All Summers are Royal Blue (Twins 3 Royals 1 - Game 74)

When, in the course of baseball events, the Twins are clearly not going to make the playoffs, the Royals will play against them approximately one million times. Neither team will be playing meaningful baseball, and yet they will continue playing.

I shouldn’t complain. The Twins won.

Deduno wins again, too. Aaron Gleeman calls him a UFO, because people believe in his pitching prowess even though all the evidence points toward a more rational explanation. I, for one, think there’s no reason to hate on UFOS.

Deduno will probably crash to earth, but until then he’s mystifying everyone and putting on Ws on the board. Legends are best when they come outta nowhere, even if they don’t last long at all.

Wooden Bleachers (Twins 3 Royals 9 - Game 75)

Caught this game in punchlines. There was a rain delay, then an embarrassment of Royals runs and a loss.

The joke wasn’t on me, however, because I got my baseball joy from watching my 5 year-old-niece play T-ball. It’s easy to keep track of four bases when you’re grown up. When you’re a kid, the diamond has more twists and turns. At least you have extra time to navigate a path home when the other team is using all of their motor skills to get the ball from their glove to first base.

I cheered loud and took pictures, and my niece was clearly the best one out there (also, my other niece was the cutest kid playing in the playground during the game). All the parents and relatives were cheering, brought together by a kid’s game to blink away infield dust and watch a ball game amid trees and Iowan plains.

Reinforced (Twins 6 Royals 2 - Game 76)

My 11 year wedding anniversary involved a fancy meal of buffet pizza with my nieces and our family. I was too busy to catch the score until my dad spotted it on a TV. Twins win.

Kyle Gibson wins.

The reinforcements are coming, Twins Territory. I can hear the bugles all the way down here in Iowa. Hicks and Arcia arrived as scouts, but Gibson’s arrival is something else. He survived injury and pitched a debut game worth bragging about. If any battlefront needed reinforcement, it was the pitching mound.

If the bleeding stops on that pitching mound, we could be Break-Evening by at least next year. Maybe it’ll knock some of the Cubs shirts off of Iowans. After all, the Kernels are giving them a taste of what’s coming to Target Field.

Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing (Twins 8 Royals 9 - Game 77)

If you step toward a wall and travel halfway there with each step, you’ll never make it to the wall. Similarly, no matter how close communication advances get you to the game of baseball, they never quite take you all the way to the ballpark.

We finished the trek home from Iowa and I took a break to look at my phone. The Twitter updates sent directly to me informed me Clete Thomas hit a home run, and then in the next sentence let me know the Twins were still losing. Then another RBI and the Twins were closing in on tying the game.

At least until I checked the score again and found the Twins were losing by three.

Emotions went up and down from there. Morneau and Plouffe found home runs to keep the game hopping, and then the whole shooting match ended on three strikes outs and this Royals series is done.

The real loss is my streak of consecutive days without attending a Twins game. New players are coming. Old players are going to leave. I’m feeling the urge look both categories in the eyes again, even if it’s from the top of the bleachers.