Michael "Sammy" Samuelson

When Michael "Sammy" Samuelson went into hospice care in mid-December, the move also meant involuntary retirement from heckling the Twins. At the time, I asked him to guess the number of games where he had been in the stands, lobbing his signature long, creative, elaborate taunts at the players. He started counting.

"I've had season tickets since 1988, and that was about 40 games per year, but there were also games at other stadiums," he tallied. In 1997, when the Twins were threatening to contract, he upped his attendance. "I must have gone to 70 games a year for the past 15 years," he continued. "Gosh, I would say a couple thousand."

Sammy racked up those numbers in spite of three kidney transplants throughout his life, skin cancer, leukemia, and an arm amputation. On Monday morning, his long-deteriorating health finally won out over the Twins institution and the team's biggest -- or at least most vocal -- fan. He was 57.

"Now that I'm dying, I wonder if I should have done something else, seen the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Europe," Sammy reflected in December. "But what I love about baseball is the friendships you make."

See Also: Best Heckler 2012: Michael "Sammy" Samuelson

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Photo: Courtesy Minnesota Twins

The Twins will be revamping the right-field bleachers.

Target Field has been up and running for a full three seasons now, which means it's time to keep renovating.

See also:
- Minnesota Twins have increased in value more than any other pro sports franchise since 2000


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With his goatee and sunglasses, Bedrosian looks ready for some vigilante justice.

Steve Bedrosian pitched one memorable year for the Twins, winning a World Series in Minnesota in 1991. He now lives in suburban Atlanta, where he is currently stewing over the Creepshots scandal that's erupted at his daughter's school.

Earlier this month, a substitute teacher in Coweta County, Georgia was outed for taking sexy photos of unknowing female high school students in his class and posting them to Reddit's hard-to-believe-it's-legal Creepshots forum. The as-of-yet unidentified teacher is no longer employed by the school district and is under investigation for possible criminal charges.

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Next time you see Nishi, he might be wearing this uniform again.

So what was your favorite Tsuyoshi Nishioka Twins moment?

SEE ALSO: Tsuyoshi Nishioka, new Twins infielder, spotted at Origami downtown

Was it when he botched the first routine grounder he saw this season so badly it prompted fans to wonder whether he'd been drinking sake before the game? Or maybe it occurred a couple days later when he lost a pop fly in the sun, capping off a series where he batted 0-for-12 with three errors and two more non-error defensive botches?

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Minnesota Twins

A couple of homers, for better or worse.

The Wall Street Journal recently watched one home victory by each MLB team in hopes of answering this question: What's the most biased TV announcing tandem in baseball?

SEE ALSO:
-- Paul Allen's "No!" call the greatest of all time, says NFL.com [VIDEO]
-- A.J. Pierzynski calls Nick Blackburn a "piece of shit" [VIDEO]

If you've ever listened to Homer Hawk Harrelson call a White Sox game, you won't be surprised to learn that he and partner Steve Stone lap the field as the most biased announcers in baseball. In fact, with 104 "biased comments" during the game the WSJ scrutinized, Harrelson and Stone offered up more homertastic remarks than all the other announcing duos in baseball combined.

But if you've managed to take in a Twins game with the sound on -- and we know it ain't easy, with all the losing the team has been doing the past couple years -- then you also won't be surprised to learn that Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven rank as one of the most biased duos around.

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The video features Joe Mauer, who says: "I care, and when we face bullying together, it can only get better."

SEE ALSO:
-- Twins' "It Gets Better" video delayed because of Dan Savage controversy, but still in works
-- Minnesota Twins plan "It Gets Better" video shoot
-- Target Field guard scolded lesbian Twins fans for kissing

After being in the works for more than a year, the Twins finally released their "It Gets Better" anti-bullying video yesterday.

Starring Joe Mauer, the video is better than nothing, but it conspicuously omits mention of the GLBT-rights component of the Dan Savage-created "It Gets Better" campaign.


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If a Twin makes three errors in an inning but nobody is there to see it...

SEE ALSO:
-- Tsuyoshi Nishioka brutal error: Twins megabust botches first play back in bigs [VIDEO]
-- A.J. Pierzynski calls Nick Blackburn a "piece of shit" [VIDEO]
-- Twins' Willingham hits deck, Doumit acts as if under fire after loud thunder boom [VIDEOS]

Twins defensive butcher outfielder and catcher Ryan Doumit made the wrong kind of history during last night's 10-5 loss to the Kansas City Royals at a deserted Target Field.

In the eighth inning, Doumit became the first outfielder since 1989 to commit not one, not two, but three errors in the same inning.


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Love him or hate him, Mauer will almost certainly remain a Twin for now.

SEE ALSO:
-- Joe Mauer has the second-worst contract in baseball, says Yahoo!
-- Rock bottom? Derek Lowe shuts out Twins, admits he basically threw one pitch all game
-- Twins payroll: Why in Gardy's name is it being slashed?

Last night, news broke that (gasp!) the Twins had placed hometown hero Joe Mauer on trade waivers.

Despite the fact that placing highly valued and expensive players on trade waivers in August is something almost every terrible team does, Twins fans quickly began hyperventilating. Some vowed to boycott Minnesota's most pathetic professional sports team if Mauer and the $142.5 million left on his deal were shipped out. The deep-pocketed Boston Red Sox -- days removed from huge a salary dump involving Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett -- were widely assumed to be the Twins' most likely trade partner.


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Believe it or not, word is this guy once had some success catching and hitting balls.

SEE ALSO: Tsuyoshi Nishioka brutal error: Twins megabust botches first play back in bigs [VIDEO]

At one time in the past, Tsuyoshi Nishioka was pretty good at professional baseball. Now, his results are comparable to what would happen in Twins manager Ron Gardenhire decided to give me a shot at second base.

Earlier this week, we showed you the footage of a brutal error Nishi committed Monday night during his very first play back in the big leagues. Below the jump, we'll show you footage of another botch so cringe-worthy that it actually prompted color homer analyst Bert Blyleven to do the unthinkable -- throw a Twins player under the bus.

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"Nishioka is the greatest scouting disaster since Little Bighorn," writes one Twins observer.

SEE ALSO:
-- Joe Mauer has the second-worst contract in baseball, says Yahoo!
-- Minnesota Twins have increased in value more than any other pro sports franchise since 2000

It didn't take Tsuyoshi Nishioka long to remind Twins fans why he spent the first four months of the 2012 season in the minor leagues. In fact, it took just one play.

On Monday, Cleveland Indians leadoff hitter Jason Kipnis hit a routine grounder to Nishioka, who was playing second base during his big league return. But Nishi, bringing back bad memories of a brutal error during his first ever MLB game last season, botched it, juggling the ball before falling to the ground and flinging it somewhere in the vicinity of first base.

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