Who to get on a 2000 Twins jersey?

[spyboy1]

I'm going to do a 2000 Twins blue alt jersey.

It's going to be a beauty when it's done, as it will have the 40th Anniversary patch on one sleeve and the Calvin Griffith memorial patch above the "TC" logo on the other sleeve. I love the TC logo and two patches are a really nice look with the dark blue jersey.

Here's some possiblities;

#48 Torii Hunter

#27 David Ortiz

#26 A.J. Pierzynski

#22 Brad Radke

#57 Johan Santana - rookie

#10 Tom Kelly - manager

Since the team finished in last, no one really had a stand out season performance-wise.

Some were young and went onto have nice careers with the Twins.

Would it be weird to get a managers name and number?

Got any thoughts and opinions on this one?

[Krona]

Tom Kelley is the only one on that list that is a Twin through and through, but Ortiz would be a great conversation piece.

[Chazberg]

I'd do Ortiz or Pierzynski, just cuz I used to hate him when he was on the Twins, but I love him now. Perhaps you could go Mientkiewicz, even though he only played a few games that year.

[Chazberg]

BTW I meant I love Pierzynski now, not Ortiz. I still don't like him...

[Armadillo]

Far from a comprehensive list of 2000 Twins awesomeosity, my friend. How could you leave off these guys:

#18 Eddie Guardado

#32 LaTroy Hawkins

#8 Ron Coomer

#12 Todd Walker

#7 Denny Hocking

#50 Matt Lawton

Personally, I'd go with:

#30 Brian Buchanan. Pure God.

(I worked for the Twins in 2000. Ah, the good ol' days.)

[gosioux76]

I'd put Tom Kelly on there. It's just non-conventional enough to make the fact that they sucked seem irrelevant.

[chakfu]

Radke seems like a good representative of that era, the other guys seem more related to their recent teams?

[BroadwayBlueshirt]

Rad Brad Radke

[Nate15]

Gotta go Ortiz or Santana.

[Joshawaggie]

Radke - Our only "All-Star" during that time (excpet Coomer, hahaha)

Hunter - the beginning of his days with the Twins

Sanatana - Was really a non factor then.

Pierzynski- please no

Ortiz - This would be interesting, it's too bad the Twins did't let him hot how he does now, what could have been

TK - nah, i wouldn't do that, it wasn't even a time of his better managing.

I would probably go for Ortiz.

The 2000 Twins were so bad, yet I watched every game, and I always had a feeling some of these young guys would turn out good. It was fun to watch them grow.

[BallWonk]

There are only two possible correct answers here. I'd have said three, until I read what the Mitchell Report has to say about Tom Kelly sweeping evidence of an opposing team's steroid use under the rug. (WTF? You're gonna play them again. It's only good for your team if any of their players wind up getting suspended, or even just distracted, on account of the 'roids use. Problems on your own, team, maybe that you cover up, but the opposing team? Proof that Kelly's killer instinct had departed by the late 1990s. Otherwise I'd list the Kelly jersey as choice number 1.)

Anyway, the two correct answers to "What do I put on my 2000 Twins jersey" are:

1. #8 Ron Coomer

or

2. Whatever number means something to you, with no name.

This is exactly the circumstance that the whole number-but-no-name approach is made for. If you must put a name on your shirt*, it's gotta be Coomer. Why? Well, his whole career was to baseball what Batman is to superheroes: Proof that any average schlub, with no particular talent or special abilities, could play in the big leagues if only he worked at it hard enough and stuck with it diligently enough. Sort of a Craig Counsell thing. And I'm not running Coomer down. I've met the man, and I honestly admire him a great deal. As far as native talent goes, he had nothing more than any other average fan in the stands. But he worked at the game, he stuck with it, and he was willing to say "yes" to any request from any coach or manager or more skilled player, and as a result he put together a career anyone could be proud of. Is there any other player on the 2000 Twins team that a person could be proud of, that you could honestly say you admire? Not by a long shot. So it's Coomer or it's nobody.

*And for the love of pete, why? Why pretend to be some guy from an asscrap terrible team? Even the best players weren't actually much good; not even Radke that year. The best actual playing performance on the team came from Guzman, mister six-three groundout himself, who tied an 80-year-old franchise record for triples, a performance so good that the entire rest of his career has amounted to GMs throwing money at him in hopes that he'll repeat it just once before he retires. But otherwise, the 2000 Twins, much to my own heartbreak at the time, were not a team with a few good players that just underperformed. It was a bad team made up of bad players, or adequate players not having a particularly good year, and I for one could not regard someone who would choose to represent a 2000 Twins player on his jersey as either much of a baseball fan or a Twins fan. But that's just me, and I'm a bit of a curmudgeon about the whole name-on-your-jersey thing. I've never put another man's name on my jersey and I never will, and I know that makes me eccentric.

[Lee.]

47 Koskie.

Show your neighbors to the north some love, and celebrate the fact that Koskie has stunk since he left the Humperdome.

[lich0037]

I'd go with Radke. He was with the Twins through his whole career. And a reliable pitcher for them for a lot of years.

[cmm]

Butch Huskey, especially if 2000 was the year he ran into the wall face first. I'm not sure if it was or if he was on the Twins at the time, though.

[Joshawaggie]

Butch Huskey, especially if 2000 was the year he ran into the wall face first. I'm not sure if it was or if he was on the Twins at the time, though.

Oh, why did you hafta remind me of the "Butch Huskey Experiment"??

[Armadillo]

Butch Huskey, especially if 2000 was the year he ran into the wall face first. I'm not sure if it was or if he was on the Twins at the time, though.

Ran into the wall in 1999, I believe. He was with the Mariners, and Griffey could not stop laughing. He kept looking at my fellow usher in the LF corner and busted up every single time.

[DhruvK]

Out of that era, Radke seems to be the only name that sticks, really.

[tajmccall]

I'd keep it clean.

[BallWonk]

I'd keep it clean.

I've got a 2001 Twins home jersey, with the beautiful AL centennial patch, that I've kept clean for just the reasons cited in this thread. But I keep going back and forth about whether to put a number (no name, natch) on it. Not a number from the 2001 team, but possibly a 34 for Puckett (I bought the jersey to wear to Cooperstown) or 14 for Hrbeck (who I actually liked better as a player back in the day; I have a thing for good-defense infielders). If I ever did this, I would also completely ruin the jersey by throwing a ton of patches onto it, from a Kirby induction patch to 1987 and 1991 World Series patches to the Kirby and Herb memorial patches. And it's the prospect of doing something so garish to my poor, unsuspecting Twins jersey that has kept me from putting a number on it.

Anyway, if a person were to put a number, but no name on a 2000 Twins jersey, what number would be best? A player's number, one's own lucky number, or some reference to Twins history (say, 43 for the game results of the '87 and '91 Series, or even 10 for the final score of Game Seven in '91)?

[Joshawaggie]

Get the #69, the number of wins that year.