Twins at Oakland. Series Round-Up.
Monday, A's 7, Twins 6.
Tuesday, A's 8, Twins 3.
Wednesday, Twins 10, A's 4.

After having been blown thousands of miles off course, Twins flight 005 crash landed on an uncharted tropical island. Many souls were lost in the crash, and more quickly afterwards—poor Luis Rivas survived but got too close to the plane's engine and fell victim to its tremendous sucking force.

Still, there were some survivors—dazed, mentally disturbed, emotionally crippled, they tried to absorb the horrificness of the disaster they had experienced. For a few days, the Twins passengers thought they might be rescued. They tried to establish a radio signal, they lit a signal fire, they swept the Bitch Sox. But soon it became apparent that no one was coming to help them; that they were stranded and must deal with this flaming, twisted, pathetic wreckage on their own.

You'd think those were troubles enough, but on their first night the castaways were awakened from their slumber by an earth-shattering pounding noise. The rhythm was of footsteps, but the noise, it was too loud, no creature could possibly be that large. The ground shook as the terrible sound reverberated through the island--Boom! Boom! Boom!

"Ack!" screamed Joe Mays, "it's Cleveland!"

But despite all the booms, it wasn't Cleveland. The castaways stared in wide-eyed terror at the direction of the footsteps, watching as the very trees seemed to bow to the creature's might.

"It's a monster," said Terry Tiffee.

"We're all going to die!" screamed Jason Bartlett.

"I think the island is angry at us," said Johan Santana.

"I think that might be Gardy," said Lew Ford.

"Fiddlesticks!" squeaked Little Nicky Punto. "I am not afraid of any monster!" And he grabbed one of Terry Mulholland's cuticle-trimming knives and started to run headlong into the forest, hesitated, and then started running again. The last anyone heard from him was a far-off scream, followed by a very loud crunching noise, then a satisfied belch.

"Well, that was predictable," said Brad Radke.

"Even though he was the smallest of us, he had the biggest heart," said Jacque Jones.

So the stranded Twins began slowly to adjust to life on the island. Some dreamed of escape and even sold their Golden Valley homes, some became lost to rage and smashed up the clubhouse, while others tried to make do by being really hot and pitching awesomely.

"I think this island is blessed," said Johan Santana. "I think we were sent here for a reason."

"What are you talking about, Johan?" asked Dr. Morneau, skeptically.

"I think the island has something to teach us all. I think the island called us. I think this is a magical place where we will learn about ourselves and about sucking and come out stronger for it."

"I think you're full of crap," said Dr. Morneau.

"You'll see," said Johan. "It's fate."

One day, a man appeared on the island. He said he was from Seattle and he just needed a change of scenery. The players trusted him because he had been an All-Star and he looked strangely hot as a chick, but then he tried to kidnap Scott Baker and was released.

After a while, some of the castaways got sick and tired of doing nothing so they tried to build a raft. Unfortunately, they made the body of the raft out of some bats saved from the plane wreckage, but the raft was doomed because those bats couldn't hit water.

The castaways began to lose hope, and to unravel. They let grounders go under their gloves, failed to run out squib bunts, and missed the cut-off man again and again and again and again and again.

Then, Johan made a startling discovery. Buried underneath a pile of brush he found a mysterious hatch in the ground. Every day, he went to dig out the hatch, sometimes he dug out five or six feet a day, sometimes he dug out as many as thirteen, and then when he got tired he called Joe Nathan to dig out three more feet. When he had it dug out, he called Michael Cuddyer to get his boom boom stick to blast the hatch open. And then he called the players together to look in the hatch. It was an endless tunnel that seemed to lead only to darkness.

"It's dark down there," said Brad Radke.

"But I think I see something," said Johan.

"I don't know. I'm frightened."

"But, look there," said Johan. "Squint your eyes together. Don’t you see it?"

"What?" said Radke. "I don't see anything."

"I do," said Johan. "I look down the long dark tunnel of the hatch and I see hope."

"You do?"

"Yes," said Johan. "It's all we have."

"I don't know," said Radke, squinting. "I don't see it, and even if I did..." He shook his head. "You wouldn't, by any chance, see a DH down there, too, would you?"

Tune in next season to find out.

* * *

Dingers for Dollars Update: One thing about Cuddles, he loves him the charity. That's three homers for him since we started DFD. Today, with the matching grant and the Cuddy individual pledges, he was good for $298, plus a LeCroy double bonus and a LeCroy infield single bonus from Ovie, plus pledges for a Boo appearance and two Boo strikeouts making:

$2288 for hurricane relief.

Posted by Batgirl at September 21, 2005 08:24 PM