Gardy clearly seems to be suffering from some kind of sunstroke down there, as evidenced by these quotes from LaVelle Three's Baseball Notebooks in the Strib:
Rain affected the Twins workout plans for a second consecutive day, but pitchers were able to throw in the bullpen after the rain stopped. Wet fields forced the club to skip fielding drills and live batting practice.But it allowed Twins manager Ron Gardenhire to get on a roll when talking about how he and workout coordinator Rick Stelmaszek handled Plan B.
"All we need actually is a retractable roof right now over our bullpen," he said. "If we had that, we'd be set up perfect out there. A retractable roof over the bullpen and maybe we could talk about an all-grass infield, not turf, grass infield. If we had that, we might be able to take ground balls. That's something we're thinking about."
A reporter suggested a tarp.
"That's what we're talking about," he continued. "I said that today -- put a blue tent over that thing and make it retractable and just roll it over. I don't spend the money. I know I could. I tell ya, there are things I could invent, and I'd be a millionaire. But I just like baseball. I don't want to be a millionaire. I just want to play baseball and go broke. Wait till I'm finished. You'll see me driving down the road with the first car that can actually fly -- no wheels. Glass wheels. It never needs tread. Cuts the road to pieces."
Over the years, the coaches have had to whistle at Luis Rivas to get his attention so they could signal defensive adjustments to him. The hope is that Rivas will be more attentive this season and move on his own.When asked if he hopes he doesn't have to whistle for Rivas' attention this season, manager Ron Gardenhire revealed an interesting tidbit.
"I just hope that little guy who sits on his shoulder listens more than he did," Gardenhire said. "That was Nanu. We saw Luis talking to him all the time on the field. All the time. That's a true story. We'd look at Luis, and he'd be talking. And we just knew that Nanu was sitting there. Wasn't it Nanu?"
No. Gardenhire meant to say The Great Gazoo from the old "Flintstones" cartoon, the green alien who would appear at times to talk to Fred and Barney.
Meanwhile, in an article on mlb.com about the fortunes of Michael Ryan, Gardy proved that he likes to make his funk the P. Funk:
When a reporter asked him what Ryan's role would be this season, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was listening to the classic George Clinton song, "Atomic Dog," play from his laptop computer."He needs to let the dog out in this camp," Gardenhire said. "If he's going to make this team, we need to see some dog in you.