Axel Kohagen

Download attachment: Yankees_Cat.jpg Blink and the World Ends (Twins 4 Yankees 10 - Game 78) This game was supposed to cross the finish line with the Twins in the lead. I’d decided that late last week. The Twins are struggling but still have a heartbeat. The Yankees have pains of their own. The saga’s supposed to take a turn for the Twin Cities tonight. I expected a spanking, perhaps with the Twins using a broom. The innings I caught on the radio didn’t spoil my dream, though I did enjoy hearing Dan Gladden’s plan to walk with Cory Provus past Brett Gardener to see who was taller. Giggles. When I turned on my cell phone and saw the Yankees scored their way into the tens column, I shoved that phone into my wife’s face. Like when you point at the cat puke on the carpet because you hope someone else will deal with it. I try to remain a simple man. I believe in a world where things often average out, and someday the Yankees will lose. I try to believe, but this is the way my world ends. Not with a bang, but with those damned Yankees. Why Was I Mad at Brian Runge? (Twins 3 Yankees 7 - Game 79) Every time I checked my phone, the Twins had given up another couple runs. If you could edit together my grimacing, sour-lemon reactions to this growing defeat, it’d make for nice comedy. Believing in the Twins against the Yankees makes for tragicomedy. Sick of watching spinning porcelain and hearing flushing sounds, I scanned other baseball related news to find Brian Runge isn’t umpiring in the majors anymore. I pumped my fist, glad to see someone who spit on my beloved Twins out of the way. Then, I couldn’t remember why I passionately despised this man. It seemed like I should know why I was cheering for his decline, so I did extensive research (checked out two sites after I googled “Brian Runge” and “Minnesota Twins”). Turns out Runge called a strike after Brendan Harris called time and stepped out of the box. Ball whizzed by his head. Scary. He argued, Gardy argued, Gardy got tossed. . . I vowed to never forget. And I kinda sorta didn’t forget. If you can remember where your rage came from, your blood oath is still good, right? Even if it takes a lifeline or two? Even if the wronged player no longer plays for your team? Submissive Peeing (Twins 2 Yankees 3 - Game 80) In high school, my best friend had an adorable white dog who got so excited she piddled every time I walked in the door and scratched behind her ears. The dog was adorable, and I enjoyed watching my friend wipe up dog pee because it was his house, not mine. Such a sweet dog, even if she couldn’t handle excitement. If you put a Twins cap on that dog as it gives in to stress and whizzes itself, you get a pretty good metaphor for every Twins/Yankees series this decade. When the Twins got a runner on in the ninth, I was thinking “walk-off homer” all the way. But Jason Kubel, last of the cutter-slayers, wasn’t at bat and the Twins sprayed another defeat all over the linoleum. Celebrating relentless failure, my neighbors exploded hundreds of dollars of fireworks. How delightful. Another night of hoping my cowardly dog doesn’t shiver so hard the house shakes. Guess my neighbors must’ve been Twins fans who gave up on the home team celebrating independence from Yankees tyranny tomorrow. Never Mind the BBQ, This is the Pits (Twins 5 Yankees 9 - Game 81) Download attachment: IMG_20130705_095024.jpg Hey, I did my part. I wore my Twins socks. Don’t blame me. Some baseball games are lost in heartbreaking moments. This was a tug of war match inevitably headed toward a Yankees victory. Sure, the Twins pulled back a bit in the end, but the folks in the stands knew our team was going head over heels into the mudpit when the Yankees pulled them over the ninth inning. I wonder how many fans used barbecues as excuses to sneak away a few innings early. Download attachment: IMG_20130705_095124.jpg We stayed the whole time, enjoying the weather and hoping for some serious Twins magic at the plate. To be fair, the Canadian Justin Morneau brought some nice fireworks to the celebration with two home runs. But with the Yankees threatening to score in double digits, it just wasn’t enough. And just like that, the Twins lost all four games, leaving me feeling as sad dog embarrassed for hoping as I was about pounding a whole helmet of nachos and leaving cheese trails all down the front of my shirt. Download attachment: IMG_20130704_162707_056.jpg Click here to view the article

The Twins Were Sharknados First (Twins 0 Yankees 2 - Game 89) Download attachment: sharknado.jpg A SyFy television movie called Sharknado took over the world of Twitter, and I’ll bet most Twins fans didn’t put up too much of a struggle. Sharknado is a movie whose title tells you exactly what you’re going to see on your TV. The Internet Movie Database estimates it cost about a million to make. I’ll bet no one over the age of eight expected any quality from it, and yet it stole the world’s heart for a moment in time. The Twins are supposed to be Sharknados.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] They’re supposed to clap together the right pieces at the right time for the right price to steal the country’s attention. Exploiting opportunities and taking chances are two of the patron saints for both trashy movies and small-ball baseball teams. People watch Sharknado-type movies hoping they’ll be so bad they’re good. Right now, the Twins are just plain bad. Unlike drive-in classics, straight-to-video masterpieces, and basic cable must-watch TV, the Twins don’t seem to have any tricks up their sleeves. Around Twins territory, channels are changing. Three Deep in the Waste Lands (Twins 4 Yankees 1 - Game 90) I monitored this game from the time-warped world of social media and smart phones. Information isn’t updated simultaneously in this world, so sometimes my phone said the Twins were down when Twitter had something different. Who knows how the radio and TV feeds fit into this temporal rift. This game involved three home runs, including one from one Mr. Ryan Doumit, and a Twins victory in the Big Apple. And yet, I feel little joy. It’s like someone put together all the ingredients for a nice cheesecake and I found myself in the mood for dry crackers. Or sour grapes. It feels pretty good to write that, even if I know it’s partially a lie. The Yankees got spank-eed by the Twins in NYC. I want to stay bitter enough to be cool and detached, but I can’t help but smile a little bit. A Pleasant Sunday Thumpin’ (Twins 10 Yankees 4 – Game 91) On a pleasant Sunday, right before the All-Star break, the Minnesota Twins put a double-digit thumping on the New York Yankees. Sounds like pitching missteps and horror-show fielding played a part in the Yankees' demise, but all I need to know is that the Twins won a series in New York City. For the Twins, the midseason cliffhanger isn’t “Will they or won’t they?” It’s closer to being like the tagline for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – “Who will survive and what will be left of them?” Players will be cut from the team. Players will be shipped to other teams. Players will get injured. What it all means is this: there is less of the 2013 season to play than has already been played. Baseball is going away again. Like any good scary movie, it’ll end with the promise of a new chapter. I just hope there’s enough left of the team to cast next year’s heroes. As I finish typing this, I hear that Parmelee, Arcia, and Escobar are going to Rochester. More ballplayers down in the dust and the heat of summer. Click here to view the article

