Detroit at Twins. Weekend Round-Up.
Friday. Tigers 3, Twins 2. (10 innings)
Saturday. Tigers 8, Twins 6.
Sunday. Twins 6, Tigers 4.
Please note: There will be no spoilers in this recap, as Batgirl has not seen The Lady in the Water on account of how crappy it looks.
It is usually Mike Redmond's job to clean up the clubhouse before and after Twins home games, a service he generally does wearing a smile (and not much else). But lately he had been growing concerned—when he got to the clubhouse after long road trips, he'd find signs that someone had been using the whirlpool, which is strictly off-limits to anyone but players.
"Lew," he asked the injured outfielder one day, "have your Doom buddies been playing Star Wars guys in the whirlpool again?"
"No, man," said Lew. "That was just once!"
The mystery deepened when Redmond was cleaning the whirlpool and found long chunks of red hair in the ducts.
"Unless Lew's Doom buddies have gotten a lot hotter," mused Redmond, "there is something very mysterious going on here. I think I shall dance naked around the clubhouse." And so, he did.
On Friday morning when Redmond arrived, he heard someone splashing around in the whirlpool. "Ah-HA!" he said to himself. "Here is my chance!" And he tore into the whirlpool room—to find nothing at all. But in his eagerness, he slipped on a puddle and the next thing he knew, he was plummeting straight into the whirlpool.
"Aw, shit," he said.
And then everything went dark.
When he woke up, Redmond found himself lying on the trainer's gurney with a tall, pale, redheaded woman in a Twins jersey staring unblinking at him.
"You…you saved me…" Redmond gasped.
"Yes," the woman said in a voice like windchimes.
"It's you, you've been swimming in the whirlpool."
"Yes."
"And now you're wearing my jersey."
"No," said the woman, turning around to reveal SANTANA emblazoned on her back. "I took Johan Santana's, because he's very hot."
"Who are you?" Redmond breathed.
"My name is Story. I am a narf. I am from the Blue World."
"You're a what?"
At that moment, Pat Neshek skipped into the room. "Hey, Mr. Redmond, I was just gonna—holy crap is that a narf?"
Redmond turned to look at the giddy sidearmer. "You've heard of a narf?"
"Sure! My mom read me a bedtime story about it just last week. Once upon a time the sea people lived among us and guided us. But then the humans turned greedy and in their pursuit of land moved away from the sea people and forgot all about them. But now, the sea people are sending the new generation out to make contact and bring peace and goodwill and Wild Card berths! And that means you're—" he gasped and dropped to his knees. "You've come to bring us peace!"
"Yes, my child," said Story. "But I cannot do it alone. I will need help from…..ACK!" She let out a high piercing scream, so loud it broke Brad Radke's hair gel jars.
"What?" said Redmond and Neshek.
"There!" she pointed at the widescreen TV in the trainer's room. "It's a scrunt!"
"Oh, gosh!" exclaimed Neshek. "We have to run!"
"What's a scrunt?"
"A scrunt is a creature of great evil. They prey on the narfs, trying to keep them from meeting with humans and bringing them peace and happiness and wild card berths. They have potent offense and good pitching and they never lose!"
"You must keep the scrunts from me!" exclaimed the narf. "He will kill me and then all is lost."
"It's okay," said Neshek. "We'll keep you safe. I mean—" he turned to Redmond—"we're not playing the Tigers for awhile, are we?"
"Uh…." said Redmond.
One by one, the Twins filed into the clubhouse and Redmond introduced Story to his teammates. They listened to her tale breathlessly.
"We must help the narf!" shouted Jason Tyner.
"We must defeat the scrunts!" yelled Jason Bartlett.
"Am I going to get eaten?" asked Little Nicky Punto.
"Yes," said Pat Neshek, ignoring Punto, "only through teamwork can we defeat the scrunts, for they are big and powerful and never, ever, ever lose! But we can do it for we are small and plucky and don't lose that much either!"
"For the narf!" screamed the Twins, running out onto the field to meet the scrunts in battle.
The battle raged on for three long nights. In the first, the scrunts scored an early blow, helped by the very small strike zone of the monkey-like law-enforcing Tartutics, and while the Twins were able to scratch back, the scrunts leapt at Juan Rincon's jugular and scored that night's victory.
"Now, that's just mean," said Redmond.
The next night, the scrunts went out into an early lead, tearing Brad Radke limb from limb and sucking the marrow from his bones. The Twins tried valiantly to fight back with their very best boom boom sticks, but it was to no avail. At the end, the scrunts ate Neshek and Jesse Crain, too.
"Now, that's really mean," said Redmond.
And the third day it went much the same, the evil scrunts making even Johan Santana falter, which was the meanest part of all. Inside the dugout, the narf cowered and shook.
"Come on you guys," said Redmond as the eighth inning grew nigh. "Are we really going to be beat by a bunch of freakin' scrunts? Are we going to let them eat our team alive? What about the narf? All she wants to do is spread truth and love and Wild Cardness whether she goes. Isn't that something we can fight for? They might have narfs, but we have JAZILLA! Isn’t that right?"
"Yeah!" said the Twins.
"Yeah!" said Jazilla, roaring.
"Let's go!"
And with that, the Twins stormed the field. The site of the three-headed red winged Jason monster was too much for the scrunts and they began to play suddenly like ass-crap. After getting bitch-slapped by the scrunts in the previous battles, Michael Cuddyer struck the deathblow. When the dust settled, the Twins had prevailed.
"Thank you, Twins," said the narf. "You are truly a noble group, even if you hit into too many double plays and sometimes miss the cut-off man. You see, you don’t need a narf. The strength to win is inside you, all the time. All I did was show you the way."
And then a great eagle came and carried Story back off to the Blue World while the Twins waved and watched her go.
"Man," said Jason Kubel, when the eagle and Story had disappeared. "That was one hot narf."
BatNotes: Baseball and theater! Johan Santana's Perfect Game, by local playwright Jonathan Wemette, will be premiering at the Minnesota Fringe Festival this August. For more information, please look here.
Blizzards for a cause! On August 10th, Team Batgirl's favorite frosty treat gets even more delicious—the secret ingredient is charity. Every Blizzard you buy that day benefits the Children's Miracle Network. Team Batgirl, I assume, will be taking this as a challenge.