A couple interesting tidbits to pass along.

• This — a lengthy feature titled “The House That Christian Ponder Built” — is a great read on Grantland.com, looking at the Vikings stadium saga.

• And this is simply priceless. The photo, courtesy of the Twins’ Facebook page, shows managerial legends Tom Kelly, Jim Leyland and Tony La Russa, as well as Gene Lamont (I believe). They are, naturally, discussing golf (as evidenced by TK’s posture) prior to the Twins-Tigers game Friday night at Target Field.

Trivia question: How many World Series rings have Kelly, Leyland and La Russa combined to win as managers?

A quick thought on Joe Mauer:

Last Friday, when the Twins crushed the Brewers 11-3 for their third win in a row, Mauer went 3 for 5 with a double and three RBIs. Sunday, when the roles reversed and the Brewers steamrolled the Twins 16-4, Mauer rapped four hits, including a double. Mauer — the team’s leading hitter at .293 heading into this week’s series against the White Sox — was a combined 7 for 10 in those two lopsided affairs.

Really, his presence in the lineup wouldn’t have changed either outcome. The scores were so one-sided that one player’s performance wouldn’t have swung the pendulum enough to turn a win into a loss — or a loss into a win.

The second game of the three-game set, however, Mauer had a chance to make a difference. The catcher was a late-game pinch-hitter and, with the score tied 4-4, promptly grounded into a double play, stranding two teammates. Ultimately, the Twins squeaked out a narrow 5-4 win thanks to another late-game sub, the much-maligned Trevor Plouffe, who provided a clutch home run in the 11th inning.

Are we picking nits here? Absolutely. Still, it didn’t escape us that when Mauer was needed most, he failed to deliver. Yet, he produced admirably in two games that quickly got out of hand.

• One more Twins-related thought: Drew Butera looked fantastic on the mound Sunday when he was forced into mop-up duty during that 16-4 fiasco. He hit 94 on the gun and even fanned ex-Twin Carlos Gomez. It begs the question: If Butera somehow ended up pitching more frequently, would Carl Pavano be his personal catcher?

Forgive Mike Yeo if he takes a modest break from plotting his team’s return to the NHL playoffs in 2012-13. The Wild coach has other things on his mind this weekend — namely, the grueling Tough Mudder event he and seven members of his staff will compete in Saturday in Somerset, Wis.

From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Organizers bill this as “probably the toughest event on the planet,” and who’s going to disagree? A course designed by members of the British Special Forces sends participants climbing a slippery, sloping 15-foot wall, working their way across water by going hand over hand on greased timber, running through dangling wires with some delivering 10,000 volts of electricity, crawling through pipes and under barbed wire and loping through a stretch of flames four feet high.

The big reward for finishers? A beer and a T-shirt. The overhead on those finishing prizes has to be remarkably low, considering only about 15 percent of participants actually cross the finish line.

“Does anybody not want their beer at the end of this thing?” Yeo quipped.

We’ll allow Yeo a frosty beverage or two so long as he promises to get the Wild back into the postseason next spring.

Brian Dozier has been a cool customer at shortstop during his brief stint with the Twins this spring. (Duane Burleson / Associated Press)

The Twins are 12-26, so it’s easy to understand how any glimmer of hope could erupt into an enormous pile of hyperbole as we search for that elusive silver lining.

That being said, we’ve really enjoyed the incredibly brief Brian Dozier era. So much so, that we’re willing to pencil him in as the starting shortstop and No. 2 hitter for the next 10 years. But again, let’s not get carried away.

Easier said than done.

There’s just … something about Dozier. Sure, the statistics tell us he’s been pretty dang good during his meager 11-game stint with the big club. He’s hitting .298 with a couple homers and five RBIs. Granted, his on-base percentage is a paltry .327, but that’s to be expected with a youngster getting his ears wet against major league pitching. And, to be sure, those numbers would qualify as rather pedestrian if Dozier played for just about any other team. But for the offensively — and defensively — challenged Twins, the 25-year-old has been a blessing.

Forget the numbers for a minute. If you’ve grimaced your way through any of the Twins’ recent games, you’ve noticed that Dozier has that intangible “it,” a kind of steely confidence that belies his youth. He’s smooth defensively, and he knows it — not to the point of arrogance, however. His is more of a calm that lets you know “I got this.”

He’s a scaled-back version of Danny Valencia, who carried just a tad too much bravado upon his ascent to the Twins in 2010. Thus far, Dozier has played it perfectly. He’s stabilized the shortstop position and looks impossibly comfortable quarterbacking the infield, all the while providing a much-needed jolt at the plate. Conversely, he understands the pecking order, understands that he’s a rookie and that it’s better for rookies to be seen but not heard.

