It's not easy being a Minnesota sports fan! The Wild? Eh. The Timberwolves? Embarrassing. Don't even get me started on the Vikings! Grrrr. But I'm cautiously optimistic about the Twins. Should I be? We’ve got a couple of things to be optimistic about.

Twins’ first baseman Justin Morneau arrived at spring training in Fort Myers, Florida this week.  He expects to be ready for the regular season opener April 1 at Toronto.  Morneau suffered a concussion in Toronto while sliding into 2nd base in July and hasn’t played in a game since.

Japanese shortstop Tsuyoshi Nishioka will take the field for the first time this week alongside his new Minnesota Twins teammates. The Twins, who never have had a Japanese-born player, are hoping Nishioka can strengthen the middle of their infield.

Do we have it put together this season? We’ve been close the last couple of seasons but we’re not playing horse-shoes or hand grenades, so close doesn’t count!

I’m looking forward to the first spring training game for the Twins. They will play the Red Sox Sunday night.

New Twins commercials should make the airwaves soon too. They’re as entertaining as a baseball game and way shorter and funnier. I was looking at old Twins video and ran across this one from 2008 - funny stuff.

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