Game Thread: Twins @ Orioles, 5/24 @ 11:35AM CT

[twinssporto]

Good Morning Twins fans!  Get ready for punch number two today.  On the mound this morning (Minnesota time) is the now fearsome pitching phenom Jose Berrios.  He is part of the now pitching one two punch of Minnesota's starting rotation of Santana and Berrios.  

 

The game last night was fantastic.  Twins are still in first place and Santana threw his second shutout of the year (only major leaguer to do that so far this year). I'm expecting a great showing today for the young Berrios.  I think he is going to thrive after Santana's performance last night.  They say hitting is contagious but I think pitching can be too.

 

It's an early game today for us Twins fans back home.  I assume there will be a large number of you watching or listening to the game from your place of work.  Which got me thinking about work and actually having fun at work.  Over the years I have played a lot of practical jokes on my coworkers and staff.  One of the best jokes I pulled on someone was many years ago.  I was employed on a production line while working my way through college.  This new guy had just started and he seemed like a great target...Anyway, after we wrapped up our second shift lunch break we were walking back out onto the production floor and I saw an empty bucket on the ground.  I grabbed the bucket and handed it to the "new guy".  I explained to him that we needed to have the bucket filled with steam to clean our equipment before restarting our production line.  I gave him the bucket and told him to walk over to the shift supervisor and ask him to show you where to fill the bucket up with steam. Of course he followed my directions to the T and proceeded to walk in the direction of the shift supervisor.  The rest of us were rolling with laughter as he walked towards the supervisor looking to fill his bucket with steam.  A few minutes later the new guy comes back and we all broke down laughing again. He was a good sport about the whole thing.

 

If you get time today at work between watching or listening to the game and doing actual work, remember to play a good joke on your coworkers.  Life's too short not to have a little fun while working.  

 

Looks like there might be some rain today in Baltimore.  Hopefully they get the game in.  

 

Go Twins!!

 

Lineups TBD.

[Craig Arko]

The great prankster...

 

[GP830]

When I worked in retail, I would always ask new employees to go grab something down in the basement. We didn't have a basement, so I'd see them walking around and scratching their heads for 20 minutes before they came back to me and asked for clarification. 

[Blake]

I'm a computer systems admin. When my immediate supervisor turned 50, I changed his desktop wallpaper to a tombstone with his name on it. He thought it was hilarious and sent a copy to his wife.

[USAFChief]

Glad to hear the new guy took the joke in good humor Twinssporto, and didn't get...wait for it...steamed.

[gocgo]

I once changed my work profile picture to a picture of Brad Pitt.  It didn't go over well.  Therefore, I do it here where I can get away with it.  When my boss called me on it, I told them I was doing the rest of the company a favor.  Who would they rather look at - Brad Pitt or me?  He didn't even crack a smile.

[wsnydes]

We're required to document our copies for reimbursable purposes.  Our CEO likes to use a red pen for some reason and he's the only one.  I switched the ink to blue and when he used it, he laughed, called me an SOB and then threw the pen at me.  

[AlwaysinModeration]

I'm playing a good practical joke on my youngest son today. I'm with him on the bus currently with his class on a field trip. He's thrilled that I am taking the day off of work to accompany his class...to Port Discovery, in Baltimore.

 

Little does he know, we are going to leave at lunch and go catch the game. We literally just drove past Camden Yards, and he said "Can we go?" I told him "Maybe someday."

[ashbury]

One day my boss came into my cubicle and told me I was fired. My co-workers all held a going-away party for me. Months later, I found out it was just a prank, but by then I was well into a new career, so I told them all to go fornicate themselves. Had a company reunion a year ago, and we all had a good laugh about it.

[spinowner]

 

I'm playing a good practical joke on my youngest son today. I'm with him on the bus currently with his class on a field trip. He's thrilled that I am taking the day off of work to accompany his class...to Port Discovery, in Baltimore.

Little does he know, we are going to leave at lunch and go catch the game. We literally just drove past Camden Yards, and he said "Can we go?" I told him "Maybe someday."

