So much news!

Wow...so...busy day in baseball yesterday:

Ken Griffey Jr., the man who made baseball (and wearing your hat backwards) cool for a generation of young boys has retired, right before we played the Seattle Mariners. We might be tempted to claim that Griffey acknowledges that he is no longer as cool as Joe Mauer and is now passing the torch of awesomery to Captain Sideburns, but the truth is that Ken Griffey Jr.

competes with no man in terms of coolness. He is to our generation what Willie Mays was to our parents, a reminder of our chance to experience eternal summer, joy and passion. He's a great ball player and will be missed--though I can't help but wonder if his career would have been longer if he'd just laid off the nerve tonic.

While the Kid retired, the Twins got hosed out of a win, and as much as I might like to foam at the mouth about that it beats getting hosed out of a perfect game as Armando Galarraga did in Detroit. We normally don't mind it when the Tigers are inconvenienced, but when you play well enough to get a perfect game it's a shame when human error ruins that.

To be sure, it's hard to be an umpire. I did it for little league baseball for one summer at age 13 and have not endured as much profanity since. I'm willing to give umps the benefit of the doubt, to indulge them and forgive their mistakes because hey, it's all part of the game.

Would the game be better if we could eliminate every umpire mistake? Maybe. Sure it would be nice to know that justice was always done (like in Judge Dredd), it would also be boring (like Judge Dredd).

So we urge Major League Baseball to adopt the official Peanuts from Heaven proposal of turning all umpires into super intelligent logic based cyborgs. If possible, give them laser vision. We understand that there's an inherent risk that the cyborgs will eventually run amok and take over all the world...but then we'll just unleash the power of Care Bear Attacks.

Something Cool overshadowed by something not

Jet lag is a fickle thing and much as I would have loved to watch last night's victory (our fifth in a row!) I literally could not keep my head upright so I will likely miss out on this week worth of west coast games and simply remain an eager box score watcher in the mornings after (highlights too).

But without doubt the highlight of the game (or the recaps anyway) was the fact that the box score included this little beauty: Cuddyer 2b.

Michael Cuddyer played second base...or in honor of the adorableness that is our big right fielder playing a position normally manned by individuals who look much more like hobbits than he does. Anything that shows off Michael Cuddyer's coolness is normally rewarded with a glowing paean on this blog, but today that homage is tempered with a little anxiety.

You see...I, Scruffy, have come to love Orlando Hudson, against my better judgement. You see, I know that O-Dog is awesome, that he's hitting over 300, that he's setting the table for Mauer and Morneau, that he's helped stabilize the defense and may have played some role in helping Delmon Young overcome his fear of pop flies (They aren't actually exploding insects, like Delmon originally thought). But as awesome as it is that Orlando does all those things, he also talks...a lot...even when it seems like no one wants to hear what he's saying. As many of my friends will no doubt confirm, I often do the same thing.

So in short, I feel like Orlando Hudson is my brother in bombast. And as cool as it is that Nick Punto and Michael Cuddyer hatched a secret plan on the team flight to put Cuddy at 2nd Base, that coolness is tempered by the boiling tea kettle of anxiety I feel when O-dog isn't on the field, because if O-dog isn't out there, then what's to stop our team from behaving normally and thus becoming (shudder) just another baseball team.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating the gravity of this sitaution (wouldn't be the first time). But at the very least I just want to say: "Get well soon Orlando Hudson" and if you need anyone to talk to...well..you know where to find me.

Back again

Sorry for the two week delay in posts, things got a little crazy as Stinky and I travelled to India - a place where stable internet connections are rare and baseball is even rarer. But while we ventured through planes, trains and automobiles we found time to discuss the awesomeness of 13 runs against the Brewers, another victory over the Yankees, and precisely what would be the appropriate punishment for the Yankpires and their villainy (hint: it related to India).

Stinky takes over:
However, our lack of internet access does not mean we didn't bring baseball with us to India, or that we didn't make an almost ridiculous effort to follow the Twins despite the many obstacles that lay in our path. These efforts included waking up at 4:30 am to watch games vs. the Brewers at the one hotel that actually DID have reliable internet, checking scores and updates as often as humanly possible...and last but certainly not least, we were accompanied on our journeys by two very special guests - Carlos Gomez and Joe Girardi!

Carlos was mostly used as a bookmark, but we also managed to take his picture in trains an cabs. We wanted to bring him with us to Fatepur Sikri, but we forgot. We also wanted to bring him to the Taj....but again....forgot. Oh well....

Our master plan for Joe Girardi was to help him meet a grisly end - preferably death by monkey attack, or by just abandoning him in a pile of poo in Dehli. Sadly, we never found a hungry enough monkey and my irrational fear of littering squelched the abandonment plan, so the evil jerkface is still safely with us. I'll figure out something I guess.

