A dream come true...maybe

It's been a long time coming, but Tsuyoshi Nishioka is about to make his home debut in a Twins uniform. Athletes dream of playing at the highest level of competition, and while Nishioka did that for a whole 6 games earlier this season, he has yet to do it in front of a stadium filled with people rooting for him to succeed. It was a treat to watch him smile and laugh around the ballpark last night, signing autographs, watching from the dugout railing, harassing Delmon Young. (Sidenote: I want those two to star in a tv show about mismatched cop partners with Delmon as the taciturn, embittered veteran and Nishioka as the rookie trying to find his way on the tough Minneapolis streets). Congratulations are due to you Tsuyoshi, I hope that today and all the days to come exceed your wildest dreams.

I also hope that because last night I had a dream that things didn't exactly work out that way. There were groundballs slipping through every infield spot, and Carl Pavano was stalking around foul territory threatening to beat up everybody because they all looked like gatorade tanks. Then Alexi Ramirez slid into second and blew up Valencia, Nishioka, Casilla, Tolbert and Hughes. Gardenhire's attempts to clone 4 Michael Cuddyers to man all the infield positions went awry and suddenly we were back to the disaster zone we had in April. I woke up convinced that this had really happened and had to seriously think to remember that we had won last night and nobody had gotten blowed up.

So bottom line, if someone's dream has to come true today let's hope its just Nishioka's and not mine. Both for the good of the Twins and to avoid both explosions and disastrous experiments in cloning.