Waiting For Sano

MINNIE:
Nothing to be done.

PAUL:
I'm beginning to come ‘round to that opinion. All this time I've tried to put it from me, saying Paul, be reasonable, he hasn't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle. So, there you are again.

MINNIE:
Am I?

PAUL:
I'm glad to see you back. I thought after the lockout you were gone forever.

MINNIE:
Me too.

PAUL:
Together again at last! We'll have to celebrate this. But how? Get up till I embrace you.

MINNIE:
Not now, not now.

PAUL:
May one inquire where His Highness spent the night?

MINNIE:
In a ditch.

PAUL:
A ditch! Where?

MINNIE:
Over there.

PAUL:
And they didn't beat you?

MINNIE:
Beat me? Certainly they beat me.

PAUL:
The same lot as usual?

MINNIE:
The same? Yankees, Dodgers, I don't know.

PAUL:
When I think of it…all these years…but for me…where would you be…you'd be nothing more than a little heap of bones at the present minute, no doubt about it.

MINNIE:
And what of it?

PAUL:
It's too much for one man. On the other hand, what's the good of losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the nineties.

MINNIE:
Ah stop blathering and help me off with this bloody thing. (MINNIE gestures at his Dairy Queen promotional Twins batting helmet.)

PAUL:
Hand in hand from the top of the Foshay Tower, among the first. We were respectable in those days. Now it's too late. They wouldn't even let us up. What are you doing?

MINNIE:
Taking off my helmet. Did that never happen to you?

PAUL:
Helmets must be taken off every day, I'm tired telling you that. Why don't you listen to me?

MINNIE:
Help me!

PAUL:
It hurts?

MINNIE:
Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!

PAUL:
No one ever suffers but you. I don't count. I'd like to hear what you'd say if you had what I have.

MINNIE:
It hurts?

PAUL:
Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!

MINNIE:
(MINNIE points at PAUL's Menards promotional Twins baseball pants) You might button it all the same.

PAUL:
True. (PAUL buttons his fly.) Never neglect the little things of life.

MINNIE:
What do you expect, you always wait till the last moment.

PAUL:
The last moment…hope deferred maketh the something sick, who said that?

MINNIE:
Why don't you help me?

PAUL:
Sometimes I feel it coming all the same. Then I go all “maybe this is the year he’s consistent all season long.” How shall I say? Relieved and at the same time…appalled. AP-PALLED. Funny. Nothing to be done. Well?

MINNIE:
Nothing.

PAUL:
Show me.

MINNIE:
There's nothing to show.

PAUL:
Try and put it on again.

MINNIE:
I'll air it for a bit.

PAUL:
There's man all over for you, blaming on his promotional Dairy Queen batting helmet for the faults of his head. This is getting alarming. Gogo.

MINNIE:
What?

PAUL:
Suppose we repented.

MINNIE:
Repented what?

PAUL:
Oh. We wouldn't have to go into the details.

MINNIE:
Our being Minnesota sports fans?

(PAUL breaks into a hearty laugh which he immediately stifles, his hand pressed to his careworn Bomba Squad t-shirt, his face contorted.)

PAUL:
One daren't even laugh any more.

MINNIE:
Dreadful privation.

PAUL:
Merely smile. It’s not the same thing. Nothing to be done. Gogo.

MINNIE:
What is it?

PAUL:
Did you ever read Baseball Reference?

MINNIE:
Baseball Reference…I must have taken a look at it.

PAUL:
Do you remember the Similarity Scores?

MINNIE:
I remember the Advanced Batting stats. I remember WAR and Win Probability. I remember seeing that his closest comps are Kyle Schwarber and Adam Duvall and Bo Jackson. The very look of it made me thirsty. That's where he'll go, I used to say, that's where he'll go for our postseason. We'll win. We'll be happy.

PAUL:
You should have been a poet.

MINNIE:
I was. Isn't that obvious?

PAUL:
Where was I…how's your head?

MINNIE:
Swelling visibly.

PAUL:
Ah yes, the two players. Do you remember the story?

MINNIE:
No.

PAUL:
Shall I tell it to you?

MINNIE:
No.

PAUL:
It'll pass the time. Two players traded at the same time as our savior. One—

MINNIE:
Our what?

PAUL:
Our savior, Joe Mauer. Two players. One is supposed to have been saved and the other…damned.

MINNIE:
Saved from what?

PAUL:
Hell.

MINNIE:
I'm going.

PAUL:
And yet…how is it –this is not boring you I hope– how is it that of the four beat writers only one speaks of a player being saved. The four of them were there –or thereabouts– and only one speaks of a player being saved. Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can't you, once in a way?

MINNIE:
I find this really most extraordinarily interesting.

PAUL:
One out of four. Of the other three, two don't mention any players at all and the third says that both Hardy and Hoey were damned.

MINNIE:
Who?

PAUL:
What?

MINNIE:
What's all this about? Damned how?

PAUL:
Hoey got optioned. Hardy went to Baltimore.

MINNIE:
Why?

PAUL:
Because Hoey couldn't save them.

MINNIE:
From hell?

PAUL:
Imbecile! From losing.

MINNIE:
I thought you said hell.

PAUL:
From losing, from losing.

MINNIE:
Well what of it?

PAUL:
Then the two of them must have been damned.

MINNIE:
And why not?

PAUL:
But one of the four says that one of the two was saved.

MINNIE:
Well? They don't agree and that's all there is to it.

PAUL:
But all four were there. And only one speaks of a player being saved. Why believe him rather than the others?

MINNIE:
Who believes him?

PAUL:
Everybody. It's the only version they know.

MINNIE:
People are bloody ignorant apes.

PAUL:
Pah!

MINNIE:
Charming spot. (MINNIE looks at Twins depth chart.) Inspiring prospects. Let's go.

PAUL:
We can't.

MINNIE:
Why not?

PAUL:
We're waiting for Sano.