In the early '00s Aaron Gleeman's U of M journalism professors suspected he was chronically hungover. In reality, the young blogger was chronically exhausted from writing about baseball literally all night long. That set Gleeman on a path that includes Aaron's Baseball Blog (cute!), NBC Sports, Baseball Prospectus, and, since 2019, the Athletic, which is now the de facto sports desk of the New York Times. In our view? He's the state's ace hardball writer.

Gleeman joined Racket in our brand-new office/podcast studio to breakdown the state of the in-flux Twins franchise, the team's roster heading into 2025, and his own journey through the blogger-to-professional-sportswriter pipeline. (Apologies for any echoey sound—our audio paneling efforts are also in-flux.) You can—and should!—subscribe to and support his Gleeman & the Geek Twins podcast, featuring co-host John Bonnes, here; you can read all of his writing via the Athletic here.

But first: We debut a hit new segment known as Birthday Break Down. And here are the stories Em and Jay gabbed about during our regular segment, This Week in Racket:

• Let's Taco 'Bout Politics mayoral candidate Q&A series
• How Alive or Dead is Dinkytown in 2025? Depends on Who You Ask.

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