Another baseball season is approaching the finish line. Before this one departs my dad and I made the trip to the Metrodome earlier than normal for the 12:05 start time for the Minnesota Twins versus the Oakland Athletics last Saturday. Our early arrival downtown was needed because of President Obama's lunchtime speech at the Target Center in conjunction with neverending 35W construction concerns. Why not have an early lunch at Hubert's located right across from the ballpark we thought? I had never been in the restaurant/bar and thought this would probably be the last chance I would have due to baseball games moving across town to the shiny new Target Field next year. Inside Huberts one gets the atmopshere everyone deserves when they enter a sportsbar. There are pictures of Twins and Vikings that are no longer around in body or in uniform and framed magazines are mounted on walls that have held those same magazines for at least a decade. Walking around the bar you see players who defined the games of your childhood, but soon we had to journey across the street to see players that the youth of today will see up in a sportsbar 20 years from now.
The funny thing about baseball is as a fan you just want a chance to play for something. The Twins entering the game had barely a 10% of making the playoffs. Those are good enough odds for a baseball fan. They don't need anymore than that, they may want more, but 10% is enough to watch a game and think it is meaningful. Not just a meaningless piece is a 162 piece puzzle. As Jeff Manship labored through the first inning my dad and I wondered who the best Jeff was to wear a Twins uniform. Jeff Reed, Jeff Reboulet, Jeff Reardon, there's no doubt it had to be Reardon we thought as Manship got through the first inning without giving up a run. As Manship struggled through 4 innings the family in front of us faced dilemmas of their own. Bringing the family of four to the ballpark always sounds like an enjoyable experience until the reality that baseball's leisurely pace wasn't designed for children under 4 years of age. The mom and dad struggled with occupying their children with treats brought from home. They were quickly rejected as unsatisfying. A Reeses peanut butter cup was soon found, but little chocolate fingerprints on the back of mom's pink Twins shirt showed all around who would win today . The family disharmony was repaired with a big helping of cotton candy that both children kept their attention focused to. Smiles returned to the parents, but they knew they were outmatched and left after Manship called it a day in the fourth inning.
A word on Manship. He with the strong jaw line seems to be the kind of pitcher that appears in control of himself with the willingness to go deep into a game. It is a false front. When he loses it, "it" is gone in a hurry. No 100 pitches for him. At about 65-75 pitches he peters out. The life of a relief pitcher may be what he tells his grandchildren about.
The Twins snooze through much of the game. Moments that stand out are the startling catch a fellow fan makes 15 feet away from us on a line shot. He decided to bring his glove and will never leave home for a ballgame without it. He snagged the line drive with ease that left my dad and I wondering if we would have the same success if put in a similar situation. Another snapshot is of Justin Morneau. He has decided to try and slug his way out of his current batting slump. He takes Herculean swings that would make Ruth blush. Those swings often result in him badly miss timing the ball and evoking oddly angled foul balls into the stands. Sluggers never try to ease their way out of a slump. What fun would that be?
The Twins are losing 4-2 in the 6th inning and second and third base are occupied with Athletics. Jesse Crain let two runs score quickly erasing the work the Twins did in catching up the prior half inning. Mijares makes his point as one of the best relief men in baseball by shutting down the A's in 1.2 innings with 4 strikeouts and giving his team a chance to win. He's a few sizes larger than he ought to be, but for the Twins he along with Matt Guerrier have solidified a bullpen teams had been punching holes through earlier in the year. Now the Twins enter the most unsettling part of the year with Mijares. The offseason. He'll be out of country and most likely not turning away many meals. They can only hope he makes it to Florida in "a shape" somewhat similar to the one he is currently. The Twins lose the game 4-2, Mijares kept them in it, but their bats were never in it. Those playoff chances sink below 10% and fans turn their thoughts to the Vikings playing the next day. But wait, the Tigers lose that night, the Twins clobber the A's the next day 8-0 and hope becomes a flicker again.
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