The beginning of a new season has many beautiful things. From full napkin and condiment dispensers employed in conjunction with dollar dogs and seeing Captain Confusion bat over .300 to our allegedly horrid third baseman knocking the ball all over the park (with the bat, and not the glove!), hope truly does spring eternal.

But there are kinks we must work out. The Jackal needs to find his location, get his sinker down, and wear his leather jacket more often. One of the "big" screens at the Dome still lists the good Doctor as number 27. Most importantly, Batlings Dawn and E must properly coordinate their Calls to the Bullpen for maximum comedic effect.

They struggled early on. We got so excited after the Twins knocked Loaiza out of the game that cooperation on the Call was sadly lacking. But then, after the eighth, as "Stand Up and Shout" blared over the Metrodome PA, they showed that silly animation on the screen at the Dome. This time our heroines were ready, and gave one of their finest performances ever. It truly must be seen to be believed.

I just want to say that I completely called the good Doctor's homer tonight. And I even have a witness.

Me and a buddy were flipping between the game and the Idol results (Chris better win), and we flipped over when Morneau was up with two on and a 2-2 count. I immediately called for a home run, but seeing the catcher move outside, I quickly called it off. Morneau fouled the pitch off.

Then I pleaded for the catcher to move inside. He obliged. Immediately, the home run was back on. I urged Morneau to turn on the pitch. He obliged. Bam. Home run. Crazy hi-fives and sarcastic "I *knew* he'd hit the homer" comments ensued.

It wasn't the 8,942 foot shot he hit Tuesday, but I'll take it. My first call of the year. I'm going to officially retire while I'm ahead (well, I'm technically behind 1 to something like 410, but I'm 1 for my last 1, and that's what counts).

We won.

There's something going on with the team this year. They're hitting with such a sense of purpose, always like trying to make up for or live up to something.

Click my name for more, as it turned out to be a lot longer than I wanted it to be.

I'm craving a Dome dog now. I'll be home this weekend and the parentals and I are going Saturday's game against the Yanks. I will pay the 3+ dollars to get a delectable dome dog because damnit it's baseball season and there's nothing like eating a hotdog in the metrodome and watching the Twinkies beat my dad's favorite team.

Just to give Shelly a heads up, dome dogs are currently burning holes in wallets from Minneapolis to International Falls, at the rate of $4.50. Not to mention the upper GA running out of dollar dogs in the third inning tonight, and the whole getting kicked out of twenty dollar upper deck seats when we were the only people sitting in that whole section but since we didn't pay twenty dollars the snarling old Twins Stadium Attendant Nazi Women made us vacate even after i asked if there was a party of 150 people wondering why there were four people in there seats. Good game though.....

The vests aren’t that bad. Definitely not as bad as all the batling banter made them out to be. My wife thought they were just fine. The lizard helmets must not have been that bad either because it wasn’t until the 6th inning that I noticed the A’s were using them. (Although I must say, after I did notice, I like the regular ones better) I definitely don’t like the neon elbows. Ok, so they’re not neon, but they are some sort of weird.

Our 3rd baseman is not fat! So quit spelling it T-Fat. T-Phat is, well, Phat. But if he goes back to an ass bat, then all bats are off.

The camera caught The Doctor and Sweetcheeks having a nice moment in the dugout – The Doctor even laughed.

Dicknbert were, well, Dicknbert.

You are hereby circled.

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam Borei peri Justin Morneau.

Why was last night different all other nights? Because Fat Tony tried to steal. Third. And got caught.

Fat Tony, you may face the pitch with both eyes facing forward. You may accelerate the ball into the seats for three-run homers. But you do not try to be Ricky Henderson.

once again tonight i had the tremendous privilege of making such a racket at a Twins HR that my poor, unsuspecting roommates cowered in fear an in expecation of the Apocalypse, but they're silly because apocalypse is an eschatological literary genre and not an eschaton itself, but then they were nonetheless calmed by the look of bliss on my face as i explained to them that the good DR can hit the ball beyond our very imaginations, especially if some third-rate pitcher like Esteban Lousy (thanks, Kristie) whose real name is too hard to spell leaves a pitch up inside. :) And maybe 4 runs in 7 innings should just count as a quality start.

Sorry, a premature posting earlier. I move to revise and extend my remarks:

Why was last night different from all other nights? Because Fat Tony tried to steal. Third. And got caught.

Fat Tony, you may face the pitch with both eyes facing forward. You may accelerate the ball into the seats for three-run homers. But you do not try to be Ricky Henderson. Just because you are wearing a pixie vest, it doesn't mean you are a pixie.

Siomilar to RD I arrived in the 7th inning and saw some solid pitching by the bullpen to finish up the game.

