The Rake Magazine

It's pretty obvious by now that I've run out of gas. I think everybody has run out of gas. The only thing more depressing than a baseball team playing out the string in late September is a baseball team from which you expected big things playing out the string in September.

It messes up your whole world, and even as you watch it slip away you know that winter is out there in the night, marching doggedly toward the city. In the distance you can already hear the rattle of its drums and see the smoke from its campfires.

In no time at all the 2005 season will be splayed on the autopsy table in a dank basement morgue, and it will be all you can do to make the trip down the stairs to poke around in the cadaver looking for answers.

I don't suppose I'll do much poking around this winter. When a stiff comes through the door with a massive blunt trauma to the skull it doesn't take Quincy to figure out what killed the damn thing. In this instance, though, I'd imagine that even a cursory probe of the guts would nonetheless reveal some unpleasant surprises.

The blow to the head --or the repeated blows to the head-- might be the final verdict on the cause of death, but I suspect that if the poor bastard had had a bit more fight in him he might have avoided the blows in the first place, and he might still be standing, might still be breathing.

How the Twins managed to stagger the last two-and-a-half months without a pulse is a mystery for the ages.

Since 1982 I have managed to hang in there right down to the wire in every single baseball season. I'm sure if I looked back through my scorebooks I'd see that I attended the last home game of the year in at least 80% of those seasons.

I won't be there this year, though. I've had a hard time being there almost from the beginning. Life has gotten in the way all season, and the Twins have obliged by giving me few reasons to regret that I've mostly stayed home.

They have gone from frustrating to disappointing to just plain bad.

Baseball is, though, a damn hard habit to break, and on each of the previous two nights I found myself sitting down in front of the television and watching the games from start to finish.

That, I'm sure you realize, took some patience I didn't even realize I had left, particularly on Monday night. That 5-0 loss to Kansas City (and the horrendous J.P. Howell) may well have been the low point of the season, which almost made it worth watching. Howell, of course, is lefthanded, but by now it really makes absolutely no difference. The Twins couldn't hit Thurston Howell. They couldn't hit Norman Fell, and I'm not even sure Fell is still alive.

For almost the entire season Minnesota's starting pitchers have had to approach their jobs with the mindset of soccer goaltenders, and it has been depressing to watch. If they give up three runs --or three goals-- the game is essentially over. The now overwhelming evidence suggests that if they give up two runs the game is over.

Last night, at least, with Johan Santana on the mound, you knew going in that the Twins had a pretty good shot at winning one of those 2-1 games for a change. It was big of them to tack on that extra insurance run in the late going.

There is no reason in the world, other than the fact that he has had to labor for the 2005 version of the Twins, that Santana is not cruising towards his second Cy Young award. As it is it's a wonder that the guy has managed to win fifteen games with this feeble lineup. On a decent team, a team with even a modestly competent offense, at least four Twins starters would have fifteen wins.

I will say this, though: This team wasn't that bad. Or, rather, they shouldn't have been this bad. I think it's just been one of those years. Teams have them. Some teams, of course, have them routinely. I don't think that's going to be the case with the Twins. I honestly believe --because, really, what choice do I have?-- that they'll be much, much better next year.

Hell, even now, I still believe they'll be much, much better tonight.

Question: How low can you go?

Additional question: When was the last time a Major League baseball team played so many games that so closely resembled World Cup soccer matches?

Another question: Who wants to weigh in on this team's chances of finishing above .500?

One final question: What the hell?

And, further food for thought: Has anyone else noticed how oddly taboo David Ortiz's name has become in any analysis of the strengths and failures of this organization? I mean, I know people have whined plenty about missing him, but that goes without saying. What really needs to be explored is how the hell this team let one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball --exactly the kind of hitter the Twins so desperately need-- simply walk away just when he was entering the prime years of his career (and money, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with it)? How could they not have recognized his potential?

Just who the hell was the Twins' hitting coach when David Ortiz was here in Minnesota? Help me out here, because I'm having a hard time remembering the guy's name.

Not to want to say, not to know what you want to say, and never to stop saying, or hardly ever, that is the thing to keep in mind...

--Samuel Beckett

Since I have almost nothing else to tell you right now, I'll tell you who I both feel sorry for and envy at the moment: The beat writers for the Twins. Can you even imagine the lives of those poor wretches? That pack of glum bastards has to sit there in the press box every night and try to find fresh words to describe the fresh hell they are forced to witness.

For that, of course, I feel sorry for them. These are the same people, after all, who were so full of hope and blithely optimistic prognostications six months ago (as we all were, as were we all), and they have had to gut this thing out with a gun to their heads every night. Lord knows, that can't be easy. And whatever they're being paid, it almost certainly isn't enough.

I've been in their uncomfortable seats far too many times at this point in seasons just like this one --in seasons far worse than this one, in fact, at least strictly in terms of won-loss records. There have been years where I sat there in the Dome in September when there was so little cause for optimism in the present or future prospects of the team that it wasn't even really possible to call the Twins a disappointment.

Let us not forget those almost entirely hopeless years.

That there was so much hope this season is precisely what makes what has transpired such a keen disappointment, and I suppose if you have to pick your poison you'd take this one, however