Scruffy back to wrap up:
In all it was a productive trip, many pictures snapped, many ideas sparked, many verbs past tensed. We're happy to be back with friends and family, including the boys in Blue. We may ask our friend Sparky for a recap of games played whilst we were away, but for now rest assured that we will be back with much commentary and much silliness in the days and weeks to come.

Our Dream (Gah!! Pt. 2)

Let us not dwell on what happened this afternoon. Let us instead imagine a wonderful thing that would make all the evil of the stadium which shall not be named fade into nothingness.

Imagine, if you will, a typical sight: a demon in pin stripes trotting gamely around a dirt track, smiling broadly in acknowledgement of the nefarious deed they have just committed. We've seen this several dozen times before, it is what usually happens to the Twins in the Bronx. We stand there, frozen like a bunch of Greek demi-gods faced with Medusa, frozen in time and space, wondering what the f* just happened to our awesome team.

But in our imagination there's a different ending. As the lap comes to a conclusion, our catcher, whomever he may be, says: "F-this noise!" and cocks his right arm, then follows through with a massive haymaker, clocking the pinstriped hoser and sending him crumpling to the ground crying out for his mama.

Suddenly the spell is lifted. From 3rd base to Right Field our boys suddenly realize: "hey! These guys aren't deamons or medusa's or anything remotely frightening. They're just smarmy, smug punkasses. If we beat them up we'll take away their power!"

And so, en masse, the Minnesota Twins (in our imagination) grab bats and chase down the team which shall not be named. They throw fastballs at their shin bones and cackle like Yosemite Sam saying: "dance you cotton pickin' varmint, DANCE!!!" They use their bats as cudgels and rampage through the clubhouse swinging their weaponry like marauders of yore. They wage an epic war of brilliance and awesomery and aren't even punished for it because, let's face it, the pinstriped punkasses had it coming, and every baseball fan outside of the Bronx would love to see this happen.

This is our dream--more violent than most, but that's what the Yankees do, they bring out the worst in us (also, I'm taking mefloquine, which doesn't help). It could never happen because our team's just not that violent (I mean, seriously, Cuddy, doing anything that wasn't adorable? Not possible). We just can't stand to see the defeats happen over and over and over again, it's like rewinding Bambi to watch his mom get shot time after time after time.

Today we fully expect that the Twins will be shot, and Ron "Bambi" Gardenhire will be forced to fend for himself in the scary, scary forest. (And the whole world weeps a single tear in sadness)

Gah! Pt. 1

Another day, another seeming opportunity to end our curse, another Yankpire victory.

This morning Stinky and I discussed how bad it would get today.

Stinky: "We'll either lose by one or two runs in another late inning collapse or we'll be behind from the beginning and never come back"

Scruffy: "We'll probably have a couple run lead and then the heavens will part and A-rod will descend riding on a centaur as a chorus of hoochie-mamas proclaim his greatness and we will be so blinded by this that our faces will melt and we'll have to forfeit the game."

We're prepared for the worst. BRING IT YANKEES

And so it begins...

The Twins are in the Bronx to play the world champion Yankees tonight, and it will mark a much needed worthy adversary for the Twins and a true test of their mettle, but even if they lose (which they probably will) we should be proud of the fact that unlike the Yankees we are not blood sucking drains on society.

After all, the Twins have inspired many creative/inventive characters on this blog: Grizzled Prospector Mike Lamb, Master Librarian R. A. Dickey, Dread Pirate Joe Nathan, Chairman Joe Mauer, Carlos Gomez (who still seems like a figment of our imagination), and of course the Nefarious Dr. Cakeburn. The Yankees view such shenanigans as unbefitting to their hoity toity status as "the winningest baseball team ever" but really they're afraid that the truth will get out.

Consider the woman pictured at left. She discovered the truth, and then vanished...why? Because she discovered the horrible secret, the horrible secret revealed below.

Girl: "There's something odd about you and your friends"

Boy: "...think so?"

Girl: "You all hit the ball harder than any other team."

Boy: "yeah..."

Girl: "You run faster than any other team."

Boy: "Yeah..."

Girl: "Your stadium is littered with free agent corpses."

Boy: "So what?"

Girl: "Are you a..."

Boy: "Say it...say what you know to be true!"

Girl: "A Yankee?!?"

Boy: "Not just a yankee, a yankee vampire!"

Girl: "no...."

Boy: "A Yankee vampire with endorsement contracts!"

Girl: "Noooo"

Boy: "A Yankee vampire who sparkles in the sun! BEHOLD MY ROBERT PATTISON BRAND BODY GLITTER!!!"

Girl: "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

Friends don't let friends sit in meadows with Yankpires.

God Speed Twins, we're sure that you will probably blow up in a fiery hellstorm of bats, balls, and CC Sabathia's cheeseburgers. Anything better than that and we'll be happy.

And in case you need something to cheer you up here's Orlando Hudson on, among other things: Delmon and Nick's special relationship, Cuddyer's butt, the Lifetime Movie Network and why Kevin Slowey isn't as cool as him.

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.