Remembering deals past, and other weekend observations

Three thoughts from the weekend in sports:

1 If you're the kind of person who watches the Twins and thinks, "I wonder what happened to [Player X]," then you should have been watching their recent four-game series with the Angels. Their roster has five former Twins on it — and plenty of reminders of past trades.

A quick rundown:

Alex Meyer: Remember him? He was the prize of the Denard Span trade with Washington after the 2012 season, but he never quite panned out with the Twins. Meyer was traded to the Angels last season along with Ricky Nolasco for Hector Santiago. Los Angeles put him in its starting rotation this season with mixed results, but he was good against the Twins on Thursday — allowing one run in six innings.

Ricky Nolasco: He went 15-22 with a 5.44 ERA in parts of three seasons with the Twins after signing a significant free-agent contract in 2014. The Angels have lost in his past seven starts, including Sunday, when he took the loss against the Twins.

Ben Revere: He was part of the other 2012 offseason trade involving a center fielder (a pair of deals that sent the Twins on a years-long search for a permanent replacement). The Twins traded him to the Phillies for Trevor May, who has had some success here but is out for the season after Tommy John surgery. Revere is a reserve outfielder for the Angels.

Shane Robinson: Another reserve outfielder getting some playing time with the Angels in part because of Mike Trout's recent injury. Robinson was with the Twins in 2015 and has sustained an MLB career spanning eight seasons.

2 Tom Verducci at SI.com had an interesting look back at his Sports Illustrated cover story 15 years ago that played a major role in changing baseball's steroid culture.

The original story, "Totally Juiced," was built around something I'd forgotten: Verducci's ability to get former National League MVP Ken Caminiti to admit that he used steroids — along with Caminiti's ballpark estimation that 50 percent of his fellow players were also juicing.

Verducci's piece was instrumental in Major League Baseball's implementation of random drug testing and penalties for using performance-enhancing drugs.

3 At this stage of their dominance, I'm not sure the Lynx are into "statement" games this early in the regular season, but perhaps their 100-77 rout of Seattle on Saturday still qualifies as such.