Category: Sports

The Minnesota Twins released new jerseys this past week, introducing a different aesthetic to their main uniforms, and an alternative version featuring inspiration from the Twin Cities, the namesake of the team. Here are a few thoughts.

I’ve been playing disc golf for nearly a year and a half.¹I actually watched it on YouTube for over a year before ever playing, so I learned a lot about the sport first. It’s an incredibly fun activity that I play mostly by myself in California, and love meeting up with friends to play while back in Minnesota. It’s relatively cheap to get into, lets me explore fun bits of nature, I get to directly compete against myself, and have a clear way of seeing whether I’m improving.

My set of discs has mostly stabilized (with the exception of losing a disc here or there), so I thought it would be good to talk through each disc and why I like to use them.

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  I actually watched it on YouTube for over a year before ever playing, so I learned a lot about the sport first.

My dad kept score for my baseball teams as a kid, and taught me how to do the same. I would keep score on and off during college when I went to Twins games, and just recently got back into the habit. My goal is — excepting games where it’d be a social faux pas to be nose-deep in a scorebook — to keep score when I attend games in person.

I first learned how to play squash during my freshman year of college. I was hooked pretty quickly. That year, my roommate and I both bought rackets so we wouldn’t have to keep renting from the university. I continued to play throughout college, just recreationally with friends, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

When I finished college and moved to San Diego, there was a squash-shaped hole in my life. I suddenly didn’t have any sports to play.¹I had looked up a squash club in the city that only had 2 or 4 courts, for $120(!) a month. Ridiculous. I instead began walking about, going for hikes, keeping myself entertained through other means. Eventually, I found a group of guys to play flag football with on Saturdays; that was a great change.

Now that I’m in San Francisco, squash has come back to me. The benefit of being associated with a university (through Erin) is access to recreational facilities with squash courts. I brought my racket back from Minnesota, and have slowly accumulated people around me who are also interested in playing on a semi-regular basis.

I find it helpful to have a broad range of activities to participate in; that way, as circumstances change both in the short- and long-term, I have options to keep moving and stay entertained. I’m thrilled that squash has come back to be on that list.

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  I had looked up a squash club in the city that only had 2 or 4 courts, for $120(!) a month. Ridiculous.

This past weekend, I went to the DGPT Preserve Championship at the Airborn Preserve. We had gorgeous weather, and the course was incredibly well-designed to handle eager spectators. There’s a great central gathering spot with food and drinks, from which you could watch holes 7, 8, and 9 before proceeding to see the rest of a card.

It was my first time fully watching a tournament.¹A little over a year ago, I went to one day of the Santa Cruz Master’s Cup, but due to COVID it wasn’t an amazing experience. I had an absolute blast, and will be doing what I can to attend events in the future. Roaming around, watching the best of the best, taking it in with others just as excited as me, all contributed to a fantastic weekend.

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  A little over a year ago, I went to one day of the Santa Cruz Master’s Cup, but due to COVID it wasn’t an amazing experience.

He is officially my favorite Twins player these days. He plays the kind of game that connects with me, the kind I wanted to emulate growing up. A true utility player with a great intuition at the plate, he plays smart, and quietly does his job correctly.

I joined a city softball league with some people in Erin’s program (along with some free agent strangers) this past month. It’s been fun getting out and competing again, playing a version of the game that I love. However, it’s caused a problem. After years of not playing baseball (or softball) at all, I fooled myself into thinking I’d “replaced” it with other athletic activities. I assumed the personal challenge of disc golf, for example, would fill the gap left when I stopped playing baseball after high school.

I was incredibly wrong.