Courtesy of Twinkie Town.
Whoever posted the video is calling it “cheating.” Does anyone know if this is actually illegal, poor form on Joe Mauer’s part, or just a clever way for Mauer to help the Twins out? I know A-Rod was accused of tipping pitches to opponents as some sort of supposed you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours ruse to get pitches tipped back to him — and abetting the other team definitely seems to be against the spirit of the game, so I can understand why that was called “cheating.”
But in Mauer’s case, he’s helping his own team out by stealing signs — how is this “cheating?” Stealing signs, as immoral as some might think it is, has been a part of baseball for years. And since he’s clearly doing it with his naked eye, it’s not against any official rules.
In other news, the magic number is now 2 for the Tigers… if the Twins lose tonight, that’s it for them. On the plus side, that will mean that yes, I will be at the last regular season Metrodome game.
Update: The original poster of the video has changed the title from “Joe Mauer Tipping Pitches (Cheating)” to “Joe Mauer Stealing Signs (Not Cheating)” and left the following comment explaining the change:

Sorry, I titled it Sign Stealing instead of Tipping (I did know the difference) and I agree it’s NOT cheating, but it is a little against the ‘code’ especially for a catcher to do it. If a batter looks back at a catchers sign, he’ll take some chin music. If the Tigers wanted to, they would be within their rights of the ‘code’ to throw a player and/or take out a middle infielder, cleats up sometime in the future.

Ha — I am vindicated!

Sarah’s comment about the fact that I haven’t posted in awhile spurred me to sneak this in nearly two weeks after the fact. On September 17, Chris Morse finally managed to invite me to a game that did not occur on the same day as a downpour. (In his defense, he sold me tickets to two other games which had nice weather and took me to Paul McCartney, for which he will forever be my hero.)
In the bottom of the 7th, Varitek came up to bat with the game tied at three at it looked like this:

Varitek did nothing memorable in this at bat (scorebook is at home). However, earlier in the game, he did allow a third strike to go between his legs and thus, instead of the third out to end the inning, the Angels scored Kendrick from third on the passed ball. (Fun fact for the internet, Yahoo! Sports forgets to log this run.) This run turned out to be key as the Angels only won by one. Thus, thanks to this play, and because it’s the only photo I took that was any good, Varitek gets to be the highlighted player of the game… the game which happened two weeks ago and no one cares about any more.

Today my father is a year older than he was yesterday. Which is to say… older.
Back in 1981 when the Twins played their final game in old Met Stadium (now known as “The Mall of America”), my dad was there while I waited patiently in my mother’s uterus at home. Somewhere in the off-season before the Twins opened their first game in the Metrodome, I was born. (He was also at the Vikings final game at Met Stadium in December of ’81 — wait, apparently I was alive for that. And I wasn’t taken along because… ?)
Throughout the years I have attended countless games at the Metrodome, most of them with my dad. In 1987, he dragged us out for the impromptu homecoming after the Twins won the ALCS. We went and saw Paul Molitor’s 2,997th and 2,998th hits in 1996 (and saw him go 0-something the next day — hit 3,000 had to wait until a road trip to Kansas City). We were there for Kirby Puckett Appreciation Day shortly after he announced his retirement and he took me back a few years later for photo day. We saw Johan Santana break the Twins’ strikeout record two years ago. We have numerous free Dairy Queen sponsored Twins hats in our front closet, mini “autographed” baseball bats in the basement, and couple of Homer Hankies floating around — all from free Dome giveaways. Not to mention that pretty much our entire casual drinkware collection has been furnished by the Metrodome’s concession stands. (As an aside, the quality of those cups has gone way down since the early 90s.)
This season will be the Twins last in the “Homer Dome.” Even though it’s the worst MLB stadium I’ve been to, it’s the only home field I’ve known the Twins to have. So, in order to put him in what is sure to be a very small segment of people who were at the Twins last games in both of their stadiums, for his birthday I bought my dad two tickets to the final game against Kansas City this October. Because my mother will likely be out of town for her brother’s birthday that weekend, I did the only logical thing and bought myself a plane ticket home in order to join him at the park.
Happy Birthday, Dad! I love you!

I was having a hard time finding an official site with updated stats on tonight’s Homerun Derby. Finally it occurred to me that wikipedia and its OCD editors would probably be up to date with real time. Then I checked it out…

… it keeps up with real time, but I’m not sure I’d call it correct. (Oddly enough, the 2010 stats are correct for the 2009 derby up through the middle of Pujols first round turn.)
*sigh* Mauer couldn’t hit one in the swing off. No Twins champion this year.