Daydream Disbeliever (Twins 2 Mariners 8 – Game 98) The Twins got knocked out early in this game, but everybody played nine innings anyway. During my little league tour of duty, I spent most of the games at whichever part of the outfield they felt saved me from embarrassing attempts at fielding fly balls. If I was lucky and the ball stayed far away from my glove, I had nothing to do but daydream away until I was forced to humiliate myself at the plate. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Getting blown out of the water early, one thousand miles from your fan base and further away from a shot at post-season baseball... I wonder if the Twins outfielders daydream as much as I did. Kinda warms my heart to think they’re out there, in a big league uniform with families and drunkards screaming all around them, and all they’re thinking about is what TV series they’re going to power through next on Netflix. If they’re hoping the softball players they have a crush on don’t see them strike out with three off-kilter swings, then I know exactly how they feel. Felix is a Real Cool Cat (Twins 3 Mariners 2 – Game 99) Download attachment: kingfelix.jpg I never hate it when King Felix bests the Twins. I might lose home-team zealotry points for saying it, but it’s true. Seems like no matter who steps into the batter’s box, he’s got a fistful of answers to whatever questions they raise. I have warm feelings for the Mariners, and always will, just because of Ken Griffey Jr. The guys who knew sports (at this time in my life, I was not one of them) adored Junior without question or reservation. No athlete, except for Michael Jordan, could top him. The King didn’t have a full game in him, so both teams kept playing so rookie Chris Colabello could give the Twins a 13th inning lead, then the game. New growth under scorched earth, maybe. Epilogues and Codas (Twins 4 Mariners 0 – Game 100) I didn’t know it was a day game, but Twins basically won the thing before I noticed they were playing ball. It's difficult, as a fan, to know the team can manage a victory without me fretting over them. I like to think they need me. Morneau hit a homer. Moments like this are quick jabs to the heart. The badass brawler who came up with the team had already become a husband and father, and then disaster arrived with a knee to the helmet. Morneau developed a grimness, but he didn’t quit. Now he might end up being traded, even if his trade value is nothing like it would’ve been, once. No matter how likely or unlikely a trade is, fans mark each event from a point of future nostalgia. “That was his last game as a Twin.” “That was his last home run as a Twin.” “That was his last shaving creamed towel to the face as a Twin.” I talked about Chris Colabello as new growth under the burned-out wreckage of past winning seasons. There’s growth everywhere, even if some of it’s not immediately growing straight up to the sky. Sano’s going through some attitude-related growing pains, but at his age, that’s what he’s supposed to do. Somehow, Deduno still has the capacity to fascinate. Whether or not he’s for real, he’s demonstrated a deeper root structure than I would have expected. A new team is growing, and it looks like Morneau is old growth. No Colabello Getaway (Twins 4 Mariners 6 – Game 101) Tiny sparks of life weren’t enough to turn a day game into a Twins victory, but they were there just the same. Colabello slugged another home run. Maybe he won’t grow into a Twins landmark, but he might have a place in the ecosystem. Elsewhere, Miguel Sano gets back to the business of baseball, perhaps a step closer to being big-league ready. The fans tidy up their houses to prepare for jobs on Monday, and the Twins do some travelling. When the Twins set up shop in Target Field again, fans will suddenly realize there aren’t as many home games left as they thought. Click here to view the article

