Twins at Kansas City. Twins 8, Royals 3.

Once, when Batgirl was 16, she got into a wee little car accident. The details are not important, nor is it important that she had only had her license for a week, nor is it important that the accident was between her and a post in a parking ramp. What matters is that when she got home, drowning in her own tears, she vowed never to drive again, and BatDad, placid but fierce, said, "You're getting right back in that BatCar, missy."

If the Minnesota Twins never wanted to enter a baseball field again after a week of running into inanimate objects over and over and over again, they could be forgiven. But not by Gardy, who placid but fierce, turned to them and said, "When you fall off a bike, you must get on again, missy. And when you humiliate yourself, day after day, in front of Batgirl and all your fans, you must get back on that metaphorical bicycle, you must get back on and try to remember all your bicycle-riding skills, because you did have them once—there was a time, long ago, when you did not run into 25-man inanimate objects, but rather you navigated around said objects with pith and aplomb. You will remember. Your bodies will remember, and then my children, you will stop running into posts and falling off your training wheels and flailing at pitches and booting the ball and utterly failing to convert on copious opportunities to beat vastly inferior teams. So come on, my dears, let's get up off our asses and play ball."

And something strange happened; the Twins, completely untroubled by Gardy's mixed transportation metaphors, were inspired. For Gardy, for Batgirl, and for Twins fans everywhere, the Twins vowed to get back on their bikes. And when, in the 4th inning, with Torii Hunter on 2nd and two outs, Henry Blanco came to bat--he suddenly remembered what it was the Twins do. They convert. They have two-out rallies. Those rallies are lead by people like Lew Ford and Jose Offerman, and Michael Ryan, and yes, Henry Blanco. So Blanco hit a single and scored Torii. And then Alex Prieto remembered, and he hit his first major league home run, earning himself much snuggles in the Twins dugout. Then Ford remembered, then Cuddy, and then Cordel Koskie put away all his myriad aches and pains, and he remembered, hitting a two-run single. That makes five runs with two outs, mostly singles and a homer from the last guy you’d expect—and that, my friends is Twins baseball.

Not, perhaps, classic Twins baseball was the uber-bizarre double play in the six, which left FSN announcers Dick and Bert gibbering and weeping. Batgirl, of course, had a bead on the situation exactly, and will be explaining it to you all just as soon as she can explain it to the Legos.

Also, Lew Ford had a homer, Cuddy continued to play solid second base, Jacque Jones proved himself to have encyclopedic knowledge of the infield fly rule, Joe Roa raised his BULLPEN IDOL stock, and Juan Rincon got back on a bicycle of his own, getting out the two batters he walked yesterday to such disastrous effect. Bring on the Devil Rays!

Posted by Batgirl at May 30, 2004 04:31 PM