9 The "big" preseason game, i.e. the one the starters play the most, was also no doubt the ugliest of the 3. Zimmer was none too happy about the first half, with the unproductive offense, a handful of defensive lapses, and, naturally, kicking woes. The Cousins haters among both the fanbase and the media of course jumped on his 3 for 13 performance. Funny how when he played very well against the Saints and Seahawks you heard nary a peep from these people. But it was Kirk's worst performance of the 3 games. I don't think it's at all a coincidence that it was also the worst the OL has looked. Plus there were.a couple big drops. The only thing on defense that was worrisome was Xavier Rhodes getting smoked pretty badly on a couple plays. I do think Rhodes is probably just part his peak. I wouldn't be surprised if he is gone after this season if the money works. But for all the doom and gloom about the first team defense, they looked very g...

A 4 game sweep at Texas last weekend. I think most would have been cool with 3 of 4, but they went the extra mile and got the full sweep. Sets them up well for a 13 game stretch against nothing but lowly White Sox and lowlier Tigers, with the first 6 at home. And in fine 2019 Twins summer fashion, they drop 2 of 3 to Chicago, including a dismal, uncompetitive 4-0 smothering today. So basically, we get a quick reminder that all this talk of this easy schedule the rest of the way means precisely jack shit. We cannot count on the Twins to handle their business, like Cleveland did, in these matchups. We cannot count on them to win home games. After the last 2 disastrous, humbling homestands(Mets/As/Yankees, then Royals/Braves/Indians...a combined 8-11, 5-11 if you take out the Royals) they really needed to show up for the home fans. Now, they could very well sweep a Tigers team that's one of the worst MLB teams of the decade, but anything short of that means you don't even win ...

So, it's not totally for sure yet, but it looks very likely that the Marvel-Sony partnership to bring Spiderman into the MCU is over. Apparently Disney wanted more money as part of the deal, and you know what? They are completely justified. Homecoming and especially Far From Home made literally hundreds of millions of dollars that they would not have made were it not for this version of the character being in the MCU.  Those Andrew Garfield movies did alright, but they were far from huge successes. That's why Sony was open to the deal in the first place. That Spiderman franchise had really been run into the ground. They needed the MCU very badly. The mistake Sony might be making is thinking they don't still need the MCU. We are at the point where, if Marvel characters are not in an MCU movie, that movie is very likely to not do that well. And for the next Spiderman movie it could be even worse, cause a huge portion of the fanbase will still be mad about Sony taking that ...

Vikings 25 Seahawks 19 Good to be back in the purple palace, and in different seats for a change, although I still prefer my usual spot. Not a bad game as preseason tilts go. Cousins looked solid. There was a fumbled snap but I don't know if that was him or Bradbury. Defense made some big pressures on Wilson when they had to. I mean a guy like that's always gonna hit a few plays. Nobody missed any kicks. I liked Zim going for 2 up 7 to make it a 9 point game. That's something I'd hope he does if a similar situation happens in the regular season. Most encouraging thing was probably the variety of WRs showing off. Zylstra and Badet in particular seem like 53 man locks. Hell, even Laquon made a few nice plays. Good to see Irv Smith Jr. get involved more. Reddit was afire with Sloter vs Mannion. Look, Mannion is the backup and he should be. Sloter is good enough to look good against 3rd stringers. He has been for a few years now. Mannion had a pick six tonight that ...

Hobbs and Shaw The Fast and the Furious spinoff is almost a full blown cartoon. For all the shit the core franchise gets, those films at least put in some effort to ground things at least a little bit. This one is just nonstop absurdity. Now, since it has Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham it's also quite a lot of fun. And Idris Elba rips into his bad guy role. I wouldn't object to another one of these, but the true Fast films are still the highlight. The Art of Self Defense Kind of a brilliant ultra dark comedy. Jesse Eisenberg hasn't been this well cast since The Social Network. A rare film that really gets better and better as it goes, up until an ending that is exactly the right punchline you want it to be. This made no money and was out of theaters very fast but I expect it to live on as one of the year's best cult films. The Lion King The original is not a sacred text for me. It's fine, but meant nothing to me. This remake is pretty lazy from a story standp...

(Bit of a crude copy and paste) Some people are fans of the Minnesota Vikings. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Minnesota Vikings. This 2019 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Your team: Minnesota Vikings. JUGGERNAUT Your 2018 record: 8-7-1. This team had Super Bowl aspirations after GM Rick Spielman, who looks like a televangelist who does vanity HGH treatments, neatly rounded out a roster that had already gone to the NFC title game the year prior (although what happened in that game and its final score escape my memory). He broke the contract mold for QB Kirk Cousins. He got a bargain deal on Sheldon Richardson. He drafted Mike Hughes to spruce up an already loaded secondary. He hired John DeFilippo, fresh off an Eagles Super Bowl win, to call plays. Wherever the Vikings had a hole, Rick spieled directly into it. It didn’t matter. The Vikings spent all of last season looking very much like an 8-7-1 team. They were banking on two interior...

