It’s a wonderful night/You gotta take it from me/It’s a wonderful night/Come on and break it down

Here is my Top 10 Things That Happened Regarding Baseball (Top 10 TTHRB)

10. I got autographs from six rookies/minor league players that I will probably lose in the next day or so. (Sorry Curveball, that must make you shudder.) Maybe I’ll be a responsible autograph collector and put it somewhere safe.
9. Met up with Jolene (which doesn’t seem baseball-like) who was working at the booth next to where Mike Redmond was sitting. Jolene, thanks for prodding me to take his pic and not just stand there.
8. Told Those Girls where to drink in Minneapolis (hope they found a few good places)
7. TBL took me through the Rookie/Minor League/Down on the Farm (free) line twice and patiently explained the routine so I wouldn’t look too stupid. (Shout out to Denard Span for being super charming to everyone.)
6. Came to the realization that Kevin Slowey is cute! Amy has been telling me this since the beginning but I had just brushed her off.
5. Was shocked by the lack of pink Mrs. Joe Mauer t-shirts in the crowd (and a little saddened not to have them to mock.)
4. Ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the new stadium display (see you in 2010)
3. Listened to my co-worker (who doesn’t know shit about baseball, mind you) audition for the National Anthem contest thingy.
2. Bought Minnesota Twins (baseball) home opener tickets (see you at the dome on March 31, behind home plate, upper level, 30 breath-taking – literally – rows up.)
1. Had my first Dome Dog and Beer at the Metrodome for the 2008 season!

MOD
I made a mix to use for when I have to run tons of errands (and usually dread it.) Now before you start doubting my sanity, I know that a lot of these are the top songs I have been talking about the last week or so but…they are just that damn good!
Run the Damn Errands Mix
Carry On Up the Morning – Babyshambles
Delivery – Babyshambles
You Talk – Babyshambles
Intervention – Arcade Fire
Rootless Tree – Damien Rice (you all know I only like this song because of its use of the word “fuck”
Wonderful Night – Fatboy Slim
Walk Away – Franz Ferdinand
Baby Fratelli (acoustic from Budhill Singles) – Fratellis
Cigarello (acoustic from Budhill Singles) – Fratellis
You Held the World in Your Arms – Idlewild
She’s Crazy – The Kelly Family
My Doorbell – White Stripes
Dry Your Eyes – The Streets

Whoops, looks like I need a swear count: 4

You take the good, you take the bad / You take them both and there you have

Here is the new deck at the house. This is where I sat drinking a beer and listening to the games.

Before you all panic and start threatening me (uh, Curlz?) I have not gone over to the dark side, to football. Not even in baseball’s off season. (I don’t like my sports to overlap.) I will enjoy hockey and curling during the snowy months.

And on to the point of this blog…baseball.
To quote the lyrics to a well known television series that struck home with many viewers “You take the good, you take the bad / you take them both and there you have / The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life."
The same can be said about baseball, specifically the MN Twins.

Here we are into our last month of baseball. Last year at this time there was an air of nervous energy. We were fighting for our spot in postseason, toiling for the Wildcard race. In the end, due to some very erratic circumstances we secured our spot as American League Central Champs. (I get goose bumps thinking about that game, you know “that” one.) In the present moment I find myself just wanting to enjoy the remaining games that we have in September.

The results are in…
Friday, Aug 31 - L 4-9, W 5-0
Saturday, Sept 1 - W 6-4
Sunday, Sept 2 - L 1-8
Monday, Sept 3 - L 0-5
Tuesday, Sept 4 - L 5-7 (in painful extra innings)

Last night's game was a heartbreaker, an old fashioned up and down game of baseball. I think Dick & Bert cursed it when in the 6th Inning they were talking about Guerrier and how tonight Slowey would get the Win and/or Nathan would get the Save (that Guerrier knows his role and it isn’t to get Wins or Saves.) Then it goes in to the 9th with Nathan at the mound. A homerun tied the game. I tried but I couldn’t watch past the 10th. This morning I woke up to catch the 11th being replayed on FSN. I watched as DePaula had the bases loaded and the inning ended with Cleveland pulling ahead with 7 runs. Ouch. I guess it is time to shake off the dust and go in to the day game today and play again. (By the way, I was offered suite tickets again but due to Amy not having PTO to use for a half day and me not wanting to go with anyone else we aren’t going.)

Aren’t you impressed that I can write a lot and really not “say” anything?

And You Shall Go Forth and Eat Cupcakes

As I sit in my house watching baseball and doing a little web design I am too hot and lazy to cook anything so I am eating a cupcake for dinner. I ran out of soda and bottled water so I am drinking beer. Ah, beer and cupcakes I am glad I am grown up! By the way, orange cupcakes and Woodpecker Hard Cider are not a good mix. Ick.

Life is back on its axis. No, I haven’t forgiven the Castillo trade but I have moved on. Unless I have one gianormous bake sale and can raise a few million to purchase him back there’s nothing I can do.