No More All-Star Moments (Twins 3 Indians 2 – Game 92) This is the story of the 2013 Twins, and there’s really not a whole lot left to cover in these remaining games. True believers will hold out for a miracle, a string of victories, and playoff glory. I love all things TC, but I can’t believe in that campfire tale. If it happens, I’ll jump on the bandwagon and stand in the parade as if I had always been there. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] The Twins came out of the All-Star Break plucky, like nobody told them the odds. Mauer and Morneau made some late-inning magic. Perkins took the mound for a save opportunity with his fly down, which oughtta be a story he tells into his gray-haired years. Still, the team is thirteen games under .500, so this tale is destined to end in tragedy. Doppelganger (Twins 3 Indians 2 – Game 93) Twins win again, almost exactly like they did the night before. Except Perkins kept his fly zipped. I kinda hope he left that zipper down on purpose. Could’ve started out as a bullpen dare and ended up with a box of steaks delivered to Perkins house. It’s a long shot – and clearly I have no inside information – but it’s a nice little daydream for me. If the Twins can’t win, they can at least bond. Share some emotional scars and find out what the guy with whom they’re warming up really has under the hood. Mischief and ritual can build trust. Download attachment: hrbekthumbsup.jpg Maybe what I’m saying is this: We need another Kent Hrbek, and maybe a dash of Gary Gaetti. They may not be the straws that stir the drink, but they are the hands that shake the can of beer. Maybe this could be the team that rises up out of that foam, like a phoenix from the ashes. Game of Moans (Twins 1 Indians 7 – Game 94) Around first pitch, my wife and I talked about the lack of time we’d been spending with the Twins. We were taking our dog for a walk by the mighty Mississippi, and we didn’t talk much about Twins baseball. It was a day too beautiful to ruin. After getting lunch and returning home, I checked the score to find the Twins were down 6-0. I shut off the phone, shut down my give-a-damn, and continued enjoying time with my wife. I miss baseball, but I can’t submit to this reign of bad pitches and low energy. No one needs another blog post lamenting the slow death of this team. Writing dozens of posts about what’s wrong with the Twins will kill joy inside my heart. My game needs to change. There’s really no need to watch baseball games to see the how the Twins’ season progresses. It’s time to watch the Twins’ season progress to appreciate baseball. The game remains the game. Four bases, 90 feet apart and three strikes to get a chance to dance. Even without a World Series in a team’s sights, a two-out home run still brings glory. Every home run crosses a very real border into immortality. Real life is rarely so satisfying. It’s dismal, everyone, but there’s still baseball out there. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: baseballheart.jpg Bummed Darin Mastroianni got sent to minor league camp. My unpleasant mood has nothing to do with strategy or intellect. I am bummed because my friends who got autographs from him said he was a great guy. Mostly, I am bummed because I liked to pretend he was secretly a stubbly private investigator in a lesser known horror film directed by Dario Argento. Baseball, appreciated from the keen and reasoned eye of a scientific scholar, moves like a beautiful piece of clockwork machinery. I admire this viewpoint, though I suspect I will never quite master it. For my 2014 Twins season, I cannot be bothered to try to to see the baseball machine's cogs and gears selected and put into play with a jeweler's precision. In 2014, I say "8th Grade Mentality or Bust!" From this point forward, I am willing to believe pitchers are just magical instead of streaking or benefiting from good defense. Sam Deduno, you magical UFO son of a gun, make something happen. I will continue to enjoy the imaginary backstories and theme songs for players my wife, friends, and I invent. After all, just because no one has laughed at my Kubel/Guerrilas in Da Mist mash-up does not mean I should stop rapping it every time his name is mentioned. Every. Single. Time. I will relish nicknames. I shall delight in each Gardyism. I shall not jinx no-hitters by talking about them, and I can find it inside my heart to believe in rally hats again. I draw the line at doing the wave. My brain loves the brilliance of baseball, but my heart needs to be healthy, too. Bring on the dingers, and load me up on nasty hot dogs and nachos that follow the point under the "Twins" script on my shirt straight to my shorts and sneakers. May I sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" each and every time I hear it. Click here to view the article

Road Goes On Forever (Twins 4 Astros 3– Game 105) Left a great time at Diversicon, a science fiction and fantasy convention, to find the Twins were still playing. The game was tug of war, and the rag tied onto the rope was still in the middle of the mudpit in the center. I’d spent the day with my mind wrapped around the business of writing the unreal and then bringing it to life (for more on my life out from under the baseball cap, click here). Listening to good old fashioned baseball soothed me. Baseball wasn’t far away at Diversicon, mind you. There was a TV playing the game in a meeting area, and I stopped by to check scores and comment on the wondrous world of Deduno. I left Bandana Square and drove past Midway Stadium, one baseball game on my stereo and another on my right. I kept driving as the game teetered and tottered but didn’t end. The game was still going on when I drove past Target Field, and it was going on when I collapsed into a comfy chair and found out the Twins won via Twitter. At a certain point, it seems fair to say baseball is its own magical world. It’s an altered reality with hot dogs and a seventh inning stretch. Pom Poms are Blooming (Twins 6 Astros 4 – Game 106) Download attachment: Screen-Shot-2013-07-11-at-5.03.16-PM.jpg The short walk to my car tonight confirmed it. Get your sweatshirts ready, because football season is coming. Cheerleaders are at the ready, and right now some drunk dude is buying the groceries he’ll later eat and barf all over you. When football arrives at the party, baseball seems even more gentlemanly by comparison. There are a few stories left to finish in major league baseball, but lots of teams wrote out their final chapter before August began. Two of them played in Minneapolis tonight, and one of them won. Twin Hitters (Twins 3 Astros 2 – Game 107) Whenever the Twins sweep a series, it means the bedtime story ends with me imagining Ron Gardenhire saying “And they lived happily ever after.” It means there were ups and downs, but the Twins won every game they could. No shame in that game. Morneau and Arcia each hit home runs today. In fact, those home runs knocked in the only runs the Twins scored in the game. Luckily, three runs were all the team needed. Morneau hit his home run first. The slugger still has something in the tank, and the question on everyone’s mind how much, and how clean is that fuel going to burn? He might slip out of town on waivers or stay with the team till he retires, but we are measuring his time from the end of his career, not the beginning. Arcia hit a solo shot later. The lumps he’s taken as a rookie are probably still smarting, but he keeps making his way into the lineup. He’s just a few steps away from the start of his career, and the view from his path seems to have a few mountains worth noting. Today, they met for high fives. When you look at their progress on a bigger map, the distance between them is too far to reach across. Click here to view the article

