Peanuts 101

It's a new season, a new beginning, and, we hope, a new era here at Peanuts from Heaven Incorporated. One where new people take a glance at our website and discover a love for the Twins, baseball and unabashed silliness.

To help in this regard we are happy to provide a more instructive glossary of the players, the team and the terms we use regularly on this site. Hopefully, this will help you all understand the greatness of the Twins, baseball and unabashed silliness.

Players

Catchers: Joe Mauer--a be-sideburned omnipotent overlord, injured at the moment, if you believe the capitalist propoganda

First Base: Justin Morneau--an imposing Canadian that my co-author finds "dreamy" (particularly the backside of said first baseman), as such he has been proclaimed "the cute one" in our ongoing series of Sergeant Gardy's Lonely Hits Club Band (a roundtable discussion of the issues of the day, in silly clothes).

Second Base: Alexi Cassilla--Lithe, and agile second baseman...we are still searching for a photoshop identity for Alexi, please post your suggestions below

Short Stop: Nick Punto--better known as Little Nicky Punto, he is by no means a hall of famer, but he is pure, unadulterated scrappiness. His resigning was the highlight of our offseason until...

Third Base: Joe Crede--Crede has played mostly for our mortal enemies, the Chicago White Sox, but injuries made him expendable, and when you're expendable...you're affordable for the Twins (we don't have much money).

Outfield: There are three outfield positions in baseball, and most teams have three players to play them. We have four. Probably because we're totally awesome. We have left fielder Delmon Young, and right fielder Michael Cuddyer, also known as MASTERS OF SUPRACTION (see definition of supraction below). Carlos Gomez--an exuberant but erratic Centerfielder who occasionally doubles as velociraptor, a whirling dervish, and our own Ringo Starr wannabe--and Denard Span--a man who is totally awesome at everything, including poetic lyrics for Sergeant Gardy's Lonely Hits Club Band, and saving big money--complete the corps.

Designated Hitter: Jason Kubel--scruffy, paunchy, quite a good hitter.

Bench: Mike Redmond--he'll be subbing at catcher until Joe Mauer is healthy again--Brendan Harris--a utility infielder whose enigmatic play (silent and either inexplicably good, or inexplicably not so good) has made him Brendan Harrison the quiet one in the Lonely Hearts Club Band--and Brian Buscher--who plays like Harris, but doesn't have the witty word play in his name.

Starters: Scott Baker--our most experienced pitcher looks like your paper boy--Francisco Lirano--the erstwhile Johan Jr. is not quite the Cisco Kid of old, but he's still mighty impressive--Glen Perkins--the only pitcher left from our family fun eatery staff now that Denny's Reyes is gone--Kevin Slowey--also known as Slo-Slo, Carlos "Go-Go" Gomez's sidekick--Nick Blackburn--the fifth starter who was driven mad by Ozzie Guillen's mockery became a diabolical evil genius known only as Dr. Cakeburn.

Relievers: In addition to guys we don't know so well--Luis Ayala, Craig Breslow, Brain Duensing, Matt Gurrier and Phillip Humber--there is knuckleballer RA Dickey--A spot starter who may seem to be a mild mannered literature major, but is in fact the MASTER LIBRARIAN!--set-up man Jesse Crain--a guy so kind to we Peanuts that he has become ZE UBERMENSCH--and dominant closer Joe Nathan--who spends his non-pitching hours as Dread Pirate Joe Nathan.

Management: General Manager Billy Smith, tries to acquire the talent that makes us great, seems to lack confidence, which is why we urge him to be like VH1s: The Pickup Artist. Meanwhile actual team manager Ron Gardenhire is so totally awesome that I cannot adequately summarize our feelings here, so instead look here, here, here, and here.

Terms

We have our own language here, so please peruse this glossary to help you understand things a little better.

Supraction--a combination of surprise and distraction that manages to overwhelm all manner of opponents. Think of it: you're playing a game, pitching, hitting, fielding, then all of a sudden one little crazy Metrodome thing happens, you're surprised, you're distracted and your down by five runs. This is the fine art, of supraction.

Enemies--Our opponents during any given game

Loathing points--A completely random scoring system that determines who we like, and who we don't.

Frenemies--Teams we are not playing at this moment, that we might not love but that we don't utterly hate.

Yankpires--Frenemies does not apply to Yankees. Because, following a reading of the book Twilight my inimitable co-blogger discovered that the Yankees may in fact be Vampires. If vampires run faster, jump higher and hit/throw harder than anyone else, and the yankees do the same...it logically follows that the New York 9 is in cahoots with a dark league of evil.  We are opposed to dark leagues of evil.