On to tonight’s game:
What a fucking awesome second inning!!! (Remember: I be drinking the beers so I be swearing.) I was lucky enough to tune in just as Torii Hunter (He Who Shall Not Be Traded) cracked the bat for a homerun. I called Amy (and shocked her into flipping the game on) to do a victory game via the phone. As I tried to tell her a story (not baseball related) the Twins kept the game speeding by so it took me about 20 minutes to tell a 2.5 minute story. Homerun, singles, doubles, steals and errors…oh my! And all at the bottom of the 2nd.

Randomness that ensued during call with Amy:
* Her co-worker Melty (in San Francisco and a Giants fan) decided his At Bat song would be the Sanford & Sons theme song…bah bah baaahnuh.
* When the did a slow motion reply of Cirillo’s run to home (where the catcher dropped the ball) Amy and I both did the slow motion Noooooo...oooohhh...yeeaaaaaahhh...sssssuuuuhhhweeettt…
(I think you had to be there.)

Letter to Metsgrrl
I know you are heading to the Midwest to watch your Mets play. Please tell Luis Castillo hello.
- Jen

Note to Spell Check: Uh, maybe you don’t know this but “gianormous” is now a real word. Dude, you need to update!

Beer is to Baseball as Horrible is to Mondays

Well, Lucy is now two years old and she thinks she can dress herself. I personally think anything goes with a Morneausey t-shirt, especially a pink and green nightgown. Let’s hope she can beat up the other toddlers at daycare if they make fun of her.

Why does it always rain on me?/ Even when the sun is shining / I can’t avoid the lightning
-Travis

Last night I channeled someone much hipper and much cooler than my actual self. I was invited last minute (well, 30 minutes before doors open) to a concert by my friend Liat. The Scottish band Travis was playing at First Ave so I decided to suck it up and be adventurous. Now, I don’t want to fill this baseball blog with all my new found Travis groupie-ness (seriously, this band rocked) but I felt like I need an explanation for why my brain is fried today. Too much dancing, too much drinking, too little sleep.

Why beer is for baseball (the at-home version):

* On Friday I drank my last two beers whilst watching the game. I am normally a one-beer-gal but the tight game drove me to the second one. I made a mental note to buy more.
* I tried to drink this horrible locally made strawberry wine to be frou-frou whilst watching the game but it was horrible (as stated above) so I switched to beer.
* It isn’t as cool to hold a fancy goblet when sitting cross-legged on the sofa.
* When you get to three beers and you feel a little tipsy you don’t need anyone else to watch the game with, because you can hold a conversation by yourself.
* It is fun to train the toddler how to get the beer.
* It is not fun to try and distract the toddler from throwing a fit because they want a drink of the beer.
* When the game gets sticky you can always go get a beer.
* Mmm…beer.

Well, it was a good weekend for baseball. We won the series against The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (Gregg hates that name.) I didn’t get to watch the game yesterday which turned out to be the best one to skip. I will have to peruse the blogs to get a play-by-play.

I don’t have much else to write about (especially witty or funny) because I killed off a lot of brain cells last night.

Suh-weet, sweet Suite

Dear Fans in Section 113,
Please, for the love of the Baseball Gods, stop trying to start the wave. It should not take two hours to get people mildly interested in the wave then you should stop and move on. Chant, Woo Hoo, dance or whatever else…just stop going “1, 2, 3…” Wave.
Love,
Pissed off redhead fan in the sweet Suite seats

Well, last night was my big night at the game. Amy and I were going to view the game from sweet Suite seats. You may even say it was our Prom Baseball game. I debated what to wear and finally settled on normal “Casual Friday” cubicle clothes. However, I did brush my hair. All girly-ness aside…

The Suite
I am a Southside girl viewing the game from the Uptown world. We entered a world of free food (build your own nachos, burgers, hotdogs, The Carving Station, cookies and brownies) free beer, fancy bathrooms and big comfy leather seats. The only downside was the cameraman came into The Suite and was scanning our seats. Since our run-in with the Jumbo Screen last time we were at a game Amy refused to look to the right where he was standing. In fact, she even brushed her hair to cover her face and held up the “Joe Mauer – Hometown Hero” magazine in front of her face. Good news, we didn’t make the Jumbo Screen.

Open Question
What would your At Bat music be?
Amy thought my song would be “Come On Eileen” by Dexies Midnight Runners however; I would like to walk up to “Sympathy For The Devil” by Rolling Stones.
Please allow me to introduce myself / Im a man of wealth and taste / Ive been around for a long, long year / Stole many a mans soul and faith.
Wouldn’t that be bad-ass?
Amy didn’t answer the question but I would pick out “Ice Ice Baby” a la Vanilla Ice. Now, I know that Amy is totally pissed at that answer but I think it would be pretty cool.

Speaking of songs…has anyone else that has been to a Twins game heard the Twins rap song that has played in the background?

Homestretch
Twins won Thursday with Baker, Friday with Santana (no surprise) and even today with The Chief (Silva). Let’s go for a sweep of the A’s!

Beer and baseball but not beer whilst watching baseball...

