Pretty good night...

Gotta admit, any night spent with a pennant race is a fun night, but last night, after hours of thesis work, that game was particularly enjoyable. Managing to mute Hawk Harrelson was fun; calling my parents and hearing their play-by-play several seconds ahead of the MLB.tv feed was even more fun and over the course of the night I learned several things about my parents:

1. My dad (NA) and I are pretty comfortable swearing in the middle of a play (Beckham's dropped force out), but not at all in casual conversation. (I might be a masters candidate, but that doesn't mean he can't give me a whupping if he so chooses.)
2. My mom (The Knitting Queen) roots according to her moral compass, as is evidenced by her "c'mon Jesse strike out Ramirez and sit all these Chicagoans down. CHEATERS NEVER PROSPER!!!!"
3. NA's love of Yoga-based serenity still allows him to laugh at the karmic retribution of Rios dropping Span's double.
4. The Knitting Queen is quite techno-savvy (she even learned how to follow a certain Tweeter whose re-emergence from her bat-cave bring much happiness to our souls!)

But despite all this joy, and the win I want to again remind everyone that IT'S NOT OVER YET! so cool your jets ESPN, Star Trib, Chicago Tribune, and all manner of other punditry. As our man Denard said: "We still have business to finish." What is that business Denard? "we've got to hopefully...kill their dreams"

If anyone can kill dreams, I'd put money on Denard, skulking in the shadows of White Sock minds, pouncing while the White Sox are happily asleep, dreaming of Bud Light with Lime waterfalls, and new disgusting ways to grow facial hair. Once inside these dreams, Denard will triumph...for he is our ninja:

Friends forever!

As we have long maintained: Torii Hunter is our home boy. Sure he plays for another team now, but he was ours first and no matter what he says to the contrary we know that deep down he'll always want to come back for the deliciousness of Swedish Pancakes and a well harmonized Lutheran Choir.

After all, he is the Obi Wan/Sensei to Denard's Luke Skywalker/Centerfield Ninja. And if you don't believe me I have the photoshops to prove it!

(I know that wasn't really neccessary, but I like photoshops...and I'm always a fan of spicing up the site with pretty pictures)

Anyway now that we have a new stadium we seem to have captured Torii's heart again. I therefore suggest that we invite Torii to hang out until the end of the season, offering to pay for his hitting/fielding services with Swedish pancakes, then everything comes full circle.

Speaking of full circle: I, being a huge mega nerd, started listening to baseball podcasts recently including this, baseball today podcast from ESPN. I'm not a huge fan of sports talk, but I think these guys are pretty good and apparently one of them thinks highly enough of our dear friend Cuddy to have invited him on to talk about the Twins last Thursday (interview starts around 7:50 and explains just how awesome the Twins are). After the interview though the host relates a story that again shows just how unbelievably adorable Michael Cuddyer is (that starts at 15:08)

So enjoy Saturday and marvel at the cuteness that is Michael Cuddyer.

Taking the good with the bad

Victory is loverly, and as I wrote yesterday, so is our new ball park, but there's something which we will have to remember as we gear up for the long summer slog ahead of us.

You see, outdoor baseball brings with it outdoor issues. Things we never had to worry about before suddenly have an effect. While we could always rely on the Metrodome shielding us from the rain, snow and flying monkey attacks which occur throughout the Minnesota spring/fall, at Target Field we must make do with this--we accepted this fact and dressed accordingly. (My mother's flying monkey poncho has been especially helpful this year.

But we forgot about the wind...yes, the wind...you might remember it from 1st grade weather charts...remember with all the velcro that made the cool Ccchhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrip! noise? Right between hanging up your coat and story time you had to note what the weather was the day before and what it was today. And that's when you met our friend Mr. Wind.

It seems that Mr. Wind is not a fan of home runs. As is evidenced by the fact that in the past two games Messers Morneau and Cuddyer hit balls so hard that the cows who supplied the hide for the balls mooed in pain up in Cow Heaven*. Yet these balls did not go over fences, instead they came up short and what could have been higher scores for us did not come to fruition.

