Today is the last regular season baseball game at the Metrodome, and because the Twins beat Kansas City last night, and Detroit lost to Chicago, it’s a big one. The Twins and Tigers are tied for first going into the last game of the season, making today’s game a must win.

The Metrodome has a unique relationship to baseball. Built for football, the Twins were wedged into a field that doesn’t really fit. But it’s the Twins who have won two World Series there, and over the years the Dome has given them the biggest home field advantage in baseball. As you might imagine, Twins fans are pretty excited about today’s game. Here are some photos of the gathering outside the Dome this morning, as fans celebrated and got ready for the game to start.

Finally, something every Twins fan would like to see again.

President Obama introduced his nominee for the Supreme Court and as expected it’s Sonia Sotomayor.

Sotomayor has experience as a federal judge, prosecutor, and litigator. it will be interesting to see how her nomination goes, the conservatives, of course, have been gunning up for over a week already, so they should be ready.

The problem is, Sotomayar doesn’t seem to have many connections with the usual push-button issues like abortion, guns, or school prayer, so they’re on the lookout for something else.

They’ll call her an “activist judge” of course, but in this context activist judge is a synonym for “appointed by a Democrat”. It doesn’t matter who Obama picks, the right will label him or her an activist judge.

So that label really means nothing, leaving the opposition in search an issue to grab on to. One unlikely candidate emeged during and after the press conference, Sotomayor’s status as a baseball fan.

It all started when Obama praised Sotomayor for her ruling in the 1995 baseball strike, a decision that the president cited as having “saved baseball”.

The right couldn’t let that stand, Ted Frank in the National Review immediately pooh-poohed the suggestion, arguing that any judge would have rule the same way and so no praise was deserved on a personal level. Over at Huffington Post, Sam Stein countered with a post illustrating that commentators at the time did exactly that.

If all anyone has to complain about Sotomayor is that she got too much credit for a judicial decision that pretty much everyone agreed with, she should be easily confirmed as the next Supreme Court Justice.

Manny Ramirez has tested positive for a performance enhancing drug. He’s been suspended for fifty games.

Ramirez and his agent are trying to sell the excuse that this is the result of a prescription drug, but, even if true, that excuse won’t fly. There’s already a provision for that in the basic agreement between major league baseball and the players.

Ramirez, a baseball source told SI.com, explained to baseball officials he was uncertain that he was taking a banned substance and may have had a medical reason for using the substance. The source said the substance was not classified as a steroid but was clearly defined as a banned performance-enhancer according to the drug agreement between baseball and its players association. Banned substances can only be taken with prior knowledge and medical clearance from baseball’s drug program administrators. Such exceptions are known as Theraputic Use Exemptions, or TUEs. The suspension is an indication that Ramirez did not have a TUE for the substance.

It’s always been amazing how such a great game as baseball suffers continually from the stupidity of its owners and the arrogance of players like Manny Ramirez.

Tomorrow’s the opening day of the baseball season here, and the forecast is snow possible, we got about an inch last night, with highs in the thirties. far from perfect baseball weather, but it won’t matter because the Twins play their games in the roofed, dry, and warm interior of the Metrodome.

Next year, though, they’ll be playing in the new, outdoor stadium. That structure is right on schedule for completion, and you can really see it taking shape now. One of the best features of the park is going to be the public plaza that will link the stadium to downtown Minneapolis. it will even be possible to see the field from outside right field.

Next year, if we wake up to 32 degrees and an inch of snow covering all those seats on Opening Day, the chorus of “I told you so’s” is going to reverberate all the way to Iowa.

It’s the ugliest time of the year here in Minneapolis. Partially melted lumps of dirty snowbanks line the streets, the trees are bare and the grass brown. Throw in some low-hanging clouds and it’s a dingy grey-brown world out there.

Which brings up the thought that it would be better to be almost anywhere else this morning, particularly some place sunny and green, like, say, Spring training in Florida. That set up an internet search which once again exposed the appalling lack of available videos from this year’s Minnesota Twins Spring training camp. Come on people, those of you lucky enough to be down there could at least post a glimpse of what it’s like for the rest of us.

That brings us to the mystery. A search of youtube for “Twins Spring training 2009″ brings up a half-dozen or so videos, one of which is a look at the ball field the day before the Twins arrived to play on it. The others all feature footeage of bullpen catcher Nate Damann. Here’s an example:

So the mystery is, how did Nate Damann come to dominate video coverage of the Minnesota Twins Spring Training camp? Is it his incredible charisma, good-natured charm, awesome technique, what?

Or maybe someone out there just really likes bullpen catchers.

Winter gave us another whack here this weekend. First four inches of snow and then a cold front that took the wind chill into the minus teens and stopped any thought I might have had of taking pictures outside this morning.

I got the idea instead of hunting down some pictures from Spring training. Granted, they aren’t playing games yet, but it’s the second day of practice and you’d think somebody would have been there already and taken some snapshots. Any would be welcome from the vantage point of Minnesota at the end of a long winter.

