Amen

http://www.slate.com/id/2140038/?nav=tap3

THE GREATEST (regular season) GAME EVER

Trust me: I, better than anybody, understand that this blog is starting to take on the monochromatic complexion of All Twins All the Time, and while I do have many other recent and entirely worthy preoccupations to blather about (I do! I really do!) like say, the new Flaming Lips album, Henderson the Rain King, my impending EPIC trip to Philly/NYC--Leaving in three days!--the Kurosawa movies I watched this weekend and those random observations of human thruths that amuse and confound us all, the cold hard fact of the matter is that baseball season is a veritable 7-month solar eclipse in la vida loca de King Fun that stunts my general sociability, any and all sense of ambition and general interest in, well, just about everything else. What can I say? After banishing my id for a long walk through the cold woods last October, he has returned, giantic and hirsute and monstrosly hungry, craving nothing but Twins baseball. Chained to the wall though he may be, I still have to feed the beast. I have no choice.

That said: Saturday night.

Twins: 6
Yankees: 5

And I was there.

Oh. My. God. OH! MY! GOD! How many superlatives can we apply to nine innings of madness, disapointment, righteous fury, anxiety, true blue drama and then the ultimate ecstasy of refulgent, holy holy glorious victory? During Easter week, too! The Passion of Justin Morneau! If we were to take months, perhaps years analyzing this single game, could we create a work of art that explained everything that makes this human comedy worthwhile? I bet we could. A patchwork quilt of irrational hagiography entitled something like this:

Do You Know The Meaning of Being Sanctified?: April 15, 2006: The Night Everything Beautiful & Right With Baseball, America & Life in General Occurred in Minneapolis

Understatement Alert: It is so, so satisfying beating the Yankees in the bottom of the ninth, watching Riviera blow a save in front of 40,000+ fanatic, screaming partisians (See? There is something that can turn all of these docile Lutherans insane). It is a singular experience that's virtually indescribable, rendering witnesses inarticulate by their own happiness, like when one sees the dopey, winsome, hangdog grins of people attempting to describe what it means to fall in love to a small child or something. The point is, well, you just have to experience it for yourself.

Nevertheless, I shall try: The thing about rallying in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Yankees is that it's a quintessential experience of righteousness defeating the darkness of evil. It's deliverance from the unremarkable denoument of seemingly nasty inevitability by a shining miracle that's as pure as the driven snow. It's the incarnation of baseball grace.

When the Twins blew a 4-run lead late in the game and it seemed as if the status quo would prevail and the Yankees' usurpation of the lead via rather boring and mechanical means reinforced their fans' preening, self-righteous expressions of exceptionalism and entitlement ("Well, of course we were going to take the lead and win. We're the Yankees."), it was, uh, really, really--I mean practically murderously--galling.

I have sat through way, way too many of these games (including Game 4 of the 2004 playoffs, which is, without a doubt, the single most disheartening game I have ever seen as a Twins fan). Here we go again, I thought. The clammy feeling of defeat due to the inexorable forces of rampant, ruthlessly coldblooded capitalism. The Yankees are the stupendously arrogant and greasy, gimlet-eyed robber barons; The Twins are the feeble, naive yet noble belief of farm systems and equal opportunity and meritocracy. It's a battle of The America That Is vs. The America That Could Be. Reality vs. The Dream. Why can't we do it? Just once, for the love of Puck? Just once?

Well, The Dream finally broke Reality's heart on Saturday night. And it was so beautiful, you wanted to cry.

I almost asphixiated from the noxious green clouds of eau de triumphalism rising from the bodies of Yankee fans sitting around me as Riviera strode to the mound for the ninth. But I held my breath and held onto my faith, standing on my feet and shouting with the rest of the crowd.

And then Castillo gets an infield hit. And then Joe Mauer hits a single and makes it to second on the throw. No outs, runners on second and third. A single wins the game. We could do this! I thought. We could really win!

But then Rondell White strikes out on a pitch aimed straight at his head (which is a whole 'nother rant altogether), and then Torii Hunter looks at a third strike right down the heart of the plate to go sit down (ARRGGHH!!!). And then, ladies and gentlemen, our collective hope for salvation was left in the dubious, precarious hands of Justin Morneau...

The baseball gods said to me, "You want drama? We'll give you drama!"

And each individual cell in my body called out in a resounding Greek chorus of nerves, responding, "Um, we think we're all going to simultaneously throw up now."

Morneau! My relationship with J-Dogg is, say we say, complicated: This is the same Morneau who, earlier in the same game, ran home on a grounder hit to the left side of the infield and was promptly thrown out (Don't they teach fundamentals in Canada?), the same underachieving Morneau who has the hapless expression of a retarded puppy on his face all the time, mirroring his performance on the diamond, a performance of manifest incompetence that dominates the rare flashes of everything everyone says about his physical gifts and the claims that he is in the incipient phase of entering the pantheon of baseball gods. Morneau? Really? He's more like Johnny Fontane abjectly asking for Don Corleone's help in The Godfather. You just want to pick him up outta his chair and slap him around a bit, screaming, "You can act like a man! Act like a man!" Morneau sent to save us! Of all people!

In my fit, my bursting paroxysm of indignation and pleading, I shouted, "C'mon, Justin! You owe me, buddy! YOU OWE ME!"

And then, on the first pitch, he hit a single to right field, and two runs scored, and we won the game. Morneau got a hit! A real hit! We actually won! Riviera blew a save! We won!

The Twins mobbed the field; the 40,000+ screamed the wild screams of sweet, orgiastic transcendence; and all of the Yankee players and fans looked down at their shoes with fixed, tearful gazes for a very, very long time. And then they all took out their infinitesimal, bite-sized hearts and quietly ate them.

