Twins at Kansas City. Royals 6, Twins 3.

The Shire of Kauffman was hardly the most distinguished in the land; in fact after a prosperous beginning several years ago it had become the lamest shire in all of the kingdom. Every year the landed gentry of Kaufman tried to improve their lot, even convincing other noblemen from around the land to move to the lowly fiefdom with promises of long term contracts and cries of, "All we need is a veteran presence!"

Lately, though, things had begun to turn around for Kauffmanshire, thanks largely to interleague play, not to mention the pitching of one Lord Duckworth who had won three straight. But Lord Duckworth was not very popular among the peasants of neighboring HumpDomeShire, as his knights tended to steal their women and fondle their chickens.

"We must do something about the nefarious Lord Duckworth," said local blacksmith Wee Nicholas Punto.

"We must challenge him to some kind of competitive activity!" exclaimed Michael Cuddyer.

"But what?" asked Torrance Hunter. "Lord Duckworth is master of all Kauffmanshire! He can get all the landed gentry to do battle with us!"

"Yeah, but they suck," said Punto.

"Excellent point, my good man. Nonetheless, what can we, a misfit ragtag band of peasants and tradesmen and Triple A refugees, do against a man like Lord Duckworth?"

Well, after some discussion it was determined that the poor of HumpDomeShire would challenge Lord Duckworth and the likes of Sir Mientkiewicz and Sir Grudzielanek to a game of chickball (which, of course, had derived from the Ancient Greek game of bak ball) which involved players trying to hit a egg as far as they could and run quickly from chicken to chicken. The team with the most chickens at the end of the game won. (You sort of had to see it.)

"Chickball it is!" cried Punto.

"We'll show that Lord Duckworth!" cried Lewis Ford.

"For our women!" shouted Cuddyer.

"For our chickens!" cried Punto.

When Lord Duckworth heard of the peasants' challenge, he quacked with laughter. "This ragtag misfit band of peasants and tradesmen and refugees from the Lost Land of Triple A thinks they can take on Lord Duckworth? Why, they are nothing but a band of Lady Skimmingtons!"

Well, when the match began, Lord Duckworth made quick work of the HumpDomers, making even hot young groomsman Joseph Mauer ground weakly to second chicken. Meanwhile, among the chickball players, the mood was growing a little testy, and from each dugout the insults began to fly.

"Fie upon thee, you beslubbering, beef-witted bum-bailey!" shouted town doctor Justin Morneau.

"Forsooth say I, you yeasty, elf-skinned footlicker!" called back Sir DeJesus.

"Bathe thyself, thou mewling Bitch Sox loving pignut!" screamed rockpicker Bart Bartlett.

Young Bartlett proved to be able to put his leather where his mouth is, showing all of HumpDome his fine glovework and excellent leadership qualities. Meanwhile, young Mauer proved the finest chickball player in all the land when he golfed an egg in the dirt resulting in two chickens for the peasants. And for a time it looked as if these ragtag bunch of misfitters might prevail. And Lord Duckworth was quickly sent to the bathing pit.

"Yay!" said the women.

"Yay!" said the chickens.

But the exuberance of the Humpdomers quickly got away from them and egg hurler Jesse Crain kept putting landed gentry on chicken, and soon all the people of Kauffmanshire won a dozen free donuts. The game fell apart when HumpDome sheepherder Young John Rincon was temporarily struck with a vision of the future. "Someday," he said, "there will be a game such as this, but instead of chickball it will be called Crazy Pepe's Chug and Toss and it will be a beautiful game and it will go something like this..."

Well, the rest is Humpdomeshire history, and when notified of the error, Rincon was heard to say, "No one wants to be in my pantaloons right now."

After the game, the tradespeople and peasants and refugees left a little older, a little wiser, and all out of chickens. As for the chickens, as they left in the hands of various very happy looking Kauffmanshire knights, one was heard to mutter under his breath, "I hate you guys."

BatNote: Liriano leads the whole "Final Vote" boondoggle by a "slim" margin over AJ. You can bet all of Bitch Soxia will be trying to change that today. (EDIT: And they have, Cisco is now in second place). So right now, go vote for Cisco ten times, then vote again ten more at lunch. Tell your boss Batgirl said so. For Cisco!

BatNote 2: A while ago, Batgirl posted about The Portage Grand Slam Gala at the June 17th game. The Portage is a St. Paul organization devoted to helping at risk girls. Now, the Portage is offering a 2 for 1 ticket deal to the gala. For $45 you get two lower reserve tickets to the July 17th game, plus dinner before the game, a chance to meet Tony Oliva, and you're also entered in a drawing to throw out the first pitch at a future game, not to mention supporting a worthy cause by doing what you’d do anyway—going to see the Twins. For more information, please see The Portage Grand Slam Gala.