But no. There was plenty of news about the Twins signing Joe Crede to play third, a move welcomed by all off us who watched him kill the Twins as a White Sox.

Hmm, just the thought of power at the corners and speed up the middle makes it easier to ignore that snow out there. Go Twins.

We’ve still got the Winter to live through here in Minnesota, but today at the IDS Court in downtown Minneapolis Twins baseball fans gathered to take in a little preview of the upcoming baseball season. The Twins will be playing their last season in the Metrodome before moving into the new outdoor ballpark in 2010, and as part of the celebration they’re going to be wearing uniforms from 1982, their first year in the dome, for Saturday night games in the 2009 season. Today’s event was a way to showcase the uniforms and remind fans that while this may be football, basketball, and hockey season, baseball is still the best game in town.

Kent Hrbek was there and talked a bit about the glories of Metrodome seasons past. (Two World Series Championships! The incredible crowd at the dome welcoming the Twins home after beating Detroit in the 1987 playoffs!)

Justin Morneau and Glen Perkins came out to model the 1982 uniforms.

Those uniforms bring back mixed memories for me. 1982 was a major rebuilding year for the Twins, the dome was new, and I saw 22 games there that year. The Twins won three. On the other hand, that was the nucleus of the team that would go on to win the World Series in 1987, and those are still the coolest baseball caps ever.

Finally, the show was over, and as the crowd was leaving some fans grabbed the opportunity to pose with TCF, the Twins mascot. Opening Day can’t get here soon enough.

They just finished introducing the players, so there’s just enough time to get a World Series prediction in before the game starts. Here it is: Tampa Bay rays over the Philadelphia Phillies in six games.

Keep in mind that I have a serious bias towards the American League, but I still think Tampa has deeper starting pitching and more hitting throughout the lineup. That should be the difference.

It’s wet and windy this morning in Minneapolis, and kicking back with a hot cup of tea and a stack of pancakes was a lot more alluring than venturing out into the weather. That decision led directly to doing something I don’t usually do on Sunday mornings, watching Sports Center on ESPN.

Now I’m aware that for most sports fans an autumn Sunday means only one thing, football, but I hoped that with the baseball playoffs in full swing there would be at least a little baseball talk. Wrong. After a quick rundown of the scores, it was all football all the time, making me wonder just how many ex-athletes one sports station can hire in order to make the same observations over and over again. Let’s face it, once you realize that the main determining factor of any football game is which team’s mutant behemoths can push the other team’s mutant behemoths around, there really isn’t a whole lot more to say.

That, of course, doesn’t stop the ESPN guys from talking, but it does mean that after a couple of observations, they don’t really have anything new to say. So let’s go where the ESPN guys don’t want to go and talk a little baseball.

We’re an American League city here, so let’s start there. The big surprise so far is not that the Red Sox are beating the Angels, it’s what an easy time they’re having of it. In mid-season the Angels were easily the best team in the American League, and an East Coast road trip where they stomped all over both the Red Sox and the Yankees drove that point home.

But the playoffs are a different game, and in the playoffs the Angels have been a different team. When your big hitters don’t get any big hits, and your starting pitchers give up nothing but big hits, it’s a recipe for disaster, and so far the Red Sox have taken advantage of every opportunity, while the Angels have been missing in action. This one will be over soon.

More enjoyable, from the viewpoint of a Twins fan, is the Tampa Bay Rays pummeling of the Chicago White Sox. The rays have a couple of ex-Twins on the roster, while the White Sox are full of players that Twins fans have come to loathe over the years. Watching the young upstarts in their first playoff take it to a bunch of old, slow, and grumpy veterans is nothing but a delight.

Meanwhile, in the Other League, the Phillies and the Brewers are are playing what could turn out to be the most interesting series of the first round. The Phillies are up 2 - 1, but if the Brewers can win the next game they’ll be able to pitch CC Sabathia again, and the Phillies certainly don’t want that.

Then there’s the Cubs and Dodgers, the one series that’s already over, 3 - 0 in favor of LA. Chicago fans were thinking that this was finally going to be their year, but just like the Angels their pitching and clutch hitting deserted them, and they decide to throw in some horrendous defense to boot, proving once again that that is not a winning combination.

Now, looking forward to possible World Series match-ups, it’s becoming clear that the guys at ESPN are getting closer and closer to their worst nightmare, a series between the Rays and either the Phillies or Brewers would leave them scrambling for commentary, because judging by the regular season the only teams they are capable of talking about are the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, and Cubs. The possibility of a Cubs, Red Sox match-up, which would have caused paroxysms of joy to television programmers everywhere, is already off the books.

So here’s a prediction. If it does come down to the rays and either the brewers or Phillies, look to ESPN to compensate by running a series based on a fantasy match-up between the Cubs and Red Sox. After all, it would be a shame to deprive grown men of their fantasies just because reality is getting in the way.

Via Suzanne and Late Late Nite at Firedoglake, here’s a clip of a day that two teams of Little League ballplayers, their coaches, and parents will never forget.

Play ball!