Category: Twins

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.

Thanks for nothing, fellas. Thanks for ruining another Friday night. I suppose I should thank you, though, for the fond and lingering –well, maybe not so lingering; maybe swiftly evaporating– memories of that glorious three-game winning streak.

FYI, for those who’ve inquired: I’ve had some pretty intense squabbles with Jumbo over the last week or so, and had told him that he wouldn’t be allowed back in the room until he wrote something that would qualify for a PG-13 rating. Ideally I’d like to see him shoot for a straight PG. He’s been working some seriously raw and apoplectic hard-R territory of late, and as we all well know, the game’s really about the kids. I’m not sure I could live with myself if I felt I was responsible for introducing a shitload of blue language into the vocabulary of some little shaver out there.

That said, I’m pretty damn close to letting Jumbo come back in here to take his whacks.

In the meantime, here’s Patrick Donnelly’s latest road dispatch from out West. Those paying proper attention will surely have noticed that the Twins are now officially an ugly 0-1 since I welcomed Donnelly aboard. Maybe that’s just a coincidence, but I guess we’re going to find out.

Grizzlies Stadium, Fresno
July 19, 2005
Fresno Grizzlies vs. Salt Lake Stingers, PCL (Triple-A)

The term “minor league” has become synonymous with substandard, low quality, entirely undesirable. Which brings me to Fresno.

Now, I don’t want to knock Fresno. It seems like a perfectly fine place to visit, maybe even to reside. Sparkling Grizzlies Stadium, home of the Fresno Grizzlies of the Pacific Coast League, is the centerpiece of plans for a downtown renewal that seem to be rolling along. The people are pleasant, the weather is nice (if you like 105 degrees and humid), and the children appear to be above average.

It’s just the baseball that’s minor league.

Now, of course I’ve been spoiled by living in a big-league city for the past 18 years, watching the Minnesota Twins, who even in their down years (also known as the 1990s) played a brand of baseball that could reasonably be called “Major League.” And after spending Monday night with the Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants at SBC Park, the next ballpark on my five-day tour would naturally pale by comparison, like watching a movie after seeing “The Godfather” or dating anybody after being married to Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Triple-A baseball, though, is truly the epitome of “minor league,” and the blame for that falls squarely at the feet of the men in cleats. These days, most hotshot prospects jump directly from Double-A to the big leagues, bypassing the traditional on-deck circle altogether. That leaves Triple-A ball littered with “organizational players,” guys who get stuck on the threshold of their dreams because two or three of their five tools are not quite good enough to get it done at the next level; and mostly washed-up ex-big leaguers who are on their way back down through the system, hoping against hope for one more taste of four-star room service.

The fans who showed up for Tuesday’s tilt between the Grizzlies and the Salt Lake Stingers (and that appeared to be me and about 400 of my closest friends) saw plenty of organizational guys hacking it up, a few legitimate prospects, and a handful of has-beens, including Salt Lake left fielder Curtis Pride (late of the Expos and Angels) and former Twins pitcher Matt Kinney, now toiling for Fresno, the top affiliate of the Giants. But we also were treated to the surprise appearance of two legitimate major leaguers — injured Giants Marquis Grissom and Edgardo Alfonzo, who were on injury rehab assignments in Fresno.

So it was with mixed expectations that I pulled into the local parking ramp, paid my five bucks (the same amount I pay in Minneapolis, though two blocks closer to the stadium), bought an $8 seat down the third-base line and entered the first Triple-A game of my baseball watching career. I decided to sit in the same general section as I occupied Monday night in San Francisco, but I didn’t look closely at my ticket until I’d grabbed a Newcastle (six bucks, on tap, very fresh) and found my section. Imagine my surprise when I realized — Bingo! — I must be in the front row! And I was. Not a bad value.

The game began as a pitchers’ duel, with Kinney and Stingers starter Chris Bootcheck belying their mediocre stats (6.15 and 5.32 ERAs, respectively) with strong showings early. Kinney retired the first seven batters before Ryan Budde homered in the third for a 1-0 lead, while Bootcheck was perfect through four innings.