Crumb-Faced (Twins 0 Royals 13 – Game 109) I abandoned this game at 6-0, and all I missed was Jamey Carroll pitching a clean ninth inning. And a whole bunch of suffering. Download attachment: 204214.jpg Checking the box score to see who stunk on the mound is like lining up elementary kids to see who has chocolate on their face after the cookie jar was emptied. This time, Correia and Pressly are crumb-bearded and cookie-handed. I’ve never been a pitcher at any level. Is there a point in a brutal shelling where you lose your grip on time and place and just let the baseballs shoot past you? Do you remember each time a guy crossed the plate, or is it just all cold flop sweat and blank memories at some point? After a sweep of the Astros, this game was a pantsing passport back to the reality of the 2013 baseball season. Don’t Can the Cheese (Twins 7 Royals 0 – Game 110) Twins smash the Royals at the plate and newcomer Andrew Albers couldn’t have made a finer major league entrance if he showed up in a tuxedo and ordered a martini. This would have been a nice game to catch, but I was out at The National that night instead of enjoying the national night out. I go to see a band singing of the beauty of losing and the Twins win. There’s something in that. The real story here is a scandal, and it’s not the one with A-Rod. The New Britain Twins affiliate admitted to faking a failed marriage-cam proposal to create a viral video. This is an outrage, and it could shake the foundations of baseball as we know it. This not a drill. This is the real apocalypse. I get that baseball has to sweeten up the show to keep the homespun joy consistent for 162 games. I just don’t want them to get caught doing it. I mean, when a clown puts on facepaint it shouldn’t take phone calls about its retirement plan. Every stadium, for every game, needs to be a village gathered peacefully to share in the festivities. You can fake a mascot race, but don’t turn Americana into professional wrestling. Or at least don’t get caught doing it. Hold the Gap (Twins 5 Royals 2 – Game 111) The hits kept coming, but somehow Deduno kept this game reasonable. Only three strikeouts, too. No walks, and it looks like everything is improving from last year. Maybe slow growth is better, or maybe he’ll just join Diamond in Rochester next year. Still. I Want To Believe in the Deduno story. Most of the Twins batting averages are street addresses for the early part of the 200 block. I fear the day the new blood on the Twins team finally gives out and the losses pour through the collapse like flood water. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Apple_pie.jpg No Big Deal (SEA 3, MIN 0) The ball game was relegated to nothing more than background noise. The goose-egg on the Twins’ side of the scoreboard did little to lure me back in. With baseball refusing to signal the beginning of weekend joy. My conversation with my friend turned to ghost stories and hard luck tales. I even dug out the flashlight for that special campfire vibe. And so it’s like this: Baseball is apple pie, and when people are done with their slice they return to sampling the evils of the regular world. What I’m saying is Minnesota baseball’s piece of pie better get a lot more satisfying if it plans to be pleasantly distracting this summer. 3-0 ain’t cutting it. Selling the Drama (MIN 5, SEA 4) When Doumit hit the walk-off triple and I pumped my fist inside my car, I knew it was time to stop being superstitious about jinxing him. I touched the Misfits button I have on my driver’s side visor and heard, in my mind, the opening bars of “Mother.” Thinking of a certain relief pitcher as your closer may not make for good managing, but it does create guaranteed drama on the diamond. If you create a guy as the end-all-be-all of keeping the other team of the scoreboard, you create at least three guys who want to take him down. Gotta love that. Gotta love Joe Mauer, too. He’s confident, calm, and consistent. I get a mouth full of bile any time I hear someone complain about whether or not he’s clutch. They sound like someone screaming “Told you it’d be heads” after the coin didn’t come up tails for the first time in a hundred tries. Raining Domination and Baseballs (MIN 10, SEA 0) This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but the best way to appreciate a home team blowout is in bits and pieces, scattered through out your day. Don’t misunderstand me – nothing beats being at the game. But if you can’t be at the game, it’s best to get the game in glimpses. That way, every time you tune in the Twins smash it up and pour on some runs. When I’m not hearing the game, I’m imagining the Twins have somehow perfected batting to the point where they CANNOT miss, and they CANNOT hit anything except a home run. The scoreboard would read infinity. Major league baseball would be forced to enact what would be referred to as the Twins Rules. Joe Mauer would live on a mountain of baseballs and meditate in his own strike zone of Zen. 10-0 is pretty good, though. But someday. Click here to view the article

Whiffle ball led off my failed experiment at playing baseball. We owned two thin yellow whiffle ball bats and two big fat red bats. We hacked away with the yellow bats and eventually, after spinning around on strikeout after strikeout, someone would stomp into the garage and grab Big Red. It was the only way we could get a hit. This was country ball. There were never many of us, so pitcher's hand rules went into effect. Bases were usually leaves, sticks, or scratched out portions of dust. Games ended when it became more fun to smack each other with the bats than wait for the pitch to sail over the plate, or when a whiffle ball got lost in itch weed and no one's parent was willing to drive into town to buy a new one with change left over from buying candy. I swung for the fences every time and, despite the law of averages, I'm pretty sure I lost every time we played. Little League changed things, in that my failures were on display for classmates and their parents. I played right field and discovered prayer could not keep someone from hitting a ball out for me to misplay and lose in the grass. I prayed for the batter in front of me to record the last out, hoping the team would be outscored enough I would not be asked to bat at the top of the next inning. I notched one hit when I swung so far in advance of a pitch the bat wrapped around my body and the ball accidentally ran into the meat of the bat hanging over the plate. The ball trickled fair and I somehow landed on base. The other highlight of Little League brought short-lived joy. I cleverly worked my way out of a run-down between third and home, but the parents were laughing as I crossed home plate. Later, someone told me I'd accidentally kicked the ball out of the catcher's hand with my flailing and the run did not count, anyway. Scared of the ball? Terrified. I saw a classmate almost castrate his cousin with a lined shot that went past left field and nearly into a basketball court across the park. Catch could bloody your nose. I saw my coach scream in pain when a baseball bounced off his skull after I threw it when he was not looking. I kept going out, year after year, until junior high. It seemed manlier to announce that "baseball is stupid" instead of admitting I could not grasp the focus, communication, and teamwork necessary to play the game. I spent all of my energies swinging a bat spastically at my problems instead of learning and enjoying one hell of a game. Baseball tortured me through adolescence, only to provide me with enough joy and friendship to more than even the scales in adulthood. The game did not change, but I finally relaxed enough to join the team and find the right pace and attitude. As busy as life feels for kids today, I hope they are not hurrying so fast they miss baseball, too.

