Dan In Real Life

Four tiny words mean last season's over 
Pitchers and catchers report
A tough year to watch, or remain sober
Pitchers and catchers report
A winter spent refreshing MLB rumors
Praying that Falvey makes a big move or
re-signs Correa? LOL! That’s good humor!
Pitchers and catchers report
A crowded rotation? No chance that’s true.
Pitchers and catchers report
No bad backs or elbows or bubonic flu?
Pitchers and catchers report
We’ll finally see pitching, for which we’ve waited
Mahle & Lopez, Sonny, Maeda,
Ryan & Ober (though he could get Sainted)
Pitchers and catchers report
Pico de Gallo adds power that pleases 
Pitchers and catchers report
Plus K-rriffic swings that add cooling breezes
Pitchers and catchers report
We added a Farmer who fields everywhere 
Also a Taylor (for when Buxton’s not there)
A new framing Christian will answer our prayers. 
Pitchers and catchers report. 
Finally you take your turn as poet
Pitchers and catchers report
Channel your winter frustration and show it
Pitchers and catchers report
The comments below are a great place to bleat
Two tens and three ‘levens provide you the beat
(But add words wherever, if like me you cheat).
Pitchers and catchers report

When the offseason began, there were two certainties: The Twins would move heaven and earth to get Carlos Correa back, and Max Kepler was going to be traded.
Through a wild series of events, Correa is back in Minnesota for a while. However, that second certainty? At this writing, it’s uncertain at best.
“Spring Training is two weeks away and Max (Kepler, Twins outfielder) is still here,” said Twins outfielder Trevor Larnach. “We sort of removed him from all of our group chats. It’s weird.”
The signing of fellow lefthanded corner outfielder Joey Gallo seemed to signal that Kepler’s time as a Twin was nearing an end. The trade for Michael A. Taylor seemed to put an exclamation point to it.
And yet.
“I sort of moved my stuff into his locker at Target Field,” said Larnach. “It’s going to be awkward already when we start texting him out of the blue about Fort Myers restaurants and agreeing he’s right about how great German chocolate is. We get it, bro, you’re from Germany. The locker is harder to explain.”
Fellow outfielder Byron Buxton agrees that it’s going to take a little finesse.
“We all kind of thought he was gone,” said Buxton. “And he doesn’t quite have a handle on how we use emojis here, so if we welcome him back with the wrong one, it could get sideways. The ‘cry laughing’ one means something so disturbing where he’s from that he didn’t talk to (Ryan) Jeffers for two months.”
Larnach was asked if Kepler might be open to bargaining.
“I just read some Grimm’s Fairy Tales to acquaint myself with his culture,” said Larnach. “These stories are messed up. The Godfather Death ruins harvests and the Three Nymphs of the Black Forest steal your soul and your maiden fair. I don’t know what a maiden fair even is. Maybe I should just buy him a car?”
 

The owners of Major League Baseball locked out the players just after midnight on Thursday morning, ensuring baseball’s first work stoppage in over a quarter century. And Shad Browne knows who to blame.
“These players are greedy and entitled, I’m sick of ‘em,” said the Fairmont landscaper. “They get paid money to play a game and sometimes you’ve gotta take a stand.”
The owners, wealthier than the players by a monstrous degree and living lives of unimaginable luxury, do not receive the same level of disdain from Browne.
“Lotta these owners are entrepreneurs who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to make their money,” said Browne incorrectly. “Meanwhile, the modern player just takes a day off when they feel like it. The way I see it, you don’t play, you don’t get paid.”
Browne, who took PTO last Monday because the Vikings lost and he was “super hungover,” said he sees a lot of himself in owners, despite this being remarkably untrue.
“They’re just trying to run a business same as anyone else,” he said with the steady resolve that only the deeply ignorant possess. “I guess I’d just like to see a little more gratitude and a little less attitude from the millennial generation.”
Browne, who used the word “meritocracy” in reference to a country where you don’t have to work a day in your life if your great-granddad sold mustard gas to Kaiser Wilhelm, dismissed the notion that the owners should take some of the blame for instigating the lockout they instigated.
“At the end of the day, they’ve got a business to run,” said Browne, for whom the concept of generational wealth has never so much as registered for one second of one day. “If the players can’t handle that, they can get a job just like anyone else.
“It’s just not right,” said the cornfed rube.

Roxy, a 5-year-old dog in a festive Christmas sweater, has two messages this holiday season.
“I would very much like a treat, and the Minnesota Twins should sign Byron Buxton to an extension,” said Roxy.
The dog, a Staffordshire bull terrier, hopes the gaudy garment draws attention to her message.
“Everyone sees a dog in an ugly sweater and they lose their damn minds,” said Roxy. “Now that I have their attention, I can get them to see the golden opportunity of a long-term deal for one of the game’s dynamic talents. Make no mistake, I hate wearing people clothes and go to great lengths to avoid it, including carpet urination and defiling stuffed animals. But this is important.”
Roxy said Buxton’s extensive injury history, while a concern, was outweighed by the center fielder’s overall game.
“In the field he saves your starting pitcher a run every game,” said the dog, pausing to bark at the doorbell for 45 seconds before continuing. “And his offense has finally caught up to his elite defense. He hit 19 home runs in 60 games last year. This is the rare chance for a team like Minnesota to retain a superstar in his prime oh my god A BUNNY RABBIT!”
Roxy observed a rabbit in the backyard, tore out the doggy door, and unsuccessfully chased it around the backyard. She wandered back into the house.
“As I was saying, Buxton’s health actually affords the Twins a chance to get him on an affordable, incentive-laden deal,” said the dog, catching her breath. “If he had been healthy and producing like he did for 162 games in 2021, the price tag would have given the Pohlads a nosebleed.”
Roxy noted that she also “did her business” while protecting the household from the bunny threat, and said you should clean it up before one of the kids stepped in it. She ended the interview to go nap in a sunbeam for three hours.