Weekend Links with Jon Marthaler: College football and upgrading the Twins at catcher

Good times.

September 10, 2011 at 3:00PM
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Each week Jon Marthaler bakes up a delicious batch of links for you. Other times, you can find him here. Jon?

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Happy Saturday! Let's get straight into a few links for your reading pleasure, before you head down to TCF Bank Stadium for a 2:30 kickoff, otherwise known as the kickoff time that God intended when He invented college football:

*We start this week with a five-year-old story that you may have seen before. In 2006, David Foster Wallace wrote a profile of Roger Federer at Wimbledon for Play Magazine. It was, perhaps understandably, immediately one of the more famous pieces of sportswriting of modern times. I have to confess that I didn't read it at the time, because what do I care about tennis? But Friday it was republished at Grantland and I read it and friends, it contains the single best paragraph I've ever read. I won't say which one because I want you to read the whole thing.

*The Rugby World Cup is underway in New Zealand, which you probably haven't noticed because a total of three games are on TV. (Unless you get Universal Sports, which as far as I can tell, no one does.) Anyway, Deadspin has a couple of correspondents there, and their dispatches seem to be focused on what appears to a rugby novice like me to be the two co-most-important things about rugby: playing rugby, and drinking while talking about rugby.

*I'm never too sure what's going on in Spencer Hall's college football season-opening post. I don't ask too many questions. I think Spencer may be a genius.

*As hard as we've wished, the Twins season isn't over yet. Nick Nelson is trying to look on the bright side, such as it is. And John Bonnes thinks he knows a place he can upgrade the team, fast - at catcher. (Note that this is much less anti-Mauer than you think.)

That'll do it for me. Enjoy the sun and the weekend - they'll both be gone before you know it.

about the writer

about the writer

Michael Rand

Columnist / Reporter

Michael Rand is the Minnesota Star Tribune's Digital Sports Senior Writer and host/creator of the Daily Delivery podcast. In 25 years covering Minnesota sports at the Minnesota Star Tribune, he has seen just about everything (except, of course, a Vikings Super Bowl).

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