Twins at Milwaukee. Brewers 4, Twins 1.

As regular readers can probably attest, Team Batgirl is sorely in need of some teambuilding. Dissension is everywhere. The tension is beginning to get to Goober, who has developed a Tourette’s-like habit of shouting, “Dougie, NO!” at random junctures. It’s really annoying. So the whole Team got into the BatBus and headed north for the weekend, to lock ourselves in a cabin and do teambuilding exercises until Goober can go out in public again.

The first day has been fairly successful. Sooz did drop Goober during a trust fall, but we all thought that was pretty funny. It brought at least Jeb, Batgirl, and Sooz together—and since Goober had passed out from the resulting head injury, we decided that the three remaining members were a quorum and had reached goal congruence.

Then of course there was tonight’s game, which Team Batgirl watched while trying to extricate itself from a massive human knot. This proved to be far less difficult than it was for the Twins to hit off Ben Sheets. Now, Sheets is actually a respectable pitcher, not like the Tampa Bay staff that so befuddled us a month ago. So as the Twins hit ground out after ground out, Team Batgirl tried to repeat its new mantra—developed after Batgirl became entangled in the web of trust on the ropes course and failed to network her way to freedom—stay positive.

Did it matter that Silva gave up three runs early? Did it matter that Jeb had accidentally shot one of the BatKitties during paintball and the stuff just doesn’t come out of fur? Surely, if we worked together everything would be all right.

And then, as Team Batgirl slowly began to save itself from itself, we could not help but notice that the Twins were not so lucky. A few ground outs later, and all four TB members were united, watching the game with caught breath and a fluttering heart. Surely, we would score soon. Surely, the Brewers bullpen couldn’t keep us down. Surely, the Twins would spend the time between innings coming up with a mission statement and then an action plan.

And then Grant Balfour came in, and, as one, we all sighed. Soon the bases were loaded with one out in 7th, and we turned to each other and said knowingly, “He’s going to walk the next guy in.”

Instead, Balfour beaned Keith Ginter. Goober turned to us and said, “That I was not expecting.”

Truly, we had all learned something.

And then, with one out in the ninth and a runner on first, Torii Hunter came to the plate, and we turned to each other and said knowingly, “He’s going to strike out.”

He hit into a double play.

Ah, well. It didn’t matter. What matters is we learned you can do all the trust exercises you want, but nothing’s better for bringing people together than watching Grant Balfour hurl the ball 95 miles an hour square into some poor sap's shoulder.

That, and s’mores.

Posted by Batgirl at June 18, 2004 10:50 PM