Baseball returns, and the internet trembles. The devout among us spend our days filling our brains with bucketfuls of thoughts. When presented with a keyboard, we pour these thoughts into various molds and send them out into the world. We find others who agree with our world views and we build ideas about why the ball moves the way it does. We create grids. We build structure. We invent games to prove we understand baseball better than baseball does. We think we own this game that has lived for over a century. Truth is, beneath the metal girders of our baseball constructions, the game itself grows organically. It grew as this country grew, and it spread through a war that could have killed our nation. Baseball pretends to submit to our designs, but it grows and changes anyway. This year, as we analyze the game and play along at home, the game will continue changing it to whatever it will be for the next generation. Seeds sprout now. They do not fit into the current framework, so it can be tempting to ignore them. Baseball is alive, and we are given another glorious season to watch it grow. Before long, our current conversations will be as obsolete and out of touch as the conversations the generations before us had. We will take our words and ideas and we will fade away. Baseball, however, will still be played, and will celebrate yet another opening day. Think about that, but when you are done thinking, play ball!

Bummed Darin Mastroianni got sent to minor league camp. My unpleasant mood has nothing to do with strategy or intellect. I am bummed because my friends who got autographs from him said he was a great guy. Mostly, I am bummed because I liked to pretend he was secretly a stubbly private investigator in a lesser known horror film directed by Dario Argento. Baseball, appreciated from the keen and reasoned eye of a scientific scholar, moves like a beautiful piece of clockwork machinery. I admire this viewpoint, though I suspect I will never quite master it. For my 2014 Twins season, I cannot be bothered to try to to see the baseball machine's cogs and gears selected and put into play with a jeweler's precision. In 2014, I say "8th Grade Mentality or Bust!" From this point forward, I am willing to believe pitchers are just magical instead of streaking or benefiting from good defense. Sam Deduno, you magical UFO son of a gun, make something happen. I will continue to enjoy the imaginary backstories and theme songs for players my wife, friends, and I invent. After all, just because no one has laughed at my Kubel/Guerrilas in Da Mist mash-up does not mean I should stop rapping it every time his name is mentioned. Every. Single. Time. I will relish nicknames. I shall delight in each Gardyism. I shall not jinx no-hitters by talking about them, and I can find it inside my heart to believe in rally hats again. I draw the line at doing the wave. My brain loves the brilliance of baseball, but my heart needs to be healthy, too. Bring on the dingers, and load me up on nasty hot dogs and nachos that follow the point under the "Twins" script on my shirt straight to my shorts and sneakers. May I sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" each and every time I hear it.

"Then the boy saw all— Since he was old enough to know, big boy Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart—" - Robert Frost Got the Sano news via phone notification as I got out of bed, and the grayness hung in the air like it saw this one coming. Flesh fails us all, but it is not supposed to crap out on a young physical wonder standing in the wings, moments away from his MLB debut. In January, Sano drew long lines of fans at Twinsfest. Now he begins a long road toward rebuilding his body, and I wish him nothing but the best. Athletes grow into tremendous physical gifts, but the flesh plays by its own rules. It must be a helluva kidney punch when an up-and-coming slugger realizes he is captain of an odd collection of fleshy bits, quite capable of mutiny. Eat right, exercise . . . and maybe something congenital gets you anyway. I want Sano to be bulletproof because Lord knows I'm not. I am past skipping the doctor and into an age where the doc has a usual list of things to watch out for. Believing in slo-mo swings for the bleachers under calm blue skies makes me feel like a body could live forever. But it cannot. I wonder if Sano, just entering his twenties, realizes his personal pain triggers sadness in the older fans, who want him to be young and amazing as a surrogate. Most likely he is simply concerned with healing and living his life, as he should be. And we, who are not the future baseball, must get on with our lives as fans who still need the dream.

Just bought my 2014 Twins Daily Offseason Handbook, and I started thinking my baseball thriller The Hoosecows, written with Roy C. Booth, is a prospect to watch in its own right. If you're a Twins fan, the joy of watching prospects mature is going to be a big part of your 2014 experience. Sano, Buxton, Meyer . . . What could be more exciting than supporting a future superstar before they slip into a big league uniform? Now, I'd like to offer you a chance to dial into another prospect. The Hoosecows is a baseball thriller about an independent league baseball team slogging through a season of suffering. Mysteries develop. Games get violent. Ballplayers meet untimely ends. It's a heckuva story, and Roy C. Booth and I will finish the final revision soon. This means The Hoosecows is a prospect, too. It will audition for publishers and we think you'll want a copy when it goes pro. But then you'd miss the fun of following the prospect process. Like us at http://www.facebook.com/cfcows. Get all the updates. Just by liking the page, you pump up our stats for the publishing scouts, too! That way, when someone you know buys a copy of the finished novel, you can say "I followed that book in the minor leagues." -- Axel