Almost simultaneously, as the Indians come.back to tie Boston in a game they had trailed 6-1, Ryne Harper serves up a 3 run homerun to turn a 4-2 lead into a 5-4 deficit. A short time later, also more or less simultaneously, as the Red Sox get the final out in the 10th to win, Marwin Gonzalez crushes a go ahead 3 run.bomb off that d'bag Josh Hader, to put the Twins back up 7-5. The single biggest bomba of them.all so far. And hey, Sam Dyson was back and had a 1-2-3 inning. Wild stuff.

Carlos Santana(of course) walks off the Red Sox. Brad Hand blows saves 2 saves in a row and the Indians win both games. The 2001 Twins spent most of the season in first place, then relinquished the division lead to Cleveland for good on August 12th. Today is August 12th.

Indians 7 Twins 3 10 innings Where to even begin? (Well that would be with the other blog post I had like 90% done before this game became something else entirely) Jesus this one hurt. If you designed a game to elicit maximum emotional carnage you might come up with something like this. What was for 8 innings one of the most lifeless, passive losses of the year in a blink turned almost into the biggest comeback win of the year, then in another blink turned into one of the most crushing regular season losses I can recall. (Alright I'll just include some of the first blog rather than recount it differently) With 1st place on the line, with any chance to salvage this series and this homestand on the line, with your best pitcher matched up against a rookie in his 3rd career start... That's what you put out on that field? Early on it looked like Jose Berrios was going to be the goat today. Homerun to the 2nd batter. Another 1st inning run. Giving up a 3rd immediately after ...

Twins 4 Indians 1 Okay, the absolute worst case scenario of this series has been avoided. At worst the Twins will now finish the homestand tied for first. For the first time in the series the Twins showed up. They showed some fight. Jake Odorizzi's start was not pretty. He walked too many guys just as Gibson and Smeltzer did. But the difference is he buckled down and never let the Indians get that big hit. It's the kind of gutty start we will need several more times this season. The other key was the bats drawing first blood. Garver doubles, Arraez triples, Cron singles and it's 2-0. It could've been more if we didn't send Cron home to be out by 20 feet. They added on with Kepler and Gonzalez bombas, and the very well rested pair of Romo and Rogers brought it home. I also don't think it's a coincidence that they won while playing their cleanest game in the field in quite a while. This was a desperately needed win. Now you have Berrios going tomorrow ...

I missed this one. I guess this photo and story broke a couple days ago. It is beyond disgusting. During Trump's grotesquely insincere trip to El Paso this week, he and his cunt whore wife took this photo. The child in the photo no longer has parents...because both were killed while shielding their child from the shooter whose ideology matches Trump, and whose massacre was inspired and encouraged by Trump's daily bile. Most of the victims either had no desire to meet with Trump or physically couldn't, but nothing could stop this monster's photo op. He was literally only there for a photo op, to make it look like he gave a rat's ass about the results of his handiwork. The story is that the child was no longer even at the hospital, but Trump had them brought back just for the photo op. Now, it's also disgusting that the family members this child is now in the care of would do this, but that's an separate revultion. So the origins of how the photo came to ...

Vikings 34 Saints 25 So good to have my favorite team back, even if it's largely unwatchable preseason football. This game wasn't too bad actually as these things go. The refs threw about 200 flags though. I suspect they're going to spend all season being overly kind to the Saints. Kirk and the first team offense had just one drive but looked snazzy. They got Kirk moving around a lot, which was great to see. He threw a sweet pass to Thielen. Alexander Mattison got the six. Sean Mannion and Kyle Sloter each had some nice moments. Conklin had a long rumble. Ameer Abdullah had one dandy run(also a non-dandy fumble). Some guy I had never heard of got a pick six. Teddy looked solid for the Saints. I kind of cringed when we sacked him but if that knee wasn't better we'd know by now. I wish he had a chance to really play this year.

Indians 6 Twins 2 The 2 month collapse with the inevitable result has finally arrived. That 12 game division lead the Twins had in early June is now completely gone. Another disgusting, lifeless, flat out embarrassing drubbing on their home field, only this time without even the tease of a comeback to make the final more respectable. I was a little more focused on the Vikings tonight, but I was still keeping up on the ballgame. Once again a starting pitcher gives the team no chance. Now, Devin Smeltzer is a rookie with only like 5 starts to his name, so he probably doesn't deserve quite the ripping that Kyle Gibson got, but like the vets all week he too was a miserable failure in a big spot. 4 1/3 innings, 6 runs, 3 walks from a guy who previously didn't walk anybody. God, where is pitch to contact when you need it? And also failing yet again is the Bomba Squad. I know they were facing an all star pitcher, but god dammit step the fuck up and compete. They wait til the gam...

