Congratulations to the newest member of the Baseball’s Hall of Fame, Rik Aalbert “Bert” Blyleven! FINALLY!!!!

The honor was way overdue! It’s finally time for his Uncle Charlie to join fellow Twins Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, and Kirby Puckett in Cooperstown.

Now let’s get that jersey retired, and start taking bets on the number times Bert will circle it as it displays down the left field pole at Target Field!

Blyleven, who pitched 11 of his 22 seasons in Minnesota, was elected after garnering 79.7% of the vote, with 75% required for election. It was his 14th year on the ballot.

The right-hander notched 287 career wins, 27th on the all-time list, and is fifth in career strikeouts with 3,701. He is 11th in games started with 685 and his 60 shutouts are ninth all-time. Blyleven also ranks 13th all-time in innings pitched with 4,970. In his second stint with the Twins from 1985-1988, Blyleven led the Twins to the World Series title in 1987, going 3-1 with a 3.42 ERA in four starts that postseason.

Close but no Cigar… YET

Bert Blyleven, who had 287 wins, 3,701 strikeouts and 60 shutouts, missed this year’s MLB Hall of Fame by 5 votes. . He had 400 votes (74.2 percent), up from 338 last year, and gets two more tries on the BBWAA ballot. The highest percentage for a player who didn’t enter the Hall in a later year was 63.4 by Gil Hodges in 1983, his final time on the ballot.

Next year’s vote also will include newcomers Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez, Larry Walker, Jeff Bagwell, John Franco and Kevin Brown.

C’mon voters, get it together and vote for Bert. He deserves Cooperstown!!!

Right-handed pitcher Casey Daigle has signed a free-agent contract with the Minnesota Twins and is expected to be a Rochester Red Wing next season.

His wife is Jennie Finch, the former University of Arizona All-American softball pitcher who helped the United States win an Olympic gold medal in 2004.

Daigle, 26, was a first-round pick by the Arizona Diamondacks in the 1999 baseball amateur draft. He has pitched in 20 games for the Diamondbacks, with a 2-3 record and 6.46 ERA.

In 2007, he was 10-5 with a 6.59 ERA for the Tucson Sidewinders of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League.

People Magazine included Finch in its “50 Most Beautiful People” issue in 2004. The same year, she was voted “World’s Hottest Sports Personality” by ESPN.com readers. Finch was the first woman to host This Week In Baseball for Fox Sports, has played pro softball and will be among the dozen-plus celebrities competing on Donald Trump’s reality TV show The Celebrity Apprentice, starting Jan. 3.

If the Twins trade Johan to the Yankees, it will mean that they will also go after Torii Hunter. You know what? I am fine with that. Trade him. If we can land the future of the franchise with a players like Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and Melky Cabrera (and I like that Shelly Duncan kid too) in a deal, I say go for it. In a few year short years, the Twins will have a new stadium, a young power hitting team, a budget, solid pitching, and a fan base ready to take over the entire Major Leagues again…. Do it!

From the NY Post, in a story titled “YANKEES, METS EXPECT ‘HAN TO ‘HAN COMBAT”
MIKE PUMA, on November 10 wrote:
The greatest offseason showdown of all-time is brewing, as the Yankees and Mets prepare to go to war for two-time Cy Young winner Johan Santana, the ace lefty both teams crave.

With the GM meetings having wrapped up in Orlando on Thursday, the next big dates on baseball’s calendar are Dec. 3-6, when the Winter Meetings are held in Nashville, Tenn. And there won’t be a more popular man in town than Twins’ GM Bill Smith, provided Minnesota hasn’t already moved Santana, almost certainly baseball’s best pitcher.

All indications are the Twins want to deal the two-time Cy Young Award winner, who can become a free agent after next season and figures to command more than $120 million over six years.

The Yankees and Mets both have the resources and, most important, the prospects to make such a mammoth acquisition.

Santana, who turns 29 in March, went 15-13 with a 3.33 ERA for the Twins last season and finished second in the AL with 235 strikeouts.

Hank Steinbrenner hinted the Yankees would be players in the Santana sweepstakes. After telling The Post earlier this week that none of his top-tier young pitchers – Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes or Ian Kennedy – would be traded for a position player, Steinbrenner offered no comment when asked about the possibility any of the trio would be dealt for another pitcher.

The Mets could assemble a package that could include top pitching prospect Phil Humber and either Lastings Milledge or Carlos Gomez, but that would be just a starting point. Likewise, the Yankees’ starting point would be one of their young guns and Melky Cabrera.

The Twins likely would insist on a center fielder in return, with Torii Hunter on the free-agent market and not expected to re-sign in Minnesota. If the Yankees were to deal for Santana, they might then be inclined to sign the 32-year-old Hunter, who hit .287 with 28 homers and 107 RBIs last season and is still among the game’s best defensive players.

The sense of urgency for the Yanks to make a deal for Santana would increase should Andy Pettitte decide to retire. Pettitte, the Yankees’ only lefty starter, has said he’ll pitch for the Yanks or call it a career. If the latter should occur, the Yankees would be left with Chien-Ming Wang and Mike Mussina as their only veteran starters.

The Mets’ level of interest in Santana figures to be as high as the Yankees’. Though Pedro Martinez returned from rotator-cuff surgery in September and provided glimpses that he still can be an effective pitcher, he can’t be counted on to lead a rotation.

The same goes for Tom Glavine, should he re-sign – he could be headed back to the Braves. And neither Oliver Perez nor John Maine has “ace” written all over them. Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez also is signed for next season, but is somewhere over 40 and injury prone.

Whether the Mets can outdo any Yankees offer for Santana is the big question. Humber is not as highly regarded as Chamberlain, Hughes or Kennedy, and Mike Pelfrey’s struggles last season, when he bounced between Triple-A and the Mets, have decreased his trade value.