And, more shocking, those four frames were completed in a brisk 35 minutes. The pace was unexpected for anybody familiar with Kinney’s tenure in Minnesota, where he wrote the book on bad body language, driving manager Tom Kelly crazy as he’d kick the dirt, circle the mound, and basically appear to be wishing he was anywhere in the world other than on the pitching rubber.

Grissom, who struck out in his first at-bat, broke up Bootcheck’s perfecto with a leadoff home run in the fifth, then circled the bases and called it a night, no doubt declaring himself ready to return to San Francisco. Alfonzo, who had three singles in his first rehab game on Monday, was not so fortunate — his bat looked slow as he slapped three dead-fish grounders before looping a duck snort to center for a weak single in his final at-bat.

For those who don’t like taut defensive struggles, the evening’s entertainment came from the liquid courage guys oozing out of a suite high above the third-base dugout. They decided to pick on Stingers catcher Jeff Mathis, breaking out the tired Darryl Strawberry-inspired chant of “MAAAA-THIS! MAAA-THIS. MAAA-THIS! YOU SUCK!” every time he came to the plate. Behind me, a young fan asked his parents why they were yelling so much. Mom replied, “Don’t worry — they’ll be gone by the sixth inning.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that a few of them appeared to be gone already.

I will give the guys some credit, however. They did stick around past the sixth inning, and even showed some baseball smarts in their razzing, eventually chanting “Cucamonga!” at Mathis, referring to the Angels’ Class-A affiliate in Rancho Cucamonga.

As an organization, the Grizzlies trotted out a few other sideshows to keep the fans’ in their seats. For instance, between innings a bear-type mascot named “Wild Thing” climbed atop the dugouts and flung freebies into the crowd, including frisbees and hacky sacks (“Dude! Free hack!”). Of course, this only further cemented Fresno’s minor-league image — what, they couldn’t afford a T-shirt cannon?

Then there were the Diamond Dancers, five women who were, for lack of a better term, cheerleaders. At a baseball game. Decked out in green velvet, shaking gold pom-pons. At a baseball game. Yes, cheerleaders. At a baseball game. To each his own. At least the Diamond Dancers earned their keep — late in the game, they circulated through the crowd with garbage bags, collecting recyclable items from the remaining fans.

Ah, California!

The food was solid — a burrito served enchilada style for $6.50 and a three-dollar bottle of Diet Coke. And they let me keep the cap! How they knew I wouldn’t hurl it onto the field and trigger a riot, I’ll never know. I just appreciated the trust.

Back to the game, where Kinney cruised into the seventh, when his defense let him down. After Pride led off with a single, a bit of indecision up the middle led to a cheap infield hit for Luke Allen. When third baseman Brian Dallimore botched Mathis’ sacrifice bunt, the bases were loaded with nobody out. Brian Gordon’s sac fly put the Stingers ahead 2-1, and Adam Pavkovich drove in another with a single before Kinney got out of the jam.

The seventh-inning stretch featured the ballpark organ playing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” followed by John Denver’s stirring rendition of “Thank God I’m A Country Boy.” Again, no fake patriotism, no flag-waving, no Lee Greenwood, even in strongly right-wing Fresno. I’m just saying.

They even had the Kiss Cam, ripped off from the Metrodome, which undoubtedly ripped it off from someplace else. I hadn’t even noticed its absence Monday night in San Francisco, but I shouldn’t be surprised. The Giants don’t do the Kiss Cam for the same reason the Lynx don’t — some fans just aren’t prepared for what they might see.

With Kinney gone in the eighth, the bullpen faltered a bit, as Allen led off the ninth with a monster blast to straightaway center field, over a 30-foot batter’s eye. Too bad he didn’t pull it to right — instead of a $25,000 Subway Hot Spot, Grizzlies Stadium features a plank on the scoreboard that says, “Hit Sign, Win Fruit.”

The Grizz got one back in the bottom of the ninth on Mickey Lopez’s home run, but with the tying runs on base, Dallimore and Tony Torcato struck out to end it, 4-2 Salt Lake. The totals on the board were correct, and the game checked in at 2 hours, 27 minutes — meaning the last five innings took nearly two hours.