Which team is he a fan of?

[Joe A. Preusser]

Pouring rain outside. Over my walkie I told the new assistant manager that the home office needed him to.run out and check if the retention pond was holding water. After a long pause, he came back over the walkie with a very unenthusiastic "ok, I'm on it." Thankfully for him my shift Manager broke in and told me not to be such an ass.

 

Borrowing a bit from the Office, I once came in early and used the label maker to print out "security risk" and put it on the bottom of a peer's name badge. She walked around with it most of the day, interacting with associates and customers for hours.

 

Let's see a sweep.

[AlwaysinModeration]

Which team is he a fan of?

The Nats, as we live in DC and have met several of the players over the years through their Little League. Haven't manage to convert any to the Twins yet, but I will keep working on it.

[Blake]

 

I'm playing a good practical joke on my youngest son today. I'm with him on the bus currently with his class on a field trip. He's thrilled that I am taking the day off of work to accompany his class...to Port Discovery, in Baltimore.

Little does he know, we are going to leave at lunch and go catch the game. We literally just drove past Camden Yards, and he said "Can we go?" I told him "Maybe someday."

Okay, that is very cool. Have a great time! 

[Blake]

In my younger years, I used to risk dismemberment with my practical jokes.

 

I got a couple of people with "loud loads" They were a little explosive device one slipped into the end of a cigarette. Touch a match to the end of the cigarette and "crack!" I got a couple of people, my mother included, with them.

 

I have no idea how I survived being a teenager.

[Dave The Dastardly]

I attended a Catholic school until the Powers That Be decided it would be best if I pursued my educational opportunities with the heathens at public school. I do not begrudge that conclusion as in retrospect I have to admit I was an incorrigible free spirit who chafed under the burden of the cross. One of my many pranks that forced the Hand of God involved the OCD paranoid nun who strove to teach us algebra. She labored under the supposition that all thirty of us miscreants cheated while trying to work algebraic problems in class. She wasn't far off the mark. Maybe half right.

 

Anyway, in a failed attempt to curtail the presupposed cheating she would send us simultaneously to the blackboards that circumscribed the classroom and carefully line us up so that the left-handed suspects were not adjoining the right-handed suspects and thus easily able to steal the other's work with a mere undetectable shift of the eyeballs. This alignment process would consume a good ten minutes of class time, for which we all rejoiced.

 

The fly in the holy ointment of her plan was the fact that I am ambidextrous. For those of you never forced to learn Latin, that means I can write with either hand. So after the Lady in Black was content with her alignment and dictated the first problem, I would switch hands and quickly solve the problem. This caused the Lady in Black a good deal of consternation. Not only was her suspected prime cheater done first, therefore logically unable to copy, he was also out of position, writing left-handed in the right-handed section, and thus disrupting her previous ten minutes of alignment. The solution; reshuffle the blackboard assignments. Again we rejoiced.

 

Once realigned another problem was dictated and I would again switch my writing hand, thus forcing another realignment. And more rejoicing on the part of the miscreants. It took the Lady in Black half the year to figure out the prank, by which time I had saved my classmates countless minutes of slaving away at the blackboard. Though I did not save myself from persecution.

 

What tipped my hand, if you will, is I forgot which hand I was supposed to be using while solving a particularly difficult problem and switched writing hands in flagrante delecto; which is another Latin phrase that means getting caught in the act.

 

And thus is the Word of the Dastard from the Dastard's Book of the Painfully Obvious: The right hand must always know what the left hand is doing.

 

 

 

 

 

[Mill1634]

11:35 start with an off day tomorrow...stupid. I could at least deal with a 3 PM start...but 11:35. Stupid. 

[sampleSizeOfOne]

I'm playing a good practical joke on my youngest son today. I'm with him on the bus currently with his class on a field trip. He's thrilled that I am taking the day off of work to accompany his class...to Port Discovery, in Baltimore.

