This entry posted by Twayn, who is not eligible for arbitration.

Remember 1987? It was a great year to be a Twins fan, which I had been already for ten years, ever since moving to Minnesota. It was also the year, exactly twenty years ago today, in fact, that I got a special letter in the mail. It was from a girl I had met the previous fall, a girl I pursued despite the fact that she had a boyfriend. To her credit, she did nothing to encourage me at the time. So I gave her my address and asked her to get in touch if she ever found herself unattached.

Twenty years ago today she got in touch. We went on our first date one week later, just as pitchers and catchers were reporting for spring training. Much, much later, she would tell me she hadn’t intended to ever see me again, that she threw away my address as soon as she got home. But when she did, she heard a voice. “What are you doing?” it asked her. “That’s the man you’re going to marry,” said the voice. I was skeptical, too, but she swears it’s true. And if teaches us anything, it’s that you should listen when a disembodied voice tells you something. So she fished my address out of the trash and tucked it away, and there it remained out of sight and out of mind as autumn turned and the cold dark of winter settled in, until one day she found herself unattached, and remembered the voice, and wrote me a letter.

From our first date on we saw each other as much as our schedules allowed. She was working, I was in school. We lived 60 miles apart. But we had each other on the weekends, we had the telephone, and we had the Twins. You see, I’m one of those lucky guys who love baseball, and somehow managed to fall in love with a woman who loves baseball, too.

As the Twins season heated up in that summer of 1987 so did our romance. By the time the Twins clinched the pennant we were a serious couple. By the time they beat the Cardinals in the greatest World Series ever played we were a done deal, and we both knew it. We married three years later and we’ve been together ever since. So for us, Twins baseball is not just a sporting event, not mere entertainment. It’s part of who we are and where we’ve been together from the very beginning. One year after our wedding the Twins were on their way to the other greatest World Series ever played - but that’s another story for another time. Happy Valentine’s Day, one and all.

Now, on with the unofficial Bat-girl.com 2007 Pre-Season Photo Caption Contest (that isn’t really a contest)™. There have been some great entries the past couple of days, and my thanks to everyone who has participated. Here’s today’s photo caption contest picture, featuring an ensemble cast of some of our favorite Twins in a touching moment from last season.

Have at it, Batlings.