I crashed the box seats behind the plate for the final inning, and that’s where the differences between Triple-A and the majors were most obvious. The ball just sounded different coming off the bat. Many of these guys still have aluminum bat swings, wet-newspaper swats that too often produce sagging grounders that struggle to get through the bone-dry infield grass into the infielders’ waiting gloves. In Triple-A, the players generally get the job done — it just doesn’t always look pretty. Catchers staggering under foul popups before making bacon-saving catches; first basemen turning routine 3-1 groundouts into epic adventures; and all those soggy grounders.

That just won’t cut it in the bigs — that’s why they’re here. And by the way, if Minnesota doesn’t build a new Twins stadium, they’ll be there, too. And the Twin Cities can become a cold Fresno.

Although after 105 degrees, that doesn’t sound so bad right now.

Next Stop: San Luis Obispo

Let this be a lesson to all of you. A teachable moment, as they say in the corporate world, or at least as they used to say in the corporate world. Or in the sub-corporate world. An old boss once said it to me anyway, after I threatened to shove a Big Mike’s submarine sandwich down a customer’s throat.

At any rate, do you see how much good can be accomplished in this mean, mean world with one simple apology? One small gesture can make all the difference between a lifetime of festering resentment and inexplicably horrendous play on the baseball field, and, well…a three-game winning streak and what I guess I’ll go ahead and call a sort of pervasive atmosphere of good will. I won’t yet go so far as to call it a Love-Fest. Let’s give it another week before we get carried away.

I don’t ask for much from any of the miserable wretches who visit this site –there are, I think, something like thirty-seven or thirty-eight of you a day– but in this instance I’m going to have to demand a little bit of credit where credit is clearly due.

So, come on everybody, get in line. It’s Leo Buscaglia time. Zellar needs some hugs.

While I bask in the many much deserved bouquets of thanks, appreciation, and, I’ve no doubt, a few disturbingly obsessive missives that have hero worshiper and stalker written all over them, I’m going to run some dispatches from Patrick Donnelly, a damn fine fellow and writer who covers the Twins from time to time. Patrick’s out on the road at the moment, taking in some West Coast games, and he’s been –and hopefully will continue to be– kind enough to check in for however long his money and patience holds out. His first stop was in San Francisco, the city of broad shoulders, hog butcher to the world, the toddlin’ town, the city that never sleeps, the mistake by the lake, etc.

SBC Park, San Francisco
July 18, 2005

It’s been repeated so many times that it could be apocryphal, but if Mark Twain didn’t say that thing about how the coldest winter he ever spent was summer in San Francisco, he damn well should have.

I’m on the first leg of my five-games-in-five-days journey through California. For reasons I don’t care to get into, the trip started in Las Vegas. Three days, temps topping out in the range of 115 freakin’ degrees, and though it’s a dry heat, so is a kiln. The weekend in San Francisco was a welcome change — an almost autumnal chill, fog so thick we couldn’t see the Golden Gate Bridge as we walked across it, and a sourdough tang in the air.

I boarded the Muni at the Moscone Civic Center station and headed to SBC Park (a.k.a. The Park Formerly Known As Pac Bell, or The House That Barry Balco Built) for the Giants’ post-All-Star Break home opener against the Atlanta Braves. The hometown nine had just come within an eyelash of sweeping four from the hated Dodgers at Chavez Ravine and were looking to scratch their way into the NL West race, while the Braves were welcoming Chipper Jones back into the lineup after another extended stay on the disabled list.

You know how every park has its own unique aroma that triggers a flood of memories from every game you’ve seen there? The old Met always smelled of cigar smoke and stale beer (but in a good way) and took me back to my first big-league ballgame, where I saw my hero Rod Carew, and marveled at Oscar Gamble’s afro. The Metrodome’s bouquet of boiled meat products and plastic grass always reminds me of the glory days of the Dan Mastellar Era.

Well, in San Francisco, garlic is one of the four major food groups (along with bread, chowder and chocolate), and SBC Park is all about the garlic smell. Garlic fries. Garlic chicken sandwiches. Garlic beer (probably — if not, I’m sure they’re working on it). I can’t wait to find out what memories that smell will trigger the next time I see a game here.

