Stu’s work last week with Scott Erickson led to national implications that might still be giving (more on that later, we hope). We can only hope for similar results from his deep look into Steve Lombardozzi. Stu?

Name: Steve Lombardozzi

Nickname: Lombo. No relation to former Twin great Jesus “Bombo” Rivera.

Claim to Fame, Minnesota: was the second baseman for the 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins and posted a World Series-best .412 batting average. Much more importantly, got into a scuffle with Dan Gladden on Gladden’s Eden Prairie front lawn in 1988. The backstory is here, and a dramatic re-enactment is here. This led to Eden Prairie’s city council doing away with small-claims court within the city limits and having the plaintiff and defendant settle it in Dazzle’s yard the first Tuesday of every month.*

Claim to Fame, Everywhere Else: had the longest last name of any Major Leaguer to hit a postseason home run until Dougie Baseball went yard in the 2002 playoffs.

Where He Is Now: per the Newspaper of the Twin Cities, Lombardozzi owns an advertising business in Fulton, Maryland. Wiki says his son is going to be a ballplayer, too.

Glorious Randomness: his hometown of Malden, Mass., is also the birthplace of the regrettable Gary Cherone [Proprietor note: our Extreme tape collection begs to differ] and the regrettable-but-not-in-a-funny-way Mr. Death.

*Not true. I’m pretty sure this happens in Anoka, though.

We are still a couple days from March, but already the madness is descending. Last night, you had the debut of Chris Simon (in a Wild victory), a Wolves loss to Toronto (a very bad matchup for an overmatched squad), a name-the-score loss for the Gophers men’s hoops team at Purdue (65-53, which should have been about three points within anybody’s best guess on both sides), OT high school hockey thrillers at Mariucci (Edina and Benilde-St. Margaret’s moved on to state with overtime goals, while defending Class 2A champion Roseau downed Moorhead 6-1 to make it back), not to mention plenty of non-Minnesota action. What’s a guy to do? It seems obvious. We have to empty out our e-mail linkage before things get any crazier.

*Sooze invites you to check out the Babes Love Baseball preview of the Minnesota Twins, in haiku form. She also confirmed there will be a Lizzy sighting around here in about a month; details will be provided.

*Our guy Linnemann went MacGyver on everyone.

*Sassbottom sent this along with the subject line, “For you.” Just for the record, we never studied abroad.

*Tom Brady’s ex, Bridget Moynihan, talks a little bit about pregnancy.

*And, of course, the Fasola-link! From the ‘matt: Tom Lehrer! He’s the guy who wrote all of the songs for “The Electric Company”, but he first made his mark as a social satirist in the early 1960s. He did a song every week for “That Was The Week That Was”, a precursor to “The Daily Show”. Before that, he was a tenured professor of mathematics at some school in Cambridge, MA.

Coming up: Stu’s Hunt Down and, hopefully one of the greatest RandBall Q&A’s of all time. Fingers crossed. We had a very interesting phone message last night.

Classic find by Fasolamatt, both for the “Moog synthesizer” and, more importantly, the classy slogan: the beer to have when you’re having more than one. Please do enjoy as we wind down this day. (Note: Another older-school commercial of the same ilk can be found right here, also from the ‘matt).

Friend of RandBall — T-Wolves blogger Sonia – e-mails to let us know about some interesting words coming from Mark Madsen. Seems the fabulous dancer also has some opinions about standard steroid testing and related topics over at his Mad Dog Blog. He takes dead aim at Congress — and high school football, for good measure — far more effectively than he does the rim on free throws:

I am astounded that with all of the problems facing America today, we are continuing to discuss this issue. Shouldn’t the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection have other more pressing issues to attend to? People make mistakes. I think every human being can relate to this as no one is perfect. But, if lawmakers think any professional athlete would be so stupid so as to begin a HGH or steroid program right now, they are grossly misguided. Professional athletes do watch CNN, CSpan, FoxNews, etc. We do see the serious legal situations that many professional athletes of various sports are dealing with due to alleged drug use. Why would any pro-athlete take that risk today? Even in the NBA where steroids is pretty much a non-issue, I can guarantee that pretty much every player would run out of a room if HGH ever came up as an offer. The NBA has implemted a beefed up drug testing program as a league for the future as of two years ago.

Why isn’t Congress looking at high school football. Let’s keep it real here people. If we all want to know where a big problem in America is with regards to athletics and steroid use it’s probably high school football. it does not take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

It loses a little focus from there. But yeah, Mad Dog has some opinions.

Will you miss him? Bet the ‘Crypt-keeper’ won’t. Watch Clayton’s reaction around the 1:30 mark. Not. Happy.