Little does he know, we are going to leave at lunch and go catch the game. We literally just drove past Camden Yards, and he said "Can we go?" I told him "Maybe someday."

Well played!

[wsnydes]

 

I'm playing a good practical joke on my youngest son today. I'm with him on the bus currently with his class on a field trip. He's thrilled that I am taking the day off of work to accompany his class...to Port Discovery, in Baltimore.

Little does he know, we are going to leave at lunch and go catch the game. We literally just drove past Camden Yards, and he said "Can we go?" I told him "Maybe someday."

That's a practical joke that I'd wish were played on me on a daily basis - both when I was a kid and now as an adult.  Enjoy the day and the game!

[sampleSizeOfOne]

Trying to think if i am guilty of any interesting practical jokes...

 

I liked to make a big deal of running around and changing all the clocks by an hour just before daylight savings time transitions...

[twinssporto]

Lineups:  Sorry they are late.  Had a meeting that ran loooooooong.  I'm going to play a joke on the people that kept me from posting the lineups earlier.  Still deciding what to do.  Something devious perhaps....

 

TWINS:

 

1. Brian Dozier ® 2B

2. Jorge Polanco (S) SS

3. Miguel Sano ® DH

4. Max Kepler (L) RF

5. Kennys Vargas (S) 1B

6. Eduardo Escobar (S) 3B

7. Eddie Rosario (L) LF

8. Chris Gimenez ® C

9. Byron Buxton ® CF

Jose Berrios ® SP

 

Orioles:

 

1. Seth Smith (L) RF

2. Adam Jones ® CF

3. Manny Machado ® 3B

4. Mark Trumbo ® DH

5. Chris Davis (L) 1B

6. Trey Mancini ® LF

7. Jonathan Schoop ® 2B

8. J.J. Hardy ® SS

9. Caleb Joseph ® C

Chris Tillman ® SP

[wsnydes]

 

Lineups:  Sorry they are late.  Had a meeting that ran loooooooong.  I'm going to play a joke on the people that kept me from posting the lineups earlier.  Still deciding what to do.  Something devious perhaps....

 

TWINS:

 

1. Brian Dozier ® 2B

2. Jorge Polanco (S) SS

3. Miguel Sano ® DH

4. Max Kepler (L) RF

5. Kennys Vargas (S) 1B

6. Eduardo Escobar (S) 3B

7. Eddie Rosario (L) LF

8. Chris Gimenez ® C

9. Byron Buxton ® CF

Jose Berrios ® SP

 

Orioles:

 

1. Seth Smith (L) RF

2. Adam Jones ® CF

3. Manny Machado ® 3B

4. Mark Trumbo ® DH

5. Chris Davis (L) 1B

6. Trey Mancini ® LF

7. Jonathan Schoop ® 2B

8. J.J. Hardy ® SS

9. Caleb Joseph ® C

Chris Tillman ® SP

Best make it extra devious for making you late to post the lineups in the game thread.  A guy's gotta have priorities in life.

[bird]

Not so much work-related, but baseball-related.

 

We were the unlucky ones who had to sit through history lessons taught by a totally incompetent and lazy teacher. Even we knew that she'd pulled out her lesson plan from two decades ago and then dragged it out over several days so she could avoid digging around for the next one. The subject was that ruthless Conquistador Francisco Pizzaro. The guy who cruelly destroyed the Incan Empire to load up on its gold and silver. After testing us, the old bag gave us a writing assignment to do in class so she could waddle off somewhere and do nothing. So, here we are, bored to death, now told to write about this guy after being tested rather thoroughly already on our comprehension of about a days worth of material drizzled on us for over a week.