Forgive us for getting too excited, but because the Twins have won 12 times in 38 tries, and because it took until mid-May for them to post their second two-game winning streak, we’re latching onto the little things. And Dozier has been a bright spot worth latching onto.

On a day the Twins shocked — absolutely shocked — the baseball world by winning their second game in as many days, Aaron Gleeman at MinnPost douses the optimism with this bit of reality regarding the upcoming MLB draft.

Premise: It’s an awful year to have the No. 2 pick in the draft because there isn’t much top-shelf talent from which to choose. In fact, according to all the “experts,” there isn’t much talent at all, top-shelf or otherwise.

Turns out, in this lost season, the Twins aren’t even good at losing.

Feel as you may about Mariano Rivera and the Yankees, this — a song parody about Rivera’s season-ending ACL injury set to Journey’s hit “Don’t Stop Believin’” — is simply too good NOT to pass along.

Enjoy.

Do NBA players actually follow the league in which they play?

This players survey kind of conveys the message that, no, they really don’t. How else does one explain the Timberwolves’ Wes Johnson being named the league’s 12th-best pure shooter? That’s one spot ahead of Oklahoma City dynamo Kevin Durant.

Johnson, mind you, shot 39 percent from the floor this season. He was a 31 percent shooter from beyond the arc and a 71 percent shooter from the free-throw line, all while averaging 6 points per game. Durant, on the other hand, shot nearly 50 percent from the floor, 39 percent from 3-point range and 86 percent from the stripe. Oh, and he averaged a cool 28 points per night.

So, yeah, we’ll go against the grain here and assume KD is a slightly safer bet to nail that last-second jumper.

It hasn’t been a good week for the Twins. Heck, it really hasn’t been a good year for the Twins. If you follow the team’s affiliates at all — and that’s probably as, if not more, exciting as watching the big league club these days — you’re familiar with the name Miguel Sano.

The young third baseman, who turned 19 today, is hitting .298 with 10 homers and 32 RBIs for Class A Beloit. Sano’s on-base percentage is a robust .409, and he’s slugging nearly .650. On the flip side of all that glitter is the fact that Sano has struck out in roughly one-third of his at-bats (40 strikeouts in 124 ABs). Still, we’ll chalk up the penchant for swinging and missing to him being raw and still finding his way as a professional ballplayer.

We do not know, however, if we can chalk up a very bizarre game-winning home run celebration to youthful exuberance. Especially if said celebration leads to benches clearing. From that link, which pulls some context from the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

Sano stood in the batter’s box awhile to watch his homer against relief pitcher Carmine Giardiana. He trotted the bases, but virtually stopped a few feet before touching the plate, taking off his batting helmet as Kernels catcher Abel Baker barked at him.

Sano glared at the Kernels dugout after finally touching the plate, with Kernels players continuing to give him significant grief. He took a step toward Baker, and the dugouts began to empty, with umpires Fernando Rodriguez and Paul Clemons, as well as both teams’ coaching staffs, doing a good job of squelching what could have been an ugly scene.

I’m hesitant to ever discuss politics, lest somebody come flying at me with a blazing pitchfork teeming with angry red ants. But when sports and politics mix — I.E. the Vikings stadium fiasco — I think there’s a bit more leeway. And in trying to articulate my thoughts on this decade-old saga, I think the following — a friend’s post on Facebook (referencing lots of those today) — sums it up beautifully:

I’m reluctantly supporting a new Vikings stadium because I can’t imagine not having them around in Minnesota, but comments from those such as Eric Grubman with the NFL make it difficult to do so. It’d be nice to get a simple “thank you” for the public support from both the Vikings and the NFL should the bill pass as is. I’m so sick and tired of being threatened for public subsidies by teams I have been so loyal to all my life.

Ever since reading a friend’s Facebook post Monday about how hundreds of under-$5 tickets remained on StubHub for the evening’s series opener against the Angels at Target Field, we’ve been wondering how the Twins are faring attendance-wise in the midst of this debacle of a season.

The answer: not so swell.

The following screen shots, via ESPN.com, paint a pretty telling picture:

Quickly: You’ll notice the Twins played to about 100 percent capacity at Target Field in 2010, the ballpark’s first season, and 2011. They averaged 39,798 fans per home game in 2010 and 39,112 in 2011. This year, Target Field has been filled to about 84 percent capacity through 12 home dates, and their attendance average of 33,259 for home games ranks 12th in the majors.

In 2009, the Twins averaged roughly 29,500 fans for their 82* regular-season home games in the Metrodome. That’s not all that far off the pace of the current season.

And that, folks, is what rampant losing can do to a team’s fan base, pristine new baseball palace or not.

*Includes the Game 163 tiebreaker against the Tigers.