Happy fishing opener! Yes, today is a great day, when tens of thousands of Minnesotans arise at ridiculous times, drive to the lake access before the sun comes up, and then — and only then — discover that the crank on the boat trailer isn’t working and that there’s a hole at about mid-shin in those waders.

But half-destroyed trailers and soggy shoes be darned: it’s practically the official beginning of summer today. Sure, the weather forecast calls for mid-fifties and a day’s worth of rain, but you can’t tell me that most of the fishermen out there aren’t just glad to get the boat out again, for the elusive walleye waits to be chased. Especially out on Big Stone Lake, adjacent to picturesque Ortonville. You can’t hardly dip a toe in the water without catching a couple of walleye there.

Not that you’d want to take your shoe off today. Unless maybe to dry out that sopping-wet sock. Anyway, on with the links:

*We start with a super-long piece from the New York Times Magazine about knee injuries in girls’ prep sports. (Via The Big Lead. I had two competing reactions while reading this story: 1) Geez, these girls are tough. 2) Geez, that’s a lot of exploding knees. The key statistic: some researchers believe girls are *five times* more likely than boys to rupture their ACLs.

*Speaking of injuries: If you watched the Twins game last night, you might have heard Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven talking about Pat Neshek’s elbow injury, which they reported as just a muscle tear. This gave me hope for Neshek — and then I checked this august newspaper’s website, where La Velle E. Neal III reports that Neshek tore his UCL and is likely lost for the season. That’s the “Tommy John surgery” ligament, in case you’re wondering. Neshek isn’t planning to have surgery, but it’s hard not to fear the worst.

*On the heels of Cedric Benson’s Boat of Doom, a list of the 10 most embarrassing arrest in sports history. The real upset: two Minnesota incidents are mentioned, and neither one involves the Minneapolis airport or Onterrio “Original Whizzinator” Smith.

*With Leather has an updated Baseball in America map, and while it’s changed slightly, it’s still one of the coolest maps I’ve seen. Think of it as a map of Twins Territory, but expanded with all 30 teams throughout North America.

*And finally: Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine media critic Brian Lambert has his take on Patrick Reusse’s sports-section talker from this week. If nothing else, read the last paragraph, which seems to me to be right on.

Injuries, arrests, newspapers: kind of a dismal batch of links today. To make up for it: here’s a video of a surfing/ snowboarding/ skateboarding bulldog, set to Van Halen’s “Panama.” If that doesn’t put you in a good mood, nothing will.

Except for a couple of good-sized walleyes. That would work too.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 8:18 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.