Seattle 5, Twins 1

An ancient Mariner meeteth three Twins fans bidden for a game, and detaineth one.

It is an ancient Mariner
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long face and crappy fastball,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

The Metrodome’s doors are open wide
They’ve begun the pregame show;
I need my pencil and my card;
Because I am going to play Twingo.’

He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Twins fan stood still,
And listens like a three year child;
The Mariner hath his will.

The Twins fan sat on a stool,
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

‘February came, and we were called
Merrily did we appear.
A new season’s begun, a pennant to be won!
At least we can’t be worse than last year.

But then began the Cactus League
Of games, we barely won eleven
Though my change-up did stop hanging
And Ichiro batted .437

Oh, the season begins and we’re full of hope!
Up the AL West’s cellar we will climb
For we are hearty and we can beat
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim!’…

I shant go on, things get pretty freaky after that. What's important is that it's a tale worthy of Coleridge, and I mean Coleridge after a heckuva lot of opium. I mean, the poor Mariners. They lost 99 games last season, which is somehow even more pathetic than losing 100. I mean come on guys, you couldn't even get it together enough to lose 100 games? What's your problem? So they spent their off-season picking up guys like, ooh!, Adrian Beltre and, oh yeah, Richie Sexson too. Hmm, Richie Sexson. Wasn't he really good when he played for the Brewers? Hmm, can't quite remember, oh well, that's not really important; we'll get to him later. What is important is that we are the MINNESOTA TWINS and our pitching staff is so good that Mr. Johan K. Santana, Cy Young Award Winner and President of the United States of Batgirl, is our number two starter. And our number one starter is Mr. Brad Rad Radke, who started every Twins home opener since, ah, hell, I don't know. Like forever. And the Mariners, well, all they have to start their season is Jamie Moyer. I mean, Jamie Moyer? What is this, 1990? Am I about to see "Dances with Wolves" at the Cooper? Do I still think Kevin Costner's hunky? Is groove in the heart? Come on, vogue with Batgirl!

Jamie Moyer? Isn't he 600 years old? Why don't they get Terry Mulholland and Kenny Rogers, too, and then the whole Mariners starting ro' can all go up in a spaceship with Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland because a RUSSIAN SATELLITE is going to CRASH INTO EARTH and the REALLY OLD GUYS are THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN SAVE US! Or maybe they could all get together and take a nice swim at the Home and they might find themselves feeling mysteriously young and zippy again but what they don't know is that there's a big alien pupa in the pool and it's making them all, like, young and stuff. And stuff. I mean, Rafael, sweetie, who needs the little blue pill when you got big alien pupa? After a few laps in the pupa-pool, Jamie Moyer's going to be able to show Jessica Tandy the ride of her life, and I don't mean on Clint Eastwood's spaceship.

Well, I am here to tell you, that is some pupa. Jamie Moyer got out there tonight and partied like it was 1993. And Richie Sexson, oh, are we back to him already? Well, yeah, he was kind of good against us; I mean didn't he beat the buttocks off our pitchers a couple years ago during one ill-fated Brewers series? Frankly, it's hard to remember, on account of the two homers he hit today, accounting for all five of the Seattle runs. Everything else is a little foggy.

Other than that, Radke pitched pretty well—which is sort of like saying that Anakin Skywalker's Jedi training went quite well, other than the fact that he turned to the Dark Side. And Jason Bartlett got the first RBI of the season and managed to go the whole game without having some sort of nervous breakdown. You know, like last year when he had, like, six errors in one inning in his first game, and his mom was probably listening and all his friends and even people he doesn't like, I mean, everyone's listening to that. That kind of thing is going to be a huge albatross around your neck. But no, he was great! And Chairman Mauer stole a base and didn't even bust his knee.

It's the small things that give us great pleasure. For that was pretty much all the offense for the Twins tonight. The Ancient Mariner shut us down, followed by some other dudes (because that pupa only gets you a few innings) and then Eddie "Not So Everyday" Guardado came out and proceeded to get the Twins uno, dos, tres—including making Sweetcheeks Hunter look spectacularly bad on a strikeout. Ah, well, at least they can have dinner afterwards.

Posted by Batgirl at April 4, 2005 10:57 PM