Headaches, Old and New (Twins 5 Indians 6 - Game 159) A busy day ended with a headache and an early trip to bed, like I was a starting pitcher getting the hook. It occurred to me, annoyed by pain as I was, that I might be lucking out. After all, I had a reason not to pay attention to baseball. Grinding out the last few months of recaps has reminded me baseball really only has a few stories. The dominating conquerors. The wily Cinderellas. The damned losers. I feel like the Twins haven't lost enough to be interesting failures this year. There may not be a tale to tell this time. Monstrosities (Twins 6 Indians 12 - Game 160) I only had one day at Crypticon, the yearly horror convention where I get autographs from fiendish monsters and the heroes who outlast their onslaughts. This year meant autographs from regally evil Sybil Danning, most fearless chainsaw-fighting hero Caroline Williams, and monster man Derek Mears. Got an autograph from local scream queen Sarah French, who once talked to me about visiting "Moonlight" Graham's grave in Rochester after I told her I co-wrote a baseball horror novel. It's like Twins Fest, but with shorter lines and more blood. You can get bobbleheads there. I checked the score of the Twins game, and clearly no one minds kicking this team when they're down. These games are forgotten as soon as they're entered into scoresheets. Three Years in Mudville (Twins 1 Indians 5 - Game 161) MLB moved this game up for the Indians, who set up and knocked 'em down. Rainy day, too. I'd hate for this nihilist attitude to come across as hateful to the players. The boys with the bats are clearly still playing. Time, though, it's moved on. Future books about the team will include this season in a short chapter with tiny paragraphs. Winning isn't everything, and it may be the only thing . . . that weaves you into history. No Joy (Twins 1 Indians 5 - Game 162) Twins lost. It's over for this year. When Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King wrote about the Red Sox, the Boston team won the World Series. Logically, I knew the Twins weren't really going to do that, no matter how much of a fan boy I can be. I wanted to see if you could write a story about a team doing nothing, and becoming nothing, for the third year in a row. I wanted to do it without being bratty or accusatory. I wanted to find nobility in a broken-down season. I tried. I failed, too. Instead, I wrote about my life in Mudville, after Casey whiffed on the last pitch of the ninth. There was no joy in it for me, of course. In truth, I am a kneejerk fan who waits for the victories and mutters his way through the losses. And I don't blame myself. Sports provide me with the dramatic joy living real life doesn't always provide. I love the Minnesota Twins, and I wish them a great off-season of putting the pieces together. But the fat lady sings in operas, Twins fans, and I won't be screaming in delirious happiness until this baseball team makes a big, bold splash into the post season. Because I am an unapologetic fan. And this is what fans are for.

Look Upon Mauer and Tremble (Twins 4 Tigers 3-- Game 156) Mauer's out for the season, like we all knew he would be. Concussion City gains a new resident. And this Pinto kid seems like he's ready to play some catcher. People wonder if Mauer can come back to put on the tools of ignorance. People wonder if Mauer can come back at all. The M and M boys are gone, leaving Target Field empty like a Halloween candy bowl. Mauer seems likely to be back in some way, shape, or form. Morneau's probably gone for good. I'm not a lifer Twins fan - I got hooked in '06, and now I'm realizing the team I came to the party with is gone for good. A new team is coming together even as we speak, but I'm bummed for what could've been. Putting Away Leisure (Twins 2 Tigers 4-- Game 157) The postseason is coming, but not to our fair city. I'm trying to adjust to life without conversations based on the foundation of "How 'bout those Twins?" This is extra unfair for Northern folk. Our winters last for half a year, and leave us trapped in sealed houses with the same people for months at a time. If ever a little light baseball talk would be appreciated, it's around February first. Of course, maybe the Twins will have a lively offseason to keep us gossiping. Maybe? Without baseball, there are whole relationships rendered mute until spring training. Water coolers will go silent. Fathers and sons will be left with only jokes based on bodily functions. Out, Out, Out (Twins 0 Tigers 1-- Game 158) Everything is changing. Gatsby of Twins Bloggers Aaron Gleeman is openly tweeting about going to Target Field on a date instead of staying home ranking Official Fantasy Girls of AaronGleeman.com. It's a new world out there. Only one series to go in these recaps, and I wonder what other people are getting out of it. If you followed from the beginning, you witnessed me stifling my fan boy optimism until reality took that away one piece at a time. The Twins playing miserable baseball wouldn't even crack my year's top ten list for pain and disappointment, but it's easily in the top three on the list of things I keep whining about. I get the feeling there are more fans out there like me, and I bet we all look at each other and think "that dude's too obsessed."

Memory Lane Trips (Twins 6 As 8 -- Game 152) In 2006, I watched Boof Bonser take the mound against the Oakland As. I was close to Torii Hunter when he tripped up and misplayed a ball. I watched a good season end. Now the As are looking pretty good and the Twins are collapsing their way to 90+ losses. Again. Third time in a row. Nighttime is getting dark, and these games are just little tombstones in a season so forgettable you couldn't describe it by mentioning proud moments from actual games. No-Town (Twins 0 As 11 -- Game 153) I've gone from being a Good Fan to being a Bad Fan to being an Evil Fan. When the runs start to line up against us, I say bring it on. It's been a run-down carnival midway of a season, so why not just send in the clowns? Losing gets repetitive, and real life follows suit. Concerns about U.S. involvement in the Middle East, two party politics becoming absurd, weather not being what you wanted? We've all been here before. When I read other Twins bloggers and reporters, I wonder if they're as desperate to be finished with this season as I am. Raw Sewage (Twins 1 As 9 -- Game 154) The As stadium, charming as it is, overflowed with what could potentially have been raw sewage. This delayed the game, and loaded up Twins writers everywhere with an apt but obvious metaphor for the season. But that wasn't enough for this team, so they lost 9-1 just to prove the point. Playoff baseball is coming. I'm still hitching my wagon to the Pirates, even if they've had a few sewage filled moments of their own lately. When I turn on that first playoff game, baseball will seem like a different sport. I'm not used to the games meaning something. Home Fan Advantages (Twins 7 As 11 -- Game 155) Twins lose again, but the Minnesota Vikings pitched in to lose in a more humiliating fashion. I watched the football team lose in person, then got updates on the Twins loss as an after dinner mint. A visit to the Metrodome is a great way to avoid getting too nostalgic about the Twins' time in the Metrodome. The bathroom lines are so long you don't stand in them, you enroll. The drab, circular hallways are like being trapped in a never-ending high school hallway. Even the air feels bored. Win or lose - and yup, Twins lost again - Target Field is a heckuva place to be. The food and beer still tastes pretty darned good. The sightlines are amazing. The spaces are comfortable. It's like an empty Twinkie, missing it's baseball cream filling. It deserves something special next year.