The buzz that filled SBC was entirely foreign to me, having been raised on Domeball. The Giants are six years into their new home, twelve games under .500 and in the neighborhood of ten games behind the first-place Padres, yet some 42,000 fans ventured down to McCovey Cove on a damp, gloomy Monday night. Contrast that with the 20,308 the Twins drew for a game with wild-card implications against the Baltimore Orioles on the same night. Still think a new park wouldn’t be a draw in Minneapolis?

The fans stayed engaged throughout the game, despite seeing the Braves pull ahead 3-0 in the first inning on back-to-back homers by Andruw Jones and Chipper Jones. The Giants didn’t scratch out a run until the sixth inning and lost 6-1, and decided to make me feel right at home, stranding eight runners in the first four innings and grounding into a double play with the bases loaded.

But that was just about the only similarity to baseball, Metrodome style, that I saw on Monday. Obviously a new park will have nicer amenities, but the perks at SBC are flat-out ridiculous. I knew I wasn’t in Kansas City anymore as I grabbed a Guinness (Guinness!) on tap (on tap!) and settled into my seat down the third-base line.

Talk about disorienting. I was twenty rows up, even with the bullpen mound, and my seat actually faced the center of the diamond. Instead of staring out toward center field or cranking my back to see home plate, I stared right at the pitcher. What a concept.

Andruw Jones hit his second two-run shot of the night in the third inning, doinking it off the foul pole just to my left, to put the Braves ahead 5-0, but nothing seemed to dampen the spirits of the Giants fans. I strolled over to the left-field corner, near the massive Coke bottle and oversized mitt sculpture, where the packed bleachers hummed with energy.

Every ballpark has its share of wacky fans, including the screaming twenty-something guy lubed up with liquid courage making a spectacle of himself. (Ah, memories.) But instead of trying to start the wave, the wacky SBC guy was pointing out Braves fans and trying to get the crowd to turn on them. When the kid wasn’t getting the desired result, he finally screamed out, “Hey! That guy, over there! He’s a Republican!”

He then turned to his buddy and said, “Here in California, that’s all they’ll respond to.”

I wandered past Orlando’s BBQ, named for former Giants star Orlando Cepeda, where the Baby Bull Tri-Tip Sandwich and Cha-Cha Bowl have become legend, but I knew I had to dine at the Stinking Rose concession stand, where you can get authentic, garlic-laced cuisine from the legendary North Beach restaurant. I inhaled a meatball sandwich that would make Steve Lombardozzi weep like Batgirl meeting Torii Hunter [editor’s note: for the record, it has been documented that Batgirl held up admirably in the presence of Torii Hunter. No tears were witnessed, none, we feel certain, were shed, at least by anyone other than bench coach Steve Liddle, who wept copiously in the presence of BG]. I knew I wouldn’t get a better meal in The City for the seven bucks I’d just spent.

The beverage selection at SBC is pretty phenomenal. You’ve got your standard macrobrews, your boutique beers, your Anchor Steam (the real San Francisco treat), your Guinness and Harp (did I mention they’re on tap?), and amazingly enough, there’s even a PBR kiosk, where you can fight through a crowd of aging hipsters in trucker caps to pay eight bucks for a Midwestern classic. Of course, there’s an array of wine selections for the effete liberals, and don’t get me started on Tully’s Coffee, where the lattes flowed like water. Fancy an Irish Coffee from the Buena Vista, where the drink was invented? They’ve got a stand at SBC too.

And –get this– they serve popcorn that’s actually popped before your very eyes, not hauled up from the bowels of the stadium in a body bag, fresh as Chris Berman’s home run derby schtick. What a revelation.

The fans roared at the cable car races on the scoreboard between innings, then sang along with “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” played on an actual ballpark organ, and not followed by some faux patriotic right-wing anthem –go figure.

The views were breathtaking from everywhere in the park, especially the right-field pavilion overlooking McCovey Cove, where the winds whipped up in the late innings and dropped the temps easily into the low fifties. I capped the night with a trip to the souvenir stand, where sixteen bucks got me the fastest-selling item of the evening –a Giants stocking cap.

Somewhere, Mark Twain is smiling.