Indians 7 Twins 5 The biggest series at Target Field since that 2015 season ender that began with wild card hopes. Also the biggest start of Kyle Gibson's career. And he was a disgrace. 6 runs in 4 1/3. 6 fucking walks. And after the Twins cut it to 4-2 he goes out and immediately loads the bases. Only then did Rocco The Genius get off his ass and pull this jackass. Too late. A 2 run double off Zack Littell makes it 6-2. Mike Clevinger may twitch like an extra nervous crackhead, but he mostly made the Twins lineup look pathetic. Now, the Twins did put together a little bit of a late rally, but for the 3rd straight game a starter put them so far behind that a rally falls short. When you get far behind like this, you have to be nearly perfect to comeback, especially against good teams. And it doesn't help when Rocco The Genius sticks Trevor May in there in the 9th over a fully rested Rogers or Romo. And naturally Fortnite gives up an insurance run immediately. The Twins had...

Braves 12 Twins 7 Years ago I seemed to have the worst luck going to Johan Santana starts. Either he would get zero run support and lose, or he would have an off night himself and lose. And now it's getting that way with Jose Berrios. This was my 2nd straight game I attended with a Berrios start. Last time out against Boston we got shutout. This time Berrios had literally one of his worst starts of his career. First pitch of the game is rocketed into the seats by Ronald Acuna Jr. Later a Freddie Freeman 3 run bomb is set into orbit. Then the bottom totally fell out in the 6th in an interminable 6 run mess that Cody Stashak added a cherry on top of. 11-0 into the bottom of the 6th. About the only matters left to be determined were what position player would finish the game on the mound, and would I suffer a 2nd straight shutout. Thankfully Nelson Cruz spared me of the shutout concerns with a homerun. I've never been so relieved to only be down 10 runs before in my life. Th...

Cleveland, down 1-0 in the 9th to Texas, gets a leadoff double and is seemingly in perfect position for a walkoff win. But the win never comes. Twins, tied 3-3 in the 9th, appear destined for another dreaded extra inning game. But then Arraez bloops a single, and Sano hits a mammoth pinch hit walkoff bomba. A couple swings the other way and the lead drops to 2. Instead it gets bumped up to 4.

For calling violent white supremacists what they are. Oh well. I guess at least that means I'll be back in time for the Vikings regular season. 30 days for telling the absolute truth though. Amazing. On the plus side I can still block people. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Can you fucking IMAGINE if Obama had gotten the name of a mass shooting city wrong? The right wing media would be apoplectic forever. Trump the white supremacist cares so little about the violence he incites that he doesn't even bother to retain simple information like the name of the city where it happened. Earth to MAGAts. He. Does. Not. Give. A. Fuck. About. Any. Of. You. Both shootings happened in states Trump won in 2016. He has done nothing in 2 1/2 years to help the lives of any of those people. He has now caused the deaths and wounding of dozens. His next Nazi rally will be devoted to inciting the next El Paso or Toledo, oops, I mean Dayton. Forget all the impeachment talk. It is time to take this terrorist out through the same means he gleefully incites. Boom. Gone.

The mass shootings have never stopped. They've just become so routine that it's hard for them to even break through the cable news and their Trump 24/7 obsession. But this weekend we've had 2 so big that the corporate media actually has to focus on them. 18 dead in El Paso. 9 dead in Dayton. Dozens more wounded. All shot by deranged white supremacists endorsed and incited by Donald Trump. America is under attack from Donald Trump and his insane MAGAt cult full of insane gun nuts who have been told that Mexicans and Muslims are the real threats to our country and our way of life. These MAGAt white supremacists are already insane. They damn sure do not need the enthusiastic push from this soulless monster of a so-called president. Trump holds his Nazi rallies and stirs up all this hate against the black and brown people, knowing full well his cult will go out there and do his bidding, whether that's mailing bombs to Democrats or shooting up a mall. Build a wall? We ...

Classic summer 2019 Minnesota Twins. Even when they do something good lately, they do something to fuck up any good vibes. The Twins hit the road and took 3 of 4 in Chicago. Good. Solid. Then they take the first 2 in Miami. Good. Solid. Doing what you're supposed to do. And then they take a 4-1 lead into the 9th today. Good. All set up for a sweep to cap off a 7-1 road trip. And then they fuck it up. Newly acquired Sam Dyson comes in for the 9th. Now, Dyson literally had just gotten off a plane a few hours before. He didn't even show up at the ballpark til the middle of the game. Do you think he would possibly be prepared to pitch today, let alone in a save situation? Well Rocco sure did. He sent Dyson out, and immediately it was clear Dyson was not prepared to pitch. Now, whether it was unfamiliarity with the catcher, the signs, the whole team, jet lag, whatever. There's a reason you don't just hop a plane and play a game hours later. Dyson goes walk, single, do...