It's easy to say that later in the year that Mr. Wind will change direction and these hard hit pitches will fly out of the stadium, but we must remember that not only will our fly balls will go farther, but so will those hit by our opponents. Which means that all those noisy outs hit against Pavano and Baker will turn into home runs...painful, painful home runs.

So, we must adjust again and to adapt to Mr. Wind, we need a Mr. Run-Like-the-Wind, a Mr. Silent-as-the-Wind. We need, Denard Span: Ninja General** of Twins Territory.

We hope that Denards Ninja skills translate to more wins at Target Field, but also that he remembers to pack his kitanas and nunchucks for this weekend's series in New York. We'll write more about this in future, but if you want a refresher, click the link at the left of this post that says: "A Guide to Recognizing Your Yankpires".

*In case you were wondering, in cow heaven all the grass is green and all the cabernet is complex and oak-y.

**Note: In Chairman Mauer's Utopian Twins Territory, Ninja General is a position similar to Surgeon General in America. Only far more badass.

Quick, like a ninja

The game will be on shortly, and the good news is that Stinky and I are coming to the home stretch of our homework loads this year--so in short order we can devote ourselves to the truly important things in this world: truth, justice, disgusting odors and the Minnesota Twins.

But with our various other duties we are only now getting to tonight's post, so, apologies for the abbreviated nature of this one, but we're seeking expediency here at all costs.

1) Little Nicky Punto has an owie (but not a dragon inflicted owie like Jose Mijares so, that's a plus). This means that Luke Hughes is coming up, which means we have an Australian on our team which means I may need to be nice to Australians, which is not something I'm good at. Don't get me wrong, I know and have worked with several Australians and they are largely wonderful people. They are also perpetually sarcastic (something to do with being stranded on a god forsaken rock with a bunch of convicts probably), and as a constantly peppy person I don't do well with sarcasm--it hurts my tender American feelings (sniff).

But in an effort to help Luke Hughes feel comfortable we'd like to show him that our love and affection in the culturally appropriate Australian way. By mocking him (and by him we mean Australia in general) mercilessly. (Ahem): "Hey Luke Hughes! Stop putting that Vegemite on your hotdog and listen up! I know that you're going to be tempted during the course of the game to hug Jason Kubel because his beard reminds you of a koala but please remember that the only way that Kubel would ever want to hug you is if you behave hop around the bases like a kangaroo after your first major league hit! Also, Baz Luhrman's films are self-indulgent! THERE I SAID IT!!! Now go out there and make us proud! (oops that's too nice) Go out there and try not to kill Nemo!"

2) We rocked that home stand, and are in fact pretty much rocking everything in sight these days (5 straight series wins? Hells to the yes!). But while this is very good the best thing that came out of this home stand was the following revelation from Denard Span (courtesy of the Star Trib): "I was nervous as could be about how cold it was going to be here in April. I had my ninja outfit ready to go." As Stinky pointed out to me last weekend, this means that Denard is, as she has long suspected...A NINJA! "Think about it," she said, "you pretty much have to be a ninja to play centerfield, fast, agile, capable of sudden strikes when its least expected."

When I claimed that Carlos Gomez was too noisy to be a Ninja stinky pointed out that he was "the dysfunctional ninja, the diet coke of ninjas." However, as she pointed out to me "Denard is also silent and stealthy, he just stands at the plate and waits and waits and then--BOOM he's on first base with a walk!"

I can picture Denard now, on his days off from the Twins, skulking around Minneapolis in his ninja gear, using throwing stars to pin White Sox fans to walls, using his cat like reflexes to scale the elevator shafts in the Wells Fargo building until he reaches the super computers and adjusts the interest rates on savings bonds. Sigh...oh Denard, why must you be so awesome?

As always we hope that the awesomeness can continue but understand if it doesn't. And as the boys head back on the road we send them off with the full support of Twins Territory, and as an homage to our Ninja Centerfielder, we send them off with a haiku

Take your home with you

Flashing streaks of number two

Victory is ours