2.06.2009

Refuge from Malaise

When the biggest addition to your franchise is a new groundskeeper, you may become a little desperate in your dreams for new acquisitions. It is in that spirit that we present another announcement from the Alternate Reality Twins: where classic ballplayers who exemplify the Twins style of play are brought into the clubhouse (and all for an amount the Pohlad's are willing to pay).

Joining outfielder Tyrus Cobb and the already formidable infield of Frankie Frisch, Honus Wagner and Pepper Martin, the Alternate Reality twins offer a warm welcome to new first baseman: Jack Roosevelt Robinson, and new catcher: Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra. 

The following conversation solidified the team:

BERRA: Where da bejeesus are we?
ROBINSON: It's an alternate reality. A place where classic ball players are still alive, steroids have never been invented and tens of people actually read this blog.
BERRA: But whadd're we doin' here?
ROBINSON: Well, the Twins are a scrappy, contact-hitting, slick-fielding, always-running, hard-throwing, dirt-in-the-shirt kind of team. I'm here because that's exactly what I brought to Brooklyn in 1947, and that's the way I always played for my entire career.
BERRA: But whadd'em I doin here?
ROBINSON: Well, rather than doom you to a life under the thumb of George Steinbrenner, where you have to make insurance commercials featuring a talking duck, we've brought you to Twin Cities to fight for truth, justice and make surreal and occasionally stupid statements for comic relief.
BERRA: I heard about them Twin Cities, I heard they're as close to each other as Minneapolis is to St. Paul!
ROBINSON: Um...yeah. Anyway you'll be catching for the team, you think you can handle that, Yogi?
BERRA: Well I heard 'em say it could never be done, but that don't mean it ain't possible!
ROBINSON: Um...yeah. Well, Yogi, you have to know one important thing: we hate the Yankees and everything they stand for.
BERRA: WHA?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
ROBINSON: It's true and if you're going to be part of this team you'll have to despise them too isn't that right guys?
FRISCH, MARTIN, WAGNER: YEAH!
COBB: Or you can be like me and hate everything!!
BERRA: But I got good memories 'bout the Yankees, and my memory ain't so good.
ROBINSON: But Yogi, the Yankees are evil--
WAGNER: They are actually vampires--
FRISCH: They are the cause for all human suffering--
MARTIN: They ran over my cat--
COBB: Then Babe Ruth ate that cat and ruined the American Housing market.
BERRA [With fingers in his ears]: LA-LA-LA-LA-LA If I can't hear nothin', nothin's true!! The fundamentals of our economy are strong! LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!!
ROBINSON [Pulling Berra's fingers out of his ears]: Yogi, it's okay. You're with us now. You aren't like the rest of them.
WAGNER: You are not a prima donna.
FRISCH: You would play any position the manager asked you to.
MARTIN: You actually had a personality rather than being a soulless hitting automaton.
COBB: You're ugly. [Others glower at Cobb] What? The rest of them had a nether-worldly glamour about them. Yogi's a lot of things, but glamorous he ain't.
BERRA: Thanks Ty! I'd rather be a lot of things than just one!
ALL: Um...yeah.
ROBINSON: So what do you say Yogi? 
WAGNER: Do you want to play hard?
FRISCH: Get dirty?
MARTIN: Stop evil?
COBB: And keep being ugly?
BERRA: Ya know what fellahs...when in the course of human events it becomes necessary and-- indeed--salutary for the morally upright and virtuous in the world to raise arms against the nefarious machinations of vampiric cruelty, the defense of truth, justice and Midwestern honor is more than a worthy cause, it's a holy quest, for which I will gladly risk my life.
ALL: Huh?
BERRA: Yes, I'm in.
And so was Yogi Berra turned away from the dark-side to the forces of truth and light.

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