Miss Piggy Lunchbox

Finally.  After months of waiting, wondering, worrying, getting advice from all corners, reading the tea leaves, and generally obsessing over what the future would bring, we find ourselves at a wondrous, joyous resolution.  Sometimes it seemed inevitable.  At other times, we had doubts we could pull it off, plagued by self doubt and assured ourselves we could only fail.

That’s right, both news stories I’ve been obsessively following for the past several months resolved on the same day.  Yesterday afternoon the Twins announced they signed Joe Mauer, and late last night the Democrats sent Health Care Reform to Obama’s desk.  Now I can finally get some restful sleep.

How can you not?

Wuttaweek.

Also, I love the Dome.  Again, how can you not?  It hosts four must-win games in a row with a Monday night match-up between Favre and the Packers stuck right in the middle.

Like I said, wuttaweek.

Every human deserves at least a little bit of dignity when they die….

And three days have passed since Twins owner Carl Pohlad died….

And he did keep the Twins in Minnesota after he bought them from Calvin Griffith….

So with that acknowledgment and that amount of passed time, let me just say that, gosh, it is so sad he couldn’t live long enough to see his dream of having his Major League Baseball team contracted realized.

As J-mez said, though, the dream lives on….

Every once in a while My Baby goes beyond just tolerating my baseball talk. Today the Twins made a blockbuster trade with Tampa Bay. Coming to Minnesota are players Delmon Young and Jason Pridie. When I told My Baby about it, she said, “They got preddy and young? That’s really good!”

Today MPL commemorates the resignation of one of the best General Managers in baseball: the Twins’ Terry Ryan.

Mr. Ryan: Thank you very much for your service. Your work ethic, even temper, success, and your refusal of the offer in Toronto during the Twins’ offseason of contraction, leading to a situation where every single member of the Twins staff stayed through that winter of uncertainty, are admirable. You’re a bit of a hero to me.

The Twins World Series championship in 1987 probably still stands as the greatest moment in Minnesota sports history. The team and the Series were both significantly better in 1991 when they won it all again, but there is just something special about your first time that you never forget.

Magical is used so often to describe that 1987 team and Series, but it really does encapsulate what I think a lot of Minnesotans feel for it. That team is the only team ever to be outscored during the regular season and still win the World Series. They barely had any business being in the playoffs, much less beating clearly superior Detroit and St. Louis teams.

But what is really magical about that time was the way the community responded to it. It seemed like a natural thing to me at the time, but I was 12 and a resident of Minnesota, so what the hell did I know about what was natural when a baseball team made a playoff run? Anyway, people everywhere had signs in their yards rooting the Twins on. These signs ran from the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis all the way into western Wisconsin, northern Iowa, and possibly even further than I travelled during those months. Our teachers kept track of the Magic Number on a reserved corner of their blackboard and a TV was even wheeled in for, I think, Game 3 against Detroit. It really was like the whole state was invited to the same party. Minnesotans at the time still had a firm self-image of being isolated, humble underdogs, before the current cosmopolitan sense of the Cities started to set in. It was a time when the state didn’t have nearly the number of immigrants it does now and so almost everybody you knew had at least three generations of Minnesota in them. That kind of history hits strong.

All of which leads up to this video, which I can see now is so horrible, but still looks like one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life.

Shot ya down, Detroit!

I have to let go. I have to let go of two sweatshirts that commemorate the Minnesota Twins’ 1991 World Series championship, which still stands as one of the two or three greatest World Series of all time. It was an amazing week, but, really, I have to say good-bye.

First of all, I never wear them. Since the last time I wore them I think I’ve moved them within St. Louis, then to Fridley, MN, then to two different apartments in Minneapolis to St. Louis Park to Minneapolis to Cambridge, MA to some distant suburb of Boston and finally to Seattle. And nary a minute of the last decade did I spend wearing the sweatshirts. Because they don’t really fit me anymore. Because I’m a little bit thicker than I was on my 17th birthday.

Plus they’re designated as not okay to wear by My Baby and also a little outdated. The final clincher for getting rid of them was when I realized they were fifteen years old and that if, in 1991, I had seen somebody wearing a 1976 Cincinnati Reds World Series sweatshirt, I would have thought that was pretty lame.

But I irrationally feel like I’m throwing away Jack Morris, Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Chili Davis, etc. by sending these away. It’s stupid, but heartbreaking nonetheless. So, to properly say good-bye, let me give these shirts the honor of their day on MPL.

Good-bye shirts. Soon some truck that picks up old clothes will be speeding you away from here.

Oh, and here’s a sweater I don’t wear but haven’t been able to get rid of because it’s the only piece of clothing my dad ever bought for me that didn’t have something to do with a sports team.

I don’t know what possessed him to send it to me that winter, but I’ve had another irrational sentimental attachment to it. Come to think of it, he probably just re-gifted a sweater that didn’t fit him. Because he’s a little thicker than I was on my 22nd birthday.

Sigh. These last few weeks have been among the worst as far as MPL quality goes. You know it, I know it. I have inklings as to why, but the reasons are still a sensitive, amorphous blob that I don’t feel like pulling apart, nor am I even sure I have the capacity to do so. Regardless, you have my apologies and tomorrow should bring an honest-to-goodness CD review, which seems to be more in my strike zone, so I’m hoping I can cast aside the run-on sentences and start bringing you MPL goodness again.