Twins at Chicago. Twins 4, Bitch Sox 1. (11 innings)

We're friends, now, aren't we? You and I? Over these last two seasons, haven't we really built something together? Some kind of trust, some kind of affection. I mean, if Batgirl were to have a problem, well, you'd be there for her, wouldn't you?

Because, you see...I have to tell you that all is not well in the BatHousehold.

Perhaps you've sensed it. Something a little off with Batgirl. As if she's not quite focused on her solemn duties, as if something is distracting her. And you haven't wanted to say anything, you haven't wanted to be rude. And Batgirl appreciates that, she does. But let there be no secrets between us. Really, after all this time, how could there be? I should have told you from the beginning.

It's just that, well, BatKitty #2 has a…problem.

Now, before we go any further, I must tell you that not long after we liberated a young BatKitty #2 from the Humane Society, back when he was just a BatKitten, we took him to the vet to get his schnoobers removed. Why, I still remember the very day! The snow covered the earth like a white blanket. I wore red, the vet wore blue! What a lark! What a plunge!

Now, Batgirl has a lot of stuffed animals, including a rather corpulent stuffed bear by name of Pudge. About a year after he was removed of his schnoobers, BatKitty #2 developed a great affection for said stuffed bear and could often be found kneading that bear's pudgy belly, as cats do. It's a very cute behavior, probably stemming from trying to get milk from their momma's as babies. And, well, we thought it was adorable. "Look! BatKitty #2 is petting Pudgie!" But then, one day, during a particularly enthusiastic round of petting, we noticed his hips were really getting into the kneading action, really, they were moving back and forth quite a bit, almost as if they were gyrating…

Well, suffice to say we saw something we never wanted to see. And soon BatKitty #2 proved himself to have a great, well, affection for, not just that stuffed animal, but all stuffed animals. He would come into Batgirl's bedroom to find them all on the bed, resting so innocently, and he would put on his silk BatKitty bathrobe and sidle up to them and put on some Barry White and say, "How YOU doin'?"

Soon, we learned to put the stuffed animals in unhumpable places, and BatKitty #2 forgot about his weird fetish. But recently BatKitties #2 and #3 were wrestling and it seemed to give him some ideas and those hips started gyrating and, well, we saw something we never wanted to see again.

We've had several long talks with the BatKitties about inappropriate touching and about our strict no-humping policy, but for some reason it just hasn't taken. And the thing is, BatKitty #2 doesn't even know what he's doing—he doesn't have the mechanisms down correctly, it's just this instinct takes over sometimes at the sight of some really hot stuffed animal or, unfortunately, his adopted sister. If he were actually trying to procreate, let's just say he would be extremely unsuccessful.

The point is, BatKitty #2's attempts at making sweet love to both Pudgie the Stuffed Bear and BatKitty #3 remind me a lot of the Twins offense. There's a lot of yowling, a lot of flailing about, and absolutely no contact. It's all harmless, except for the nausea and the psychological scars.

Poor Johan Santana will probably be kept from his second consecutive Cy Young award by the sheer incompetence of our hitters, who do not have the excuse that their schnoobers were removed at a tender age. If only the voters had been watching our season they'd know what an absolute miracle it is he's won 14. He should get the Cy Young, the MVP, and quite possibly the Purple Heart.

I don't really know how we won tonight—it can only be that whatever tremendous sucking force has been dragging us down all season, the one currently operating on the Bitch Sox is even more powerful. There's a giant sucking sound coming from the South Side, and as much as we really tried to lose the game tonight, it just didn't happen. And then something strange happened—we tried to win. It was as if some atavistic good-baseball-team instinct kicked in and we actually started playing like a team with schnoobers. After a couple days to think about what he did, Lew Ford comes in and gets all sparkpluggy again and starts scooting around the basepaths, Big Leroy earns a month of free Krispy Kremes with an RBI single to give the Twins the lead, and Jacque Jones—who really put the offensive in offense in Monday's 7-6 loss—drives the stake into the quivering heart of the Bitch Sox with a two-run double. That's my team! Those are my boys! Lark! Plunge!

We saw in the last two days that the instinct is there, deep within the Twins--yes, these are bats, these are balls, these are bases, this is what we do with them. The thing is, no matter how he tries, BatKitty #2 is never going to score again--but maybe, just maybe, the Twins can.

****

Dingers for Dollars Update: Li'l Sweetcheeks went yard today, giving him the DFD tie with Cuddles at 3 a piece, plus we have individual pledges for Boo and Chocula, not to mention a thanks-for-beating-the-Bitch-Sox bonus from Tribe Scribe, which makes $304 on the day and:

$2592 for hurricane relief.

Thanks to Jacque Jones for hitting a DINGER FOR DOLLARS.