 

On a dare from my pals, I volunteered to be one of the students to read their report in front of the class. With a serious face, I began to read my report about a relief pitcher named Juan Pizzaro, his illustrious seasons with the Cubs and his subsequent journeys to other cities to conquer new batters. The old bat didn't notice. Sat there, reading something behind her desk. Until I got further into it, describing Juan's violent death in a Cleveland motel room, which did not actually happen, to include aspects of his ancestor Francisco's violent death at the hands of invaders of his castle in Lima. You know, because swords and killing and a final act of drawing the cross across the carpet in Room B103. She bleated something at me, and I said, gee, I guess I got confused about which Pizzaro we were learning about. Amidst the laughter, a red-faced Mrs. G. scribbled a note and sent me to the Principal. After hearing my story, and telling me how well-written my Juan Pizzaro report was and talking a little baseball, Mr. T. the Principal sent me back down with a note saying I had been duly reprimanded, and would Mrs. G. kindly stop by his office on her next break to explain exactly which part of Francisco Pizarro's story was not well-learned by the students in her class. My mom howled about this. We were glad the year was almost over. As was Mrs. G.

 

[Dirk Hardpeck]

My favorite workplace practical joke:

 

I showed up at 6AM on April 1 to occupy the two men's bathroom stalls at the office with stuffed pants and shoes. Fast forward about four hours to when the Operations Manager comes into the Tech Support/QA meeting with "Okay, who's the jokester?"

 

It turned out that one of the CS reps had gone in, saw the stalls were "occupied", and stepped outside waiting for someone to leave. Twenty minutes later, about to soil himself, he tracked down the manager saying "whoever is in there needs to finish or this is a code brown situation."

 

This little adventure resulted in a prank policy at the office - Pranks must be directed at an individual, and not set up as a prank grenade for a luckless sap.

 

Good times.

[Cap'n Piranha]

During college, I worked at MSP airport as a baggage handler.  Once we had a new guy, and told him the next flight had a number of oversized bags, and we would therefore need a "bin stretcher" (a bin being the name for the baggage compartments in the bottom of the plane).

 

We took it to the next level by letting him know that we didn't own one, so he would need to go to United to borrow theirs.  Once he left, we called United, told them the gag, and had them send him onto another airline.  An hour and 6 airlines later, he returned, very embarrassed he was unable to complete the task set for him.

[rghrbek]

Wouldn't mind it if Molly played a practical joke on us all, and did not attempt a bunt in the first 3 innings, with a man on base...

[Blake]

 

My favorite workplace practical joke:

I showed up at 6AM on April 1 to occupy the two men's bathroom stalls at the office with stuffed pants and shoes. Fast forward about four hours to when the Operations Manager comes into the Tech Support/QA meeting with "Okay, who's the jokester?"

It turned out that one of the CS reps had gone in, saw the stalls were "occupied", and stepped outside waiting for someone to leave. Twenty minutes later, about to soil himself, he tracked down the manager saying "whoever is in there needs to finish or this is a code brown situation."

This little adventure resulted in a prank policy at the office - Pranks must be directed at an individual, and not set up as a prank grenade for a luckless sap.

Good times.

I give your office credit for being resigned to the fact that pranks will happen and only trying to limit the range.

[Cap'n Piranha]

Prank #2.

 

I worked for a major retailer, and once a month we had to meet with senior management to update them on our team's financial performance.  A couple days before this meeting, we discovered that one of our buyers had a Goo Goo Dolls songs as a ringtone for when his fiance called.

 

I downloaded the same ringtone to my phone, ensured I sat next to the buyer in question, and had another buyer call me in the middle of the meeting--the first buyer was so panicked and embarrassed by his inability to stop the song from playing he literally fell out of his chair.

[spinowner]

A friend of mine attended Notre Dame during the years when Dan Devine coached. Apparently one Sunday morning Mr. Devine awoke to find about 20 "House For Sale" signs stuck in his front yard.

[Cap'n Piranha]

So for fun, I'm listening to the Baltimore broadcast.  They're starting out by playing radio clips of previous games--since it's the same play-by-play guy introducing the clips that is in the clips, I'm very confused on whether or not the game has started.

[Cap'n Piranha]

Baltimore play-by-play guy; "Now, Minnesota is the one team that Tillman has never beat.  I kid you not"