Next up: Fresno

What do you want from me? Answers? I’m out of answers, brothers and sisters. In fact, I’m completely out of questions. I’ve got a head full of nothing, and whatever nonsense or wisdom I might cough up isn’t going to be of any use to a baseball team that right now couldn’t find its way out of the belly of a sawdust whale if you supplied it with a can of gasoline and a box of strike-anywhere matches.

Say what, Minnesota Twins organization? You want an apology? For what? What the hell did I ever do to you? You want me to apologize for that time I threw your Boy Scout Day promotional giveaway canteen in Turtle Creek when I was nine years old? Really? Is that what this is all about? Would that make you happy?

Fine, then, I’m sorry. How about if I tell you I’ve been waking up sorry every morning since that disgraceful and uncharacteristic episode, and that I’m sorrier now than I ever was? How about if I tell you that that one youthful indiscretion completely ruined my life, and made my parents curse the day I was born?

There. Does that make you feel better? Can we please shake hands and forget it ever happened and get on with more important matters now? Because, seriously, if you don’t get your act together by August 3rd, when the Lutherans invade the Dome, you’re going to be one sorry organization. If you give those people a performance that in any way, shape, or form resembles your performances of the last week, mark my words, or at least mark the words of my old friend Mick Garry, who knows only too well the havok Lutherans can wreak: those people will tear that Teflon Dump right down to the studs.

It’s pretty apparent by this time that there isn’t a single trade in the world that’s going to make any kind of significant difference in the Twins’ fortunes. And, sure, I remember the Shannon Stewart trade, but that was then and this is now. At the moment there isn’t one guy who could reinvigorate this line-up, or make up for the feeble offensive production of the rest of the team.

This has all been particularly disappointing, of course, because on paper this year’s team –even with the question marks on the left side of the infield– sure as hell looked like it was going to be much improved offensively. What’s happened this year is a systemic failure. You can’t point to any one player or any one game or at-bat and say, see, there’s the problem, right there’s where the train came off the tracks. It’s pervasive. There’s absolutely no consistency –and this applies across the board, up and down the roster– from one game or at-bat to the next.

The Twins have just been maddeningly hapless at the plate, and you almost have no choice but to question the basic, fundamental approach. Or maybe it’s the scouting reports. There must be some explanation, though, for the steady regression, because this team simply shouldn’t be this feeble offensively. They seem utterly incapable most nights of generating the kind of contagious offensive momentum that leads to big innings and rallies.

So I’ll ask you, as KRS-ONE once asked, relative to much more pressing and cosmically troubling questions: “Why is that?”

It beats the hell out of me. It does. It is. Beating. The. Living. Hell. Out. Of. Me.

And I wonder this: what do you suppose the ERA of the Twins pitching staff would be if they had to face the Twins line-up every night?

I’m guessing under 2.00.

Shit, Rick Reed, fresh off his most serious shower mishap or airplane-sleeping injury, would eat this team alive right now.

Indubitably that wasn’t precisely the performance any of us were pining to see from the local nine coming out of the All Star getaway. And, agreed, Bret Boone wasn’t quite the shot in the bum we all so desperately hoped he might be. And yes, yes, I did see that the Chicago lumbermen were victorious again this evening. A wee bit discouraging, I’ll grant you, but it all adds up to so much stuff and nonsense in the long run.

Let’s try to be patient with the local lads, shall we? It’s early yet. They were bound to be a tad fagged after the holiday, and, good heavens, poor Bret Boone has barely had time to sort through his luggage and find his way to the ball yard. He probably hasn’t even managed to locate his neighborhood pub or Cracker Barrel. I don’t suppose, in fact, that he even has a proper neighborhood yet. So let’s give the fine fellow a chance to settle in and unpack his tea set, shall we, before we start passing judgment on his acquisition. This is, after all, a true gentleman who is also by all accounts a cracking good ballplayer, or at least was once upon a time, before he lost his way and wandered into a paper bag and discovered he couldn’t hit his way back out of it.

