#alex rubenstein

[fallout-lou-begas]

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alex rubenstein: but everything fell apart when pitcher Brett Brettson's fastball got smashed by Jeff Jeffson's bat -- an especially unlucky hit, given that it's to this day the only game 5 infield home run by a 6'2" shortstop with a WAR over 15 and a birthday in April on the away team in the postseason in partly cloudy weather since "Slick" Biffy Jones's line drive in 1919

music: (somber saxophone)

jon bois: you ever wake up in the morning for school, make yourself some oatmeal? well for Brett Brettson in the early 90s, it was starting to look like a whole lot of oats and not a lot of meal. things needed to change. and fast.

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

Have you seen The History of the Seattle Mariners (2020)?

Yes

Partially

No, but I've heard of it

Never heard of it

Voting ended onMay 22, 2024

[setaflow]

Dorktown Gang how we feeling?

[oarfishfever]

"These oars never stop cutting into the sea. They haven't for more than half a century. There is no rest here. In these 57 years, how many moments of pure catharsis have the Minnesota Vikings experienced? Not just a win, not just a big win, but a full exhalation, a casting-out of the demons. I count two. The Miracle at the Met in 1980, and the 1998 Thanksgiving game against the Cowboys, in which Randall and Randy buried the Cowboy's Super Bowl age by throwing 'em a shovel and making 'em dig. Those were both regular-season games. The postseason is where they suffer, and that suffering never seems to take the same form twice. They get sucker-punched by up-and-comers they're supposed to bulldoze. They lose on freak occurrences, and bad calls, and injuries that won't heal. They lose when they're preordained to win. When their opponent appears doomed, they simply defeat themselves. They faceplant into blowouts of unthinkable margins. Very rarely does it ever seem at the outset like they're fated to lose. They just do. If you're a Vikings fan, this team may never make it up to you. They might not ever balance the books. They may, until the end of time, take more than they can ever give you.

But if you wait long enough...they will give you something."

The History of the Minnesota Vikings: You gotta live with the bounce

[oarfishfever]

"If the Minnesota Vikings are gonna get over this hump, they're going to need their quarterback to play the best football of his life. Years and years ago, Norm van Brocklin once told him, "Tarkenton, you aren't strong enough to throw a pass like that, but you sure are dumb enough." Van Brocklin, once the greatest quarterback in NFL history, didn't know he was talking to a man who would one day claim that title. He was better than him. Better than everyone."

The History of the Minnesota Vikings: The Last Chance

[oarfishfever]

"You know, one thing we've really come to appreciate about these Minnesota Vikings is that they have not only an incredible flourish for storytelling, but a refined sense of pace and timing. Each decade is a neatly contained chapter: first they're stuck in some kind of morass, then a transformational figure arrives from out of nowhere, and then, they storm the gates every time. In the aughts, it's safe to say they check the morass part of their list in thrilling fashion with enough debacles to last a lifetime, be they on the field, off the field, in the draft room, in a car, on a car, on a boat, wherever. Adrian Peterson sort of works as a surprise transformational figure, although he's missing the surprise part, because we all knew he was incredible the day he was drafted. And it's just so hard to see this 2009 quarterback competition between Tavaris Jackson and the incoming Sage Rosenfels, who's spent his entire eight year career as a back-up, and feel like these guys are gonna storm anybody's gates before the decade's over. But these are the Minnesota Vikings. The greatest storytellers in football. I know it's late, but...wanna hear a story?"

The History of the Minnesota Vikings: Aw, dang it

[oarfishfever]

"I think Americans tend to see something intensely familiar in the athletes we love: we see people who struggle, and sometimes even succeed, to transcend the rot of their institutions. We've seen this most dramatically in figures like Jesse Owens and Simone Biles. We also see it in the unpaid college athlete who knocks down the game-winning three, and the kick returner who knows his contract is not guaranteed as he fearlessly sprints right into the teeth of the special teams unit. We identify with this. We, like they, quite often belong to institutions we are far better than. These could be our employers, our governments, our religious denominations, our anything, and we don't quite possess the agency or capital or collective action to tip 'em over. Once in a while, we will see a hero like Joe Kapp who ignores the odds and throws his shoulder into it anyway, or an Alan Page, who's willing to learn the tedious and academic language of capital to force concessions. Most of the time, though, neither they nor us make that kind of racket. Whether out of obstinance or because it's simply the thing that we know how to do, we get back to work making the sort of magic that our institutions do not deserve, but that we do. We're about to see two heroes who will offer us something the Minnesota Vikings always used to offer us: the power of myth. A rune that tells us of conquests and heroics that, decades later, still astonish those of us who uncover it. A legend to believe in."

The History of the Minnesota Vikings: The two heroes

[oarfishfever]

"So, the Minnesota Vikings. Who are these people? We have a very long answer for you, and that answer might be a little bit different from the one you'd get from Vikings fans, which neither Alex nor myself are. That's why, for instance, you'll hear more about Brock Lesnar than you will about Bill Brown. We'll talk more about Prince than we will Ron Yary. A completionist history would take about 50 hours. We're gonna see how many we can fit into about seven."

The History of the Minnesota Vikings: 56 pounds of beer