Rocko’s Modern Life was an acid trip of a cartoon that ran from 1993 to 1996. 

The show wasn’t about acid trips, per se, but it was a how-to guide for avoiding bad trips. 

I mean I think that’s what it was. I was ten years old in 1993. Was all I could do just to ingest the beautiful madness. Sometimes felt uncomfortable enough to change the channel or even (gasp turn off the TV. 

I say “uncomfortable” here because Rocko’s Modern Life was never boring, so it must have been discomfort that made me lukewarm on the show, which carries a 7.9 rating on IMDB. If you go check it out now, you’ll see traces of the influence it’s had in the worlds of Spongebob, Morty, and more. 

Man, this intro is careening down an unpaved path, huh? 

You can also see modern-life influences at work when watching Rocco Baldelli manage the Twins, is where I’m trying to go. 

Minnesota does things its own way, and it’s working. The Tampa-like feel to their machinations is plain as day. While it makes fans a little uncomfortable to sign a pile of creaky veterans named Homer, Piñata and Dick Mountain or to cut CJ Cron when you don’t have a first baseman on the roster, that’s life in modern baseball. 

If even one of those old arms is healthy in October, it’ll keep Rocco from having to begin a playoff game in Yankee Stadium with Randy Dobnak on the bump. I imagine I wasn’t the only one changing the channel to dodge the discomfort that night. 

Weird story short, things are looking up in Minnesota, where the system is stocked with bats and arms in both the upper and lower minors.