Regarding the "neon elbows," they are dot-matrix stripes that have been put on the long and short sleeve versions of nike's undershirts. As the official licensee of undershirts, pretty much anyone wearing a shirt under their jersey will be wearing one of these shirts, but according to some licensing rule, majestic's logo on the back of the jersey is the only one that can be visible. Even rawlings has to remove their logo from the helmets (thats why they came out with the reptile looking helmet). Therefore nike came up with the dot-matrix striping as a way of putting an unofficial logo on their shirts that everyone can see and recognize, even though it looks stupid as hell. Click my name for a link to the Uni Watch article on ESPN.com's Page 2 that explains it. Its discussed right after they make fun of the reptile helmet.

Last nights game was fun to watch not only because it was close (and they won), but because nearly all the Twins were hitting. After last season that seems to be a pretty rare occurance. And considering Oaklands defense is pretty amazing, getting all those hits was hopefully a good sign of a good hitting season.
I also have to say that I am FINALLY going to be able to get to a game or two this weekend, and I am stoked.

Will... flipping between Idol and Twins, saying Chris had better win... you could very well be my soulmate. Tell me you were also, somehow, trying to watch the Mets as well, and it's time to pick out china patterns.

If you saw Tuesday's game, you didn't really miss yesterday’s, RD, because it was pretty much a repeat with the characters shuffled around.

I used my cheap seat season ticket for the first time (it has my name on it – cheap thrill!), settled in at 6 with my Twins magazine featuring the last Kirby interview, my Game Notes, two dollar-dogs, a beer, and cheese-flavored sunflower seeds. I recognized other cheap seat regulars from years past when my father-in-law had season tickets.

The stands behind me filled up pretty well - are Wednesdays some sort of student night, too? because most of the people seemed young and the Twins tee-shirts were tight-fitting.

My dogs were long gone and I was chewing pretty fast on seeds when the Twins went into the hole in the second. The old cheap seat regular behind me - who I remember from last year calling the attendants to kick out over exuberant fans – was yelling at our players. “Cuddyer would have got that!” he screamed at Kubel. “Good one, Silva!” he snarled. In the third, he caught a tee shirt from T.C. without even getting his fat ass out of his chair. How unfair is that? I kept thinking, how many games before I lose my Irish temper on this fellow?

Then the Twins caught fire, and looked pretty good doing it. As I said yesterday, I like our line up. Better mix of righties and lefties. More veteran help for Stewart to sprinkle in with our punks and flailing veterans and flailing punks and light-hitting veterans and light-hitting punks. Even White, who was 0-for-4, hit some wicked ropes that were caught by the left fielder and short stop.

I loved the Wonderful World song in the stretch, with the Kirby photos. God bless the spirit of Kirby Puckett for helping Minnesota get rid of that manic country tune they used to play. I have never been prejudiced against vests, but I didn’t think ours looked quite right. Not sure if it was because the sleeves were blue instead of black – they looked a bit too long, too. Juan Rincon looked good, and Nathan made a quick ninth inning by striking out the last two A’s. Only I couldn’t Stand Up and Make Some Noise! because I was afraid of the lazy old coot with the new t-shirt behind me.

Today I’ll say prayers for Kyle Lohse and sneak over to the Dome during lunch time. I might not take the seeds, I didn’t realize how parched I was getting myself until this morning. I am not optimistic that the old fart has a day job, but I’ll pray for that, too.

Missing 1 1/2 innings because you left your tickets at home: sucky.
Missing one inning because the concessions people don't know how to swipe a credit card: really sucky.
Sitting down to a 3-1 deficit: suckier yet.
Watching Dr. Morneau hit a three-run bomb in the bottom of the third when I'd started him on my fantasy baseball squad: priceless.

Don't want to jinx it, but HOLY FREAKING RUN SUPPORT ... TWO. GAMES. IN. A. ROW.

This Q&A with Lew Ford will be right up every Batling's alley.

http://www.startribune.com/509/story/367610.html

A sample quote, with Lew talking about what he does on his computer during road trips:

"I'm either playing games or looking around on the Internet. I have a couple games that I play. I was playing EverQuest, an online multi-player game. And I have some friends back home that play another one called World of Warcraft, but I don't play that anymore. I played that some this offseason. It's the kind of thing where you can talk on the headset with all your buddies about what's going on during the game."

I think Batgirl is going to get some serious mileage out of this article.

Just a couple of notes and reactions (to the game and to others' comments above)...

Andre, I read that article too and had the same thought... "BG's gonna love this one."

Now about that attempted steal of 3rd base by T-Phat... Being isolated in the vast wasteland known as Iowa, I don't get to watch the games (mlb.com considers us in the Twins "market" so I cant even get the internet feed). So anyway, I'm watching tv and following the pitch-by-pitch on mlb.com's "Gameday" when I see "Batista caught attempting to steal third base" or something to that effect.

It didn't register at first. Then I assumed Gameday had misprinted something. Certainly there had to be a pinch runner that didn't get typed in to the system.

Since game end, and through this morning, I've searched news reports for some sort of explanation of what he was doing attempting to steal third base. I figured certainly some astute reporter would ask Gardy for an explanation.