Cool Breeze, Eyes Closed (Twins 1 White Sox 12 - Game 149) After getting our house Halloween ready the night before, I came home to a perfectly decorated house. The smell of fall blew through the windows and hung in the air. It covered the stench of what Liam Hendriks was doing on the mound in Chicago. The Great Dane agreed with me. If anyone's excited to see the Twins lose, it's Stella the Great Dane. She was traumatized when I jumped up and stomped around the living room after Kubel won the game with a cycle-completing home run. She was mortified when Liriano got the no-no and I picked her up and spun her in a circle. Crisp fall weather is great for Great Danes, but a boring season for the Twins is pretty good, too. The Mermaids Aren't Singing (Twins 3 White Sox 4 - Game 150) When I drove past Target Field tonight, I knew I was done going to games for the year. The thought didn't smack me across the face, but it did sour in my gut. Two games at Target Field. The fewest number of games I've attended in years. If we're tallying the stats, I haven't bought a Twins shirt this year, either. I'm a fool with my money, but the Twins aren't getting into my pocketbook like they used to. Either I'm growing up or they're losing their touch. Twins lost again, as if defying me to care. Daydream Disbelief (Twins 4 White Sox 3 - Game 151) The game came and went with a victory while my wife and I were negotiating doctor time. It's funny how no one complains about stat-heads in medicine. In fact, doctors really are better off keeping their gut instincts to themselves. We may want them to be brave and occasionally take chances, but we need them grounded in reality. Today, I kept wondering what it'd be like if our doctor was a soured baseball scout or embittered baseball writer. Don't think I'd like it. Glen Perkins saved yet another game, by the way. Right now, he's his own winning season.

Voorhees: A True Dynasty (Twins 0 Rays 3-- Game 146) On this Friday the 13th, I regret choosing Friday the 13th Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan as the film I watched. Jason Voorhees may be unkillable, but this lame hodge-podge of maritime hijinks and flimsy backstories sure signaled a sign this franchise had seen better days. The Twins, another franchise that's seen better days, got blanked. If I had cable, I'd have been just as bored watching them as I was watching a guy in a hockey mask jump out from behind boxes. If you want to continue the analogy, the Jason movie's failure might best be attributed to apathy from the higher ups and low budgets. Do what that what you will. Mother Nature, Human Nature and Losing, Which is Second Nature (Twins 0 Rays 7-- Game 147) The Internet Twins Crew put together a Grand Drunk Railroad Pub Crawl. I didn't go (diagnosed as cheap), but I like to think of them as a rag-tag crew daring to love the Twins in spite of everything. Unfortunately for them, "everything" includes Nature. The day spit on them for daring to love a suffering team, and then it put its foot down to actually stop the game for hours. Things let up just so the gang could watch the hometown nine lose. All they ever dared do was enjoy a lousy team in a losing season (with booze). Nature will have none of that. It's fall now, and all the loose leafs must be shaken from the tree. Glen Perkins found the only way he could to get a save for the evening, and he bought a round for the revelers from the bullpen. His gesture will live on for years, for a relatively small cost. The team brass could take notes, if they so chose. Halloween Creep (Twins 6 Rays 4-- Game 146) With fall comes football, and then all roads lead to Halloween. I put my decorations out on September 15th, so my favorite holiday can have the same amount of celebrating as Christmas. Santa and his posse cheat their way up to the day after Thanksgiving, so I just push my hauntings back to September. Amidst this massive endeavor the Twins won a game with Josmil Pinto and my main man Ryan Doumit crushing homers. Perkins earned yet another save. Still, at one point in the day I took down a Twins banner to put up a ratty wooden skeleton. That's what Fall does to most baseball teams. When my guys win their way into October, I'll be happy to mix red and blue into my orange and black. This year? The skeleton owns that piece of real estate.

Swarzak Attack (Twins 4 As 3 - Game 143) You'd have a tough time coming up with a cooler success story for the Twins than the tale of Anthony Swarzak. Dude got injured rough-housing at Twins Fest and put himself out of commission for while. It seemed like one more reason to end up in Gardy's dog house, and an embarrassing way to escort yourself off of a major league roster. Now it's September, and he's a success story. Maybe we should all start believing in the existence of the Sasquatch, huh? Living on If and If I Tried (Twins 3 As 18 - Game 144) What kind of a fan am I, anyway? The Twins lost this game like a boxing match where the ref just wouldn't call the fight and skulls were caving in, and all I could muster was a shrug. I did show the score to my wife. She shrugged, too. I believe, in my heart, that Good Fans exist. Good Fans watch every game with nothing but team pride in their hearts. When they see a blowout like this one, they just find a way to nod toward their golden retriever and sigh, "We'll get 'em next time, Duke." Their dogs are always golden retrievers named Duke. They are also mostly retirees. I, myself, am not such a Good Fan. I Ain't No Good (Twins 2 As 8 - Game 145) Not just another loss, but another stomping. I didn't have enough "I care" left in me for a real sigh this time. I would feel a lot better if the Twins stopped blabbering about their new food truck. If I were a Good Fan, I'd be excited at the green growth of new Twins who will be future stars - and believe me, it exists. But I'm not a Good Fan. I'm a Pissy Fan. Every time the Twins social media mentions that new food truck, it feels like it's Christmas and Daddy Twins are playing with their new toys while the rest of us are opening up boxes of coal. I love the Twins, but I won't love them forever just because they are the Twins. The world already has one Chicago Cubs. Why build another?

