My husband is a Minnesota Twins fan. Me? Not as much. I like them, sure. But I don’t follow the games and how many whatevers they are out of first or who has come up or been shipped back down, etc, ad nauseum – because if you are going to follow baseball… and I mean, REALLY follow it, you have to keep room in your head for millions of stats and rules and players and minors and majors and when you have to tag people and when you don’t and JESUS CHRIST there is a lot to remember.
So, I, cheerfully, remember none of it.
However, I am married to a man who not only remembers all of it, but is glad to tell me ALL ABOUT IT and never is bothered by the fact that he probably already told me that in the American Leauge, pitchers don’t bat at least 47 times since we’ve been married or that I still don’t know what he means EXACTLY when he talks about the bullpen. You could figure that he’s infinitely patient with me (you’d be right) or you could figure that the man loves to explain baseball to anyone willing to listen (you’d be right again) and even that I don’t really ask him much about things he likes that I could give a shit about (cars, BurnOut, programming, how the DVR works, ETC, ETC, ETC) very often and that it always takes me down a notch when I see how happy he is that I’m taking an interest, if only momentarily, about something he likes to talk about a lot. A LOT A LOT ALOT.
So, for the last 3 days I’ve heard a lot of blah, blah, blah about the White Sox and the Twins. It involved a lot of half game out blah and then more about how when they play the half game is actually a whole game because you get both the win and loss together like when you bite two gummy bears in half and then smash them together and then eat it anyway, but in a far less baseballish way. So each game was worth a LOT and did I know that THERE ARE ONLY 6 REGULAR GAMES LEFT IN THE SEASON?!!!
No, honey, I didn’t.
So, for several days I listened to his phone go off every half an hour sending him updates on the games…and he would put the game on after I’d gone to bed… and I knew we’d won 2 of the 3 games and that it was really, really, really important that we win all three (which is called SWEEPING THEM and does not involve cleaning unless you say it really sassy like, “We cleaned their clocks!” but you wouldn’t really do that with a broom… so, nevermind.)
Last night, we put the game on and when he saw the score was Twins 5 Sox 6 , he almost had an aneurism on our living room floor and I swear to god you would have thought someone told him that Santa Claus was here to grant him that million dollars he was hoping for, oh and also, it’s being delivered by Salma Hayek, who is naked. He was THAT EXCITED.
So, being the loving and giving wife that I am WHO REALLY WANTED TO WATCH SURVIVOR, I put the game on and he explained that last he’d checked the Twins were way down – 6-1 so this was a major comeback of epic proportions.
I played my part. Every time a new Twin came on screen I said, “Who dat?”
And then Kory would tell me every recorded statistic about that player known to man… where they lived, where they went to school, what personal problems they were currently dealing with the specifics and location of their birth.
I’m exaggerating, but only a little. A really little.
Mauer, I know. Mr. Sideburns. Mr. Every Woman In My Office Is In Love With Him Mr. Smack It Hard (giggle)
Cuddyer, I remembered from previous seaons… but he’s been hurt and not doing so well and no one is completely sure how well he will do because he’s been out most of the season. I imagine a large cow doing that funny sideways chewing thing whenever I see his name on TV.
I should say HERE that I am doing this strictly from memory so if I mess any of this up, blame me, not Kory. In fact, if Kory reads this and I’ve gotten anything wrong… he will probably immediately start bleeding from his ears. So, blame me. I don’t care. I’m tired and surely will have ear blood to mop up soon.
Then there’s SPAN, who I called “SPAWN” because I thought it gave it some Eurpean flare and was quickly corrected that it was just plain old Span. I can’t remember Span’s first name, but for some reason I think it’s something like Desitin. I doubt he’s actually named after diaper cream, but it’s close to that. Bygones.
I think this is the guy who was called up and has been on fire ever since, even though he wasn’t exactly stellar in the minors. He musta known a guy.
There’s another guy called Gomez who had a great game with a bunch of doubles and triples or slams or something…. and this kid is YOUNG. I made a few comments about whether it was really appropriate to wear giant gold necklaces with one’s athelic uniform and Kory just rolled his eyes. I think this is the kid that got called up and then sucked wind and got thrown back down and then called back up again and is also now “ON FIRE“. Gomez did an extremely jubliant (and slightly smuggy) limbo/chest-thumping move that was sort of endearing until I had to watch it a few dozen times during replays and highlights. He was then approached by a reporter and it was sort of like listening to my daughter talk.
Example of my daughter talking:
hubla obbla BALL oh blee hum ELMO uh oh NUMMY NUMMY hubla oh APPLE!
I get what she’s saying, basically: I see my ball. I love Elmo. I would like some food.
This is Gomez talking to the reporter:
hubla obbla TEAM oh blee hum BALL uh oh BETTER hubla oh THEN I PUT BAT ON BALL.
Which I think means: I like this team. It’s better now. Then I put bat on ball.
There are also guys like Morneau, which my husband calls Morneausy. Which I really hope is something all Twins fans do and not something kind of pansy-sounding that my husband said to make me more interested.
And there is Alexi Casilla, who hit the winning single to win the game… WHICH WAS A WALK-OFF, if you didn’t know. Which means that since it was extra innings then as soon as you score you walk off the field and spit at the other team.
I asked if my boyfriend BOOF pitched and he said yes and rolled his eyes for at least the 10th time, which means the man is the SAINT OF INFINITE PATIENCE because I was baiting him, for sure.
Only TEN eyerolls? I have failed you, Sensei.
When they won, he lept like a baseball-drugged gazelle about the living room and hooted until I reminded him that I would have to stab him in the eye with a shish-kabob skewer if he woke The Baby up.
And I sat back and sighed… and prepared to go to bed completely unaware of the diatribe that was about to occur because
NOW WE PLAY THE ROYALS! (who aren’t that good, but have been playing well of late and have won 12 of their last 15 games and blah blah!)
THE SOX PLAY CLEVELAND! (who also aren’t great, but almost really good and almost went to The Series last year and is the team that we should be worried about next year and they have won 30 of their last 45 games and that IS REALLY GOOD, SISTER… ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? BLAH! BLAH!)
WE ARE A HALF GAME UP BUT IF WE END UP A HALF UP OR A HALF DOWN THEN THERE IS A MAKEUP GAME THAT CHICAGO WILL HAVE TO PLAY (because there was rain a hundred years ago and it was randomly drawn to happen at home and it’s against Detroit.. and WE DO NOT WANT THIS GAME TO BE PLAYED)
and then a bunch of this:
WE HAVE OUR DESTINY IN OUR OWN HANDS!
ITS OURS TO LOSE!
WE ARE SERIOUS CONTENDERS!
…and that’s when I told him that he could lollygag around the infield all he wanted, I was going to bed.
Even as I fell asleep, I could hear him watching the highlights AGAIN and a light boom, boom, boom sound as he hopped up and down on our wood floors, riding his Twins Baseball high…