Cheer For the Minnesota Twins Today

I am totally neutral about baseball. I honestly don’t think I could name more than five players on the current Minnesota Twins roster.

It’s not like I have no understanding of why people enjoy it. I followed the Twins back in 1987 and 1991, the two years they were in, and won, the World Series. I was even at Game 6 in 1987 when Kent Hrbek hit his monstrous grand slam. Sometime between now and then though, my interest faded away. Maybe if I knew who the current players are and was halfway familiar with the ups and downs of the season, I’d care.

To celebrate Memorial Day this year, I decided to take part in that very American activity of watching a baseball game. I’ll be doing it from the comfort of my recliner instead of at the stadium, but I’ll watch the whole thing. I’ll even wear my token Twins hat, and take a nap before the game starts to try and keep the recliner from getting the best of me. Maybe today’s game will be so dramatic and exciting it will be the tipping point that reignites my interest. Isn’t that supposed to be the thing about baseball? You never know what’s going to happen….

*The announcers are telling me that yesterday’s game was unusually long, something like 15 innings and over six hours. That sounds like Purgatory to me.

*I suspect I'm going to see more commercials for pick-up trucks than I will for prescription medication this afternoon.

*Hey what do you know, the Twins are in first place! Woo hoo! I suppose I would have known this if I didn't turn off the news after the weather forecast and looked at the sports section of the newspaper ever.

*The game starts. Ervin Santana is pitching? I think I've heard of him. Apparently he's really good. 

*The people in the stands, even behind home plate, all seem really calm. It occurs to me that baseball fans are more like tennis fans than football fans, sitting politely as the game goes on, engaged in their conversations since there is a fair amount of downtime during a game, then paying attention in short bursts of half-excitement and getting really worked up when something that affects the outcome of the game happens.

*Okay. First Twins batter is Brian Dozier. I've heard of him. I also recognize Joe Mauer, Eddie Rosario, and Byron Buxton. It's possible I even spelled all of their names correctly. I think I said I probably knew about five players, so if you count Ervin Santana, there they are. And it took me about as long to write that as it took for the first three batters to get out. Baseball fans: Am I imagining this, or do the first two innings always seem to go faster than the others?

*It seems like the atmosphere crafted here is meant to be low-key entertainment. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the game everyone! Have a snack! All of the commercials are about the simple pleasures of the good life: dreaming about buying a new truck, hanging out at the lake, having a cell phone that doesn't cost a ton of money. Hey kids, who wants some Dairy Queen? The whole tone seems more about the long season then something you need to focus on at every moment. 162 games? A season stretching from Early April to late October? Things happen very gradually. Plus they use organ music to fire up the crowd instead of "Crazy Train" or "Thunderstruck."

*Dick Bremer just announced he’s more interested in professional baseball in general this year because the Twins are doing well. I think this gives me some excuse for not following them over the past 26 years.

*Top of the 4th and the Astros score. A home run, followed by two guys in the outfield getting mixed up and letting a guy make it to third. Then the guy runs it in on a wild pitch. Houston up 2-0. That's enough in baseball for the game to be over. Of course, it could only take two Twins batters to turn things around and even it out. Maybe that's another part of the appeal: You’re lulled into complacency by the strike outs and the pop flys and the walks, and then HOLY COW something happens out of nowhere.

*Joe Mauer gets on first. Is he the first Twin to get on base? He might be.

*I have to say, I like seeing it when the camera shows guys from opposite teams just chatting and joking while they're waiting for the pitch. I mean, I can’t hear what they’re saying or read their lips so these guys could be fearsome competitors who are absolutely cussing each other out through their smiles, but it just doesn't seem like it. Everything else going on here is so chill, why not expect the players to be fairly decent to each other while being professionals at the same time?

*The commentators are talking about the weather now. Isn't that what you fall back on when you have nothing else to say? That's how chill all of this is. How can this be the same game that so many parents get absolutely fire-breathing insane about when their kids are playing it?

*Has any pitcher in the history of baseball ever gotten someone out when they throw to first to keep the runner from leading off too far?

