Twins at Tigers. Twins 5, Tigers 3

Up to the majors Terry Tiffee came, a dream in his heart and his trusty bat "Miguel" at his side. He should have been here before, what with Coree Koskee's prodigious ability to do himself harm, but Tiffee broke his own wristee just before one of Koskie's DL stints and saw his major league dream become a major nightmare. Yes, a nightmare, like with scary clowns and $*&#, except instead of a clown, it's some Rochester trainer who throws darts at Jimmy Kahmann's picture every night while his unsex'd wife whispers to him to screw his courage to the sticking place, and isn't this a dagger he sees before him? but he just can't seem to do it, and fair is foul and foul is fair, so he's stuck at Rochester bandaging up a bunch of moronic wannabes who break their freakin' wrists just before they get their Big Break to the Bigs. So the trainer twists your wrist around (or maybe its your hand, I really can't remember, but you broke something when you were about to get the call) and grumbles, "Tough break, kid. Woulda gotten called up, huh? I hear it's nice in the majors. I hear the training room doesn't smell like pipi du chat." And you say, "What the hell's that?" and he says, "That's French for cat pee, you moronic wannabe." And then he twists again, and you say, "Can you stop doing that? It hurts!" And he says, "What are you, a baby? What's your name, Tuffee or Tiffee?" And you say, "Actually, Mr. Psychotic Trainer, it isTiffee." And he says, "Huh. Well, that explains everything. When you get to the bigs, kid, they're gonna twist your wrist around like crazy. None of this sissy-tiffee stuff. Of course, you’re not going to the bigs since you broke your freakin' wrist, are you?" And then the trainer turns into a monkey and starts dancing around squealing "Spiffy Tiffee! Spiffy Tiffee!" and throwing poo in your face while "My Heart Will Go On" plays in the background. That kind of nightmare.

But Tiffee got the call again in September, and up he strode with a dream in his heart and his trustee bat Miguel. "Hello, Minnesota," he said. "I am Terry Tiffee and I have come to play ball." And Minnesota smiled and nodded and went back to looking at Torii Hunter's butt. And Terry stepped up to the plate and whispered, "Come on, Miguel…Let's give these guys some taste o' Tiff." And that he did—boom! went the ball, and boom again! He stood at third base, his chiseled jaw glinting in the sunlight, and snap snap went his glove, zoom the ball sailed to first, "out" said the umpire, and Tasty Tiffee put another notch in his glove. Corey Koskie reached for his Maalox, and Lew Ford turned to Justin Morneau and whispered, "Now, our power is complete."

At night, Tiffee held Miguel close to him and whispered, "This major league thing isn't so hard. And the training room doesn't smell like pipi du chat. We can do this, Miguel." He read Batgirl and his confidence grew. "Did you hear, Miguel? Bubblemint thinks I'm hot! And so does Wonder Woman! And you know what? I am hot! I am!"

So he was thinking as he made his way from third to home in the 4th inning today. He'd already gotten two RsBI in the inning, hitting a single to score Guzie and Cuddy, putting the Twins up 3-0. He got to third on a classic Detroit-style throwing error, and then Pat "Grampa" Borders slapped the ball to shortstop, and Tiffee charged home, thinking about Wonder Woman and Miguel, and not so much thinking about Pudge Rodriguez who was planted at home plate ready to field the ball. Oh, hey, look, there's Pudge. He's got the ball. Guess I'm going to have to barrel into him and knock the ball out of his hands. Koskie does it all the time!

So he leans in and wills all his weight into his shoulders and he takes a deep breath and SLAM, he barrels into Pudge.

That's when everything went a little fuzzy. There was a great white light, and then a tunnel, and he saw Brooks Robinson and Mike Schmidt and Wade Boggs, and George Brett and Uncle Henry too, and they all had their hands extended ready to slap him on the butt, and he thought, "My god, I'm going to get butt-slapped by Wade Boggs. Is this heaven?" And then came a voice from nowhere, Pudge's voice, Pudge was standing over him, looking at him with those terrible eyes, and he said, "No, rookie, it's Detroit, and I'm Pudge Rodriguez. Now, sit down, bitch."

Poor Tiffee didn't know what hit him, but whatever it was, it hurt a lot, and even Wonder Woman couldn't save him now. And as he came-to in the training room, which had a nice smell of pine, he saw a man sitting on the table next to him with a giant cast around his ankle. "Hey, Corey," he said, nodding. "Hey, kid," Koskie said, slapping him on the back. "Welcome to the bigs."

Posted by Batgirl at September 13, 2004 10:04 PM