A Pop-In (Twins 6 Angels 3 - Game 142) Make-up games fit perfectly into Minnesotan living. If we're not winterizing something we're complaining about the electric bill from running the AC. We're always paying down the interest on past due weather expenses, so our baseball team might as well, too. Amidst summer's last hissy fit, the Twins came to play. They won 6-3 and kept Glen Perkins' status as The Last Twin With Something To Smile About intact. Pinto seems kinda nifty, and Presley has me thinking there might've been some sense behind the Morneau trade. Meanwhile, Justin and Frankie L. are celebrating a season where Pittsburgh, for the first time in so long, won't have a losing season. Back home, in the land of 10,000 lakes, we would do well to avoid recognizing that all losing streaks start with small numbers, and this will be our third losing season in a row.

The Mob Has Tweeted (Twins 5 Blue Jays 6 - Game 139) This game paired up two pitchers I knew, in my gut, were going to become amazing. R.A. Dickey rose to the challenge. Mike Pelfrey must not have gotten that memo. When your favorite team will only win prizes for participation, the only excitement left comes in sifting through the wreckage to find future stars. We all know how this game works, even if we pretty it up with BS from time to time. You pick a player you believe is going to turn heads in 2014 and you proclaim their ascendency often, and in public. Then, you wait. If the player biffs it, you take the hit. If not, you get to proclaim your baseball genius. Loudly. And in public. I'm not trying to act superior here. My money's on Arcia. All Snark on Deck (Twins 2 Blue Jays 11 - Game 140) Aaron Gleeman made it to the deckstravaganza, but only barely. He had to strategize a path to the promised lands, jabbing with his Twitter account like it was the sweet science of boxing. With skill and clout, he made it to rooftop to watch the game and play with his phone (this can be proven with documented photographic evidence). Gleeman rounded out the night by taking a picture with a fan, and he barely got into the deckstravaganza. Gleeman walks among the internet-dwelling baseball fans like a Prohibition-era gangster, and he barely got in. I don't know, I'm starting to think I didn't make it because I didn't submit an application. I'm not sure why Gleeman wasn't a given to the deskstravaganza, but I'd hate to be the person in charge of inviting us bloggy types a little closer to the action. After all, a lot of us have opinions, attitudes, and no qualms about being very public about anything and everything. In short, many of us are maniacs - and I dig it. A blogger with access loses a little bit of vinegar and a whole lot of piss. The game the deckstravaganza crowd watched? 11-2 blowout. Can't win some days . . . Hank Williams Jr. Interrupts this Message (Twins 0 Blue Jays 2 - Game 141) Some Twitter folks were very proud to proclaim they were watching another loss instead of getting ready for some football. I wish them well, but I turned on network TV and got disappointed by a completely different Minnesotan team. Just the night before, a friend of mine and I were lamenting the joyous, lively baseball conversations that lit up the internet when the Twins were winning. Now those friends are all turning to the Vikings, and it feels like hope and joy are endangered species back in the 'dome, too. Maybe the Vikings weren't ready for some football. Maybe it really is Vince Lombardi's world, and winning is everything - even for the folks who aren't playing the game.

Chuckles (Twins 10 Astros 6 Game 136) Other places it was Labor Day and the last day of the fair, but in our house it was preparation day. The next day my wife was due at the hospital for a thyroidectomy. She's fine, and she's going to be fine. It's just another annoying grown-up thing that reminds a person real life always wins. We stayed busy preparing for our trip to the hospital, and the game itself didn't get much attention. Still, when I heard about Colabello's grand slam in the ninth, I had to chuckle . In spite of all the stress and worry, knowing something magical and uncommon happened for my favorite team made me smirk to myself in an emotionally draining moment. Thank you, Chris Colabello, for that. Territorial Pride (Twins 9 Astros 6 -- Game 137) The team won this game on the road, but its fans won the day for our family at home. I've had the pleasure of meeting with many other Twins fans online, and several of them are friends who have met me at games, shared a meal with me, or even been in my house (after my wife was certain the house was cleaned to her standards). Finding friends gets harder with age, and for me spotting a person with a TC hat and an attitude is a great sign I'm meeting a person I'm going to like. As my wife cruised through her surgery like a champ and took to her recovery with the ferocity and dedication of Adrian Peterson, I realized how many great friends we had made through Twins-related activities. Many of those friends have been there for us during this stressful time, providing us with smiles and support. It's a heckuva thing to know a simple game of strategy can bring together a community of giving hearts. Twins fans out there who have reached out and given time and compassion, we thank you heartily. You know who you are, and we won't forget. I may be biased, but I believe baseball fans are the best people to know. Thanks, everyone, for proving me right. Off Day A-Hoy! (Twins 5 Astros 6 -- Game 138) Caught bits and pieces of this game on the radio and my phone as we got permission to take my wife home for some rest, relaxation, and high-quality husband care. Everything felt a little topsy-turvy, but it looked like the Twins might get me grinning with a series sweep - I always love those. It came close, but it didn't happen. I was already napping before the game was over, getting to some off day battery recharging a little ahead of my favorite baseball team. My wife's spirit is coming back, and we're hoping our own personal bounceback season is finished and we can return to our championship form soon. Oh, and because I am still the creepy guy? Anyone look at the Astros' scores for the last three games? 6. 6. 6. We should keep an eye on that, guys.