One of the most important things I learned from tonight’s game against the Mets: Coors beer now has bottles that turn blue when they reach “optimum coolant.” I don’t even like Coors but I sure want to try it now that they made it Hyper-color.
From the Coors Company press release:
According to Coors Light research, consumers want to know when their beer is cold enough to drink. To meet that need, Coors Light introduced the Cold Activated Bottle, which features mountains on the label in Thermochromatic ink that turn blue when Coors Light has been chilled to the perfect temperature for ice cold refreshment.

Let’s Play Ball!
Baker, ah Baker. Did he pitch badly? No. Did he pitch great? No. What does that leave me to judge him on?

I think to fairly describe what Baker’s pitching means to me I need to do a little real world comparison. Let’s see…what to compare him with…I know! Let’s compare him to my daily commute on the Ghetto #5 bus route (seen on the local news channels with shootings, gangs and cops.)

The Ghetto #5 runs every 10 – 15 minutes all day long. There are approximately 106 buses scheduled to run between 8th & Nicollet (downtown Minneapolis) and 35th & Chicago Ave (South Minneapolis) starting at 6:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m. Out of those possible 106 buses I could catch each day I normally get on one of five in the mornings and one out of 10 in the afternoon/evenings. If we take those 15 possible buses I could ride each day I would guess that four of them would be the busiest (prime rush hour.) Out of those four only one would be clean, with seats open and non-smelly. The end result: One out of every four buses I ride would be classified as a normal commute, a good commute. That means, each day I have a 25% chance to get on a bus that will be comfortable, non-threatening and on schedule. The percentages lowers dramatically if there is a change in my routine (later route due to happy hours, events and weather) throughout the week. I don’t really like those odds.
Now, if you are still with me here is the tie in with Baker. Baker is like my commute. He is reliable one out of every four starts. That means, over the span of a month we would get one or two good games out of him. I don’t really like those odds either. Gardy and The Powers That Be have to decide whether to give him another shot or bring up one of the young ’uns from Rochester. You may have noticed that FSN is showing the Rochester rotation and pitching stats throughout the week. Is that a sign?

Commuting sidenote: Yesterday afternoon I was on my bus with standing room only when this clean-cut, “normal” looking guy got on. After about five minutes of curious observation his true colors started showing. He was so strung out on whatever drug he was on. He was twitchy, chatty, antsy, mumbley and all around crazy. I had to send a text to my girl Foley letting her know I found a new man for her!

Started with Coors and now ending with Coors:
According to their website Coors finds Hispanic Beer Drinkers value “cold” more than any other consumer group.

Hell of a weekend for baseball

Here's Lucy!

What a beautiful weekend of baseball. We had a series with the Blue Jays and started a series with our arch-enemies, White Sox. In the three games I went to I had four beers, one brat, one root beer float, one pretzel, one bag of cotton candy (pink) and a giant soda.

Friday night
Since Steve is now a lawyer we used his perks to score the sweet Dorsey & Whitney (law firm) seats. We sat 14 rows up from home plate (close to our “on deck” circle) and it was amazing. After I got over my initial nervousness of being just shy of the safety netting (we could have potentially gotten smacked by a foul ball (and me without my helmet) I settled in to enjoy the running commentary from Steve. Here is a snippet of the conversation:
Steve: Hey, where is Joe Mauer? I wanted to see Joe Mauer squatting in front of us!
Jen: He’s hurt; he has a hamstring injury that is taking the world’s longest time to recover.
Steve: - pouting –
Jen: Wow, the Bat Boy is cute from this angle.
Steve: He has to be at least 18, right?
Jen: Let me text message Amy.
Jen: Oh, Amy says we are pervs for thinking that.
Steve: He looks nice; I think he has potential for hotness (he’s talking about Cirillo)
Jen: Mmm…
Steve: Did you see that? He’s cute? What does that sign mean?
Steve: What’s happening now?
Jen: Mmm…

Yeah, by the fourth inning I was using my “Selective Hearing” to filter Steve. I did have lot so fun at the game with him and I owe him big time for the tickets, beer and root beer float.

Saturday night
I was living the single gal’s nightmare on Saturday evening. I was crammed in the upper deck in the middle of the row between toddlers and a breast feeding mom. We were celebrating Bennett’s second birthday – Happy Birthday Bennett! The game was good (although the end result of losing after 13 innings wasn’t good) and I think Lucy enjoyed the game. I did get Lucy a Morneausey t-shirt that she can now wear with pride.

Sunday afternoon
Amy, her parents and I enjoyed a fun game, which ended with our winning. Still no Baby Jesus in the line-up but Barty (Bartlett) was back at Shortstop. It was Armed Forces Appreciation Day so we had singing, flags, awards and video messaging from overseas. I will admit that I did tear up a time or two.

Monday afternoon
I wasn’t at the game and I only caught the last three innings but I guess they were the best. What an awesome game made sweeter by the Pierzynski drama. Like Ozzie Guillen said “If he’s not on your team, you hate him. If he is on your team, you hate him less.” Pierzynski is the man everyone loves to hate, including me.

Well, before I sign off I would like to make note that I will be gone for a week and unable to update this blog. I hope to follow the game on recaps but I don’t think they will show them on television, especially not where I am going. I will see you next week if all goes well in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama.