Rangers at Twins. Rangers 7, Twins 0.

As most Twins fans know, Monday in the Twins organization is Brown Bag Lecture Series day—each of the players brings a bag lunch and gathers in the clubhouse to hear a lecture on some edifying topic or another. What makes the Twins' BBLS so special is the speakers are not outside experts, but rather the players themselves, who take it upon themselves to become experts in whatever the lecture topic for the day is. The more cynical among us might think this is merely a cost savings measure on the part of a tightass owner, that asking baseball players to be able to lecture on string theory, the works of Jane Austen, and First Amendment law is rather like asking a bunch of minor leaguers and career utility players to be the starting infield of a championship baseball team—but, really, Batgirl doesn’t think you should be so cynical. Adopt a kitty. You'll feel better about the world. Anyway, she'd like to point out that Jim Thome is known for his expertise in astrophysics and Flemish art.

Well, today was Juan Castro's turn to lecture, and his topic was, appropriately enough, U.S. Labor History. Castro arrived at the Dome at 4:30am in order to use the InterTron 4600 in the Twins clubhouse, but he found Lew Ford already stationed there playing Everquest.

"Lew," asked Juan, "have you been here all night?"

"Merrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmfffff," said Lew.

"Right," said Castro. "Well, I need to use the InterTron. I'm doing the lecture today."

"Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmp," said Lew, and he crawled into Joe Mauer's locker, cuddled up with a jersey, and fell asleep in a little ball on the floor.

Eight hours later, when the Twins arrived for the BBLS, they found an agitated Juan Castro pacing in front of the lecturn.

"What's with him," whispered Juan Rincon, eating a Cheet-o.

"Don't know," said Joe Nathan. "He was nothing like this when he did yonic imagery in Georgia O'Keefe."

"Man," said Rincon, shaking his head, "that was a great lecture."

"Yeah," said Nathan wistfully.

As soon as the Twins settled in, Castro took to the lecturn and began to speak.

"My friends," he began, "we toil in the fields while the ruling class reaps the benefits. It is our hands, our sweat, our tears that support this society, yet do we see any of the benefits? Do we have a voice? No. We break our backs trying to score runs for the ruling class, and what do they tell us in return? Score more runs! I ask you, my fellow players of baseball, is that right? Is that fair? They are treating us like commodities, and they will continue to do so as long as we let them. But it's time for us to show them that they don't control the means of production, we do! It's time for us to show them what happens when we unite. The workers of the world have nothing left to lose but their chains."

"My god," said Terry Tiffee. "He's right."

"Well, this is what I've been telling you all along," said Chairman Mauer.

"Well, you know what we have to do," said Michael Ryan, "we have to show the bourgeoisie what happens when we shut production down!"

"Run production, that is!" exclaimed Castro.

"We're striking!" shouted Michael Ryan.

"Striking out!" added Brent Abernathy.

"Solidarity now!" squeaked Little Nicky Punto, throwing his little fist in the air.

"Solidarity!" the players shouted, standing and cheering wildly, and in a rush, they stormed the playing field, ready to reclaim the value of their individual labor by grounding out a lot.

But not all the Twins were in such a rush to organize, indeed after the burgeoning labor movement left, a few could be found sitting in the folding chairs of the lecture hall, sitting in stunned silence. Bradke was there, rocking slightly, and Johan K. Santana was there, muttering to himself wildly in Venezuelian, and Kyle Lohse was there, staring at a spot on the wall, slowly shaking his head back and forth, back and forth. And Carlos Silva was there, too, eyes focused on the doorway through which the players had left, then he closed his eyes, drew in a deep, beleaguered breath, turned to his comrades and said, "Aw, shit."