*They just brought up some quick animation to show how accurate Santana's pitches are, and I involuntarily had the song "Strike Zone" by Loverboy pop into my head.

*All right! One of the guys I've never heard of just got an RBI triple. No outs. Maybe this is where things are going to turn around.

*Or not. Next guy grounded out. He took off his helmet on the way back to the dugout to reveal a haircut almost exactly like one of the boys in my class. It makes me wonder: Do kids copy their hair styles from pro athletes, or is it the other way around?

*Wild pitch! The guy on third steals home! 2-2 with a runner on 2nd and two outs. Brian Dozier puts it just past second base and another run comes in! Then Robbie Grossman comes up. I know this guy's name is Robbie Grossman now because his at-bat took about twenty-five minutes, which was long enough to get me wondering, "How many adults who aren't professional baseball players would ever go by 'Robbie?'" He gets to a full count then hits a double, which is enough to get Brian Dozier home. 4-2 Twins....no, wait, Joe Mauer gets a hit and sends Robbie Grossman home. I stand corrected. 5-2 Twins. Then here comes Miguel Sano. Home run. He brings Joe Mauer home and we're at 7-2. 

*Now they're back in the field, and in no time there are two outs. But then they stay at two outs until the bases are loaded, and then...Holy downpour, Batman! This is an indoor recess amount of rain. It lasts literally minutes, and then the sun comes out in full force. Finally the 3rd out. Do the fifth and sixth innings always take this long?

*Seventh inning. After two long innings, I'm not feeling any momentum anymore. I just glanced at the coffee table and saw the book I started reading a couple days ago. It was tempting to pick it up and just leave the game on in the background.

*Now it's the top of the 8th, and finally something happens, bumping the score up to 8-5. Wait, what? 8? Hmm. Guess I rested my eyes for a moment there. I'm seeing rain ponchos come back out, and I swear I just heard thunder in the background. Here comes the tarp, which will be out just long enough to get wet before they'll have to roll it back up. The camera crew is showing the guy from the Astros who was up to bat throwing a tantrum about the rain delay. Dude, seriously. You've got a lot of games left to play this season. You need to grab the reins and get over your superhero self.

*The game is back on. The camera just caught Paul Molitor blowing two bubble gum bubbles at once. If that was intentional, I'd be impressed.

*Another Astros hit. The ball drops down just out of Eddie Rosario's reach, even though he slid on the wet grass to get there. 9-8 Astros. 

*It’s still the top of the 8th. Bert Blyleven just said this feels like the inning that wouldn't end. The score is 13-8 with two outs and almost three and a half hours of my life invested in this.

*I think I've pieced together why I'm not much of a baseball fan. I've been mentally done with this game for awhile now, but I can't bring myself to stop watching out the same feeling of obligation I have that keeps me from just giving up on a book I’m not really enjoying. (The only time I’ve ever done that was for Tom Clancy’s “Clear and Present Danger.”) l feel as if the past four hours would be wasted if I just changed the channel to see what else might be on. The relaxing tone that seemed so appealing earlier in the game is the same thing that makes it easy for me to not really care anymore.

*It’s now 16-8 in the bottom of the ninth, after the Astros brought in FOURTEEN unanswered runs. I’m kind of hoping the next few Twins hitters are all thinking it might be better to just pretend to try and save their energy for the next game in the series tomorrow night. Two outs. The count is 2-1. They just showed how few fans are still in the stands, and the place looks even more empty than it did during the pre-game show. One more strike, and there it is. Whew. 

*I think if there was some way to guarantee that a baseball game was going to be over in two and a half hours at the most, I’d probably find them more interesting. But four hours? That’s a long time to do anything, much less passively watch something you’re only a little invested in.

Perhaps the biggest irony of this game is that I looked on Facebook about an hour ago and saw photos posted from Target Field that showed my sister, my brother-in-law, and my parents all actually there at this game I’ve been watching.

Clearly whenever they made plans to go, they knew better than to ask if I wanted to come along. I know there will be many games played this summer that will be much more fun to watch than this one was, but I can't help feeling I dodged a tiny bullet by watching from my soft and warm recliner instead of from beneath a cheap plastic rain poncho.