This sort of thing happens to even the worthiest of wandsmen from time to time, and I’m sure Boonie –that’s what the other fellows around the circuit like to call the new lad sporting the Minnesota togs– will be just fine. I’m certain of it, in fact. He is what the baseball insiders like to call “a gamer.” That means…I’m not certain, actually, what exactly that means, but I do believe it means more or less the sort of chap you’d like to have in the foxhole with you when the Huns come charging with their muskets, the kind with sharp objects attached to the end. Very dangerous piece of weaponry, that, if I’m not mistaken. A gamer, I should think, would come in right handy at just that moment.

As for tonight’s admitted disappointment, let’s try to look on the bright side. The fellows struck for two runs against a most crafty southpaw, which is more than they very easily could have struck for. They could have struck for zero runs, which would have been, no doubt about it, absolute rubbish. But, no, two runs! Much better than zero! Jolly good! Etc.

The Lohse youngster “pitched his tail off,” as the salty skipper of the Minnesota club is fond of saying. Indeed he did “pitch his tail off.” Not half bad, I say, not half bad at all. In fact, a bit better than not half bad, if I don’t say so. The others, the hurlers who were summoned from the bullpen (a charming and colorful bit of the parlance, that), acquitted themselves most handsomely as well.

The other fellows across the way were just that much better tonight, and there’s not a thing in the world for that other than to hoist a cup and salute the victors for a valiant effort. Well done, worthy adversary, well done!

And to our local batsmen I can only say, as I have said so often in this long campaign, ‘Chin up, my lads, be of stout heart and stern resolve, for tomorrow’s another day, and even a blind dog’s likely to turn up the odd bone now and again.’

Can we just start the All Star break now? Seriously, let’s go ahead and forfeit tomorrow’s game and give the boys an extra day’s rest. Go on and send Joe Nathan to Detroit, but keep Johan home. He needs some quiet time, maybe one of those spirit retreats the New Age hippies used to talk about. Maybe they still talk about them, the goofy bastards. Nothing good can come of letting Johan go to Detroit, though. It would be tantamount, in fact, to handing a suicidally depressed man a straight razor.

For God’s sake, people, have you been to Detroit lately?

I doubt that you have, but if the answer is ‘yes,’ would you care to explain yourself?

Tonight’s performance was disgraceful. The sixth inning was as wretched as any single inning in the last ten years. I can’t think of a more miserable game in recent memory. This is, after all, the Kansas City Royals, and the Twins are being administered a stinging high colonic with barbecue sauce. Let’s all hope like hell it has some sort of long-term therapeutic effect, although I certainly don’t know why it would. I can assure you that it’s never worked for me.

Everything about that game sucked, other than the fact that poor Luis Rivas had his first extra base hit of the season. And his second. And his third. Luis put the Twins on his back and carried them…he carried them…he, uh, oh, shit, that’s right, he didn’t carry them anywhere, because right now this team is just too damn heavy for anyone to carry, let alone Luis Rivas. Or Mike Redmond.

Need I remind anyone that it’s Saturday night, by the way? What the hell was I doing sitting home on a Saturday night watching a demolition derby on television? I could have cleaned my garage. Or torn it down. Or given myself a tattoo. Or even gone over to Uptown to gawk at the aliens.

There’s not a damn thing, really, that any of us can say about that game, but I will tell you what I’d be happy to live without. I’d be happy to live without Dick and Bert constantly singing the praises of Shannon Stewart’s virtues as a sparkplug at the top of the order.

Because right now Stewart has an on base percentage of .338. That’s two points higher than Michael Cuddyer’s OBP, and there are nine guys on the roster who have higher on base percentages, including such famously patient hitters as Torii Hunter and Jacque Jones. Stewart has drawn 22 walks. Five guys have more walks. He has five stolen bases. He is, in short, not a leadoff hitter anymore. I’m sorry about that, but it’s time to face the facts, particularly since one of the problems for this team all year has been that all sorts of guys have been playing (and pitching) out of position.

I hope the game’s not on TV tomorrow, even though I like to think I have the good sense to avoid it entirely if it is. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to even think about it. I want to go down to the Dome next Thursday with a brand new scorebook and pretend that tonight –and all the other nights too much like tonight– never happened.

Come Thursday I intend to start the season all over with a clean slate. And I expect that the Twins are going to do the same.