I believe in the beauty of this world. I believe in miracles. I believe in my Minnesota Twins.

The Home Opener is Today

It's bigger than Christmas!!! I can't help but clockwatch, waiting to bail from the Corporate City glass tower and race down to the Little Wagon for some pre-game festivities before spending a lovely spring evening inside the Teflon Terrarium of Total Victory.

And God, if you can hear me, all I want--all I've ever wanted--is to win The Hormel Row of Fame...

Paltrow Has Baby Boy

She named it Moses (just in time for Passover, too), which is fine, but wasn't there some kind of contractual obligation forcing her to name her newborn son Banana?

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=220786&GT1=7701

On the Way to 161-1

Well, crap. The Twins drop the season opener. What can you do?

We all know that it takes a little while for Johann's Invincibility Machine to heat up after he turns it on, so the fact that he hung a couple of pitches up in an April game should surprise nobody--nor should it worry any of us in Twins Territory. And the offense wasn't completely anemic, which was nice (though not as nice as a win).

But you know what was nice, better than nice, what was frickin' awesome? That baseball season is BACK; that thousands of us out there were grilling hotdogs and drinking beers and sitting on couches while we screamed at the TV and at each other as we talked all things baseball. In the face of this, last night's loss hurts about as much as a flu shot.

It's baseball season! Woo hoo! Woo hooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah @ 400 Bar

Saturday night. It's like a fishing tale: I went to the 400 Bar and I once saw a line THIS BIG. The gaggle of young and eager beavers sinuously snaking down the length of the sidewalk, anxiously waiting entry into the Four Hundo. We opted for biding our pre-show time indoors with a couple of beers instead and skipped off to the Town Hall where a couple friends were about to eat dinner.

The Brunettes opened, which was like finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk. My brother and I saw them open for The Shins at First Avenue last year, and they won our "Best Opening Band of the Year" award. Just a fun, cute pop band from New Zealand that I will always have a lot of affection for. Their music makes you want to pinch their cheeks.

The beautiful thing about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and something I didn't notice until I saw the show (which surprised me, since I'm one of those guys who probably scares the crap out of small children on the highway with my boisterous rock-god/soul-crooner-in-the-car-solo singalongs), is that they are the best band around for throwing your voice out there. Just toss your voice across the room like a ragdoll. It's incredible.

For instance, take part of the lyrics from the refrain of the band's song "Upon This Title Wave of Young Blood," which looks like this, pallid and sterile in print:

But upon this tidal wave
Oh god oh god
But upon this tidal wave
Oh god oh god

Now, when you sing it like it's sung, it's more like this:

But upon this tidal waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh goooooood ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh gooooooooooood
But upon this tidal waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh goooooooooood ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh goooooooooooooooooooooood

And when approximately 300 people are doing this in unison in a cramped and sweaty cavernous bar with a great band, you experience that frisson of elation, that communal pleasure that only unified, democratic action provides (Why do you think Irish drinking songs are so much fun to sing?).

It's moments like this that remind you why you go to rock shows.

They are child stars...child stars...child stars...

God Bless The College Tobacconist

Doug Grow's Saturday column in the Star Tribune profiles Tiny's, the venerable Northfield cigarette & hotdog purveyor, and the recent removal of the establishment's "nefarious" snooker table. Check it out below:

"Taking Cue From Customers, Tiny's Breaks From Pool Past"
http://www.startribune.com/465/story/344461.html

Here's an excerpt:

"Just a couple of them were causing the problem," Sellers said. "I'd say, 'Let's watch the language.' It would be fine for a while, but then you'd hear a 'damn.' Then, it would just keep getting worse and worse."

Very Lake Woebegone, sho' 'nuff, but recalling the hundreds of hotdogs and packs of cigarettes I purchased from this fine establishment on my way to class warms the cockles of my black lungs.

You Heard it Here: The Twins Are Going All the Way

What a great weekend. I spent most of it compiling more proof that I lead a preposterously charmed life--Friday night: I scored two free tix to see Brian Jonestown Massacre/Tapes 'n Tapes show on May 7; Saturday: a 4-hour midday nap and a great Clap Your Hands Say Yeah show that night at the 400 Bar; Sunday: Saw T-Wolves OT win against the Golden State Warriors (Marcus Banks was on fire) with three of my brothers and then incredible, comfort food-filled Sunday night dinner at Dad & Stepmom's.

Nevertheless, there is a more pressing matter at hand: Twins baseball begins tomorrow.

This year, we are going all the way. You heard it here.

The sunny beginning, the proverbial clean slate, should always be a time for wildly optimisitc predictions and passionate, irrational partisianship. I will not take this moment to get all Ken Burnsy on you and rhapsodize about spring and baseball and the ubiquitous theme of renewal (Don't you notice how all that stuff sounds like a stoned hippie girl trying to write like Lorca? "The spring! The dewy grass! The pristine virgin baseball diamond! I hope! I hope!"), but if you call yourself a true Twins fan, you should believe that you will be waving your Homer Hankie and spraying celebratory Primos all over your friends and family when the Twins win it all in October.

I'm calling you out, Star Tribune! I'm calling you out, Mpls-St. Paul Magazine! Both of you predicted a third place finish in the AL Central? With a "maybe" for contending for the AL wild card? What's wrong with you? These feeble prognostications of mediocrity for our beloved squad will not stand! And don't try and shield yourselves behind some dubious explanation
of "objective journalism." You should know where your bread is buttered.

Take it from Murray Chass. A real journalist from a real paper. He knows the score:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/sports/baseball/02alcentral.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The road to Title Town begins tomorrow night in Toronto. See you there in October.