Minnesota Joe and the Pitching Mound of Doom

With six weeks left in a--shall we say--craptastic season, we can't help but notice that the Twins are looking a little tired, a little worn-down, a little day-dreamy. So we wonder, what exactly are they thinking about as the season wraps up?

Sure they're thinking: "C'mon Baltimore! Cut us some freakin' slack!", but if you look at Joe Mauer lately he seems his naturally calm appearance seems to have risen to a zen-like state of

serenity. Maybe he's just cooly calculating the statistical potential of next season (can't bat .290 again...right?) or maybe he's thinking back on his childhood dreams again.

I'd bet Mauer dreamed of playing baseball for the Twins. I'd also bet that, like most boys who had backyard adventures in the 1980s, he also dreamed of being Indiana Jones. And now that playing baseball is a reality, I bet he has even more time to day dream about being a Harrison Ford-esque hero...even if that hero also plays baseball.

Picture him walking to the plate as "dum-Da-DUM-DUM-dum-da-dum" echoes throughout the stadium. Leaping over the on-deck circle thingy like a pit of snakes. Smacking a ball to the gap and racing around first like there was a gigantic boulder hurtling behind him threatening to crush him and cause even more bilateral leg weakness! Then slides into second, reaches behind him to pick up his helmet, and laughs softly as the opposing short stop is flattened by said boulder.

Unfortunately, life as Minnesota Joe isn't all double smacking adventures and cute girls in the first row with "Love You" written on their eyelids. No, there are some artifacts better left untouched...but just try to tell that to the buddies who accompany him on his adventures and can't help but get in their own way. Minnesota Joe always starts his adventures with a pitching buddy...and more often than not, that pitching buddy just has to touch the Ark of the Covenant, and before Joe can go out to the mound to swap the pitcher out for a bag of sand (just as effective and far less expensive)...this happens:

Looks just like our starting pitchers lately, eh?

Okay, that might be an overstatement...but I really felt that the Melting Nazi encapsulated my soul while watching the last couple games, and anyway...if you're Minnesota Joe, no matter how many pitchers utterly dissolve into a thin mass of bloody goop under a black trench coat, you're going to stay alive, get the girl and have another adventure tomorrow.

So c'mon Joe, live out another childhood dream: stitch a TC on a fedora, stuff a whip inside your shin guard and change that batting music. Be our very own Minnesota Joe.

(Unless you can find a wookie costume for Morneau in which case you should go for the Han Solo thing instead)