Well…

That sort of felt like a punctuation mark, didn’t it? A big, loud, red, emphatic something right there in the middle of the schedule.

I don’t know. Maybe the Twins will bounce back and have one of those sustained hot streaks they had so often in the last several years but which have resolutely eluded them so far this season. I’m not holding my breath, though, not with this miserable offense.

Tonight was just pathetic. The Twins looked like a Little League team against that rangy geezer, and I realize, yes, that rangy geezer was Randy Johnson, but Johnson is not the pitcher he was even a year ago, let alone several years ago. He is a rangy geezer, plain and simple, and an unsightly geezer to boot, not to mention a New York Yankee. He’s virtually the same age as Terry Mulholland, and almost as old as Wayne Terwilliger. Johnson, in fact, looks like he’s been sharing a personal trainer with Terwilliger for the last thirty years.

I can only imagine how depressing this stuff must be for the pitching staff. Seriously, can you imagine? What do you suppose Brad Radke was thinking as he made his way to Yankee Stadium today?

I’ll bet you a signed Wayne Terwilliger fungo bat he was thinking, “I don’t have a prayer in the world. This club will be lucky if they manage to scratch out two hits against that unsightly geezer. I got no chance. None. The Yankees could suit up and send to the mound that fat Irish bastard who sings ‘God Bless America’ every night and I’d still show up in tomorrow’s boxscore as the losing pitcher. I hope like hell that moron Billy Crystal isn’t sitting there mugging from the box seats. God, I hate that poisonous troll….It sure would be swell if I had time to get a nice beefsteak somewhere after the game.”

I know, of course, and by this time you surely know as well, that this is all somehow my fault. I wish like hell I could find a way to put a stop to it, and please rest assured that even right this moment I’m wracking my wracked brain trying to figure out a way to stop the bleeding.

The kids, though, that’s who I really think about. All those kids out there who live and breath Twins baseball. The game, as I think I might have pointed out before, is really all about the kids, and it breaks my heart to think what must be going through the heads of those poor little nippers as they toss and turn in their beds tonight after folding their little hands and asking Jesus to please help the Minnesota Twins get all better.

But, no, I can’t do it. It’s just too painful to imagine.

I simply can’t afford to think about the kids. It would kill me right now. And I’m not quite sure why, but, dammit, I want to live.