But no. Instead they ask about why Castillo bunted Stewart over to third! And, supposedly the boss wasn't thrilled he did that! But no mention of the attempted steal by our third baseman.

I guess ya had to be there... then maybe it made perfect sense.

I went to the game last night too, and I called the homer as well! It was pretty sweet...

and i was really upset when T-Phat/Fat tried to steal third and I was yelling at all of my friends who aren't even from MN and don't know about twins baseball about why anyone would have ever sent him! But he did well last night, so I guess I can't complain too much!

The Pixie vests were a shock at first. Then, my sister pointed out that without the baggie sleeves, it's much easier to admire the biceps and triceps of boyfriends ---Shannon and Rondell. I still hate pixie vets, but the biceps are nice.

"Will... flipping between Idol and Twins, saying Chris had better win... you could very well be my soulmate. Tell me you were also, somehow, trying to watch the Mets as well, and it's time to pick out china patterns."

Unfortunately, I'm unable to see the Mets here. But I had them in my mind, because I knew that a win by them would bring you happiness, and that is all I care about, my dear.

(*crosses fingers hoping she wanted the Mets to win*)

That's good enough for me! ;-)

It seemed to me that Tony B tried to steal third on his own. Chavez was playing quite a ways off the line because of the lefty Kubel at the plate. I think Tony thought he could be sneaky and beat Chavez (and the throw) to the bag. Pretty sure that Gardy didn't send him, but I haven't seen or heard anything to confirm or deny that.

What is going on here? Someone *likes* the pixie vests? ew. Laurie is talking about marriage???

the world is topsy turvy.

In order to truly be accepted at the first student night of the season, one needed to receive an invite to prom. Apparently, the Twins are doing their best to foster romance with the high school set.

And the pixie vests? They were scary.

"Laurie is talking about marriage???

the world is topsy turvy."

Hey, it's not everyday a lady can find a guy like me. :)

aurora, I didn't read anything about marriage. I'm sure there are all sorts of possible reasons why two people might together be looking at china patterns.

As for the sudden expressions of affinities for the pixie vests, I'm willing to write that off as a natural reaction to the first winning streak of the year.

On the other hand, if that's what it takes to generate wins, I'll learn to love them as well... and might even suggest they quickly come up with a version to wear on the road.

I love the vests! I always loved them on the Reds too. And frankly, I'm a paper-plate girl, myself. I have dishes, but I never use them. Except when Kafumbly is visiting Twins Territory Northeast. Then I get all fancy and give her something to eat her cereal out of.

Man, I hope the Bass Ats are behind us (heh). And their pesky Arm counterparts are starting to concern me as well. Me, the eternal Twins optimist! The world IS topsy-turvy!!

Andre, i read that article and all that came to mind was Leeroy Jenkins and how he so could have been lew (click my name for a link)

Also, regarding what I posted earlier, it seems those Nike long sleeve shirts with the colored elbows are not allowed. Umpires have been forcing pitchers to remove the shirts or cut the sleeves off above the start of the pattern.

Just monitoring the Thursday game at work, and something occurred to me. Yesterday, T-Phat tried to steal a base. (Or probably that was T-Fat. T-Phat hits homeruns. He doesn't get thrown out stealing third.) Today, he walked. Honest to God.

Is it possible he got himself confused with someone else? Might he think that he's Luis Castillo? Should someone tell he's not?

Games when Pixie Vests were worn = 1
Wins when Pixie Vests were worn = 1
Loses when Pixie Vests were worn = 0

I'd say I'm in favor of them. Perhaps Pixie dust somehow nuetralized bat ass-ness.

But, they do not make Fatista any fatter - I mean faster.

Oh, and I called Torii's homer. However, I called about three more that didn't happen, so whatever.

LTLC

Oh, and Thome just went yard again.

Come on, y'all - the vests look just fine. They still would have been better if they'd put the "TC" on the left chest, similar to what the Reds do, but they're quite stylish. Especially after a win. (Had they lost, they'd be on the bonfire along with the red caps and red jerseys from a few years ago - guaranteed.) And, since we're playing the incorrectly-punctuated A's, has anyone checked out Frank Thomas' batting average so far? If I didn't know better, I would think he was Cristian Guzman... The only problem is that Frank's average is still better than Rondell White's - come on, Rondell! Join the fun! Go on - hit the ball. Everybody's doing it! It's all the rage!!!

I'm sorry guys but.. no, they don't look fine. *shudder* The gaping arm pits look horrible and ill-fitting on all but the really big-chested guys. I kind of like the "gun show" as AT called it that results from the exposed biceps but.. honestly, that's just optimist me looking for anything positive in an ugly situation.

And the reflective red is annoying.

The gaping arm pits look horrible and ill-fitting on all but the really big-chested guys.

Yeah--gotta agree.

Something about the juxtaposition of (1) pinstripes and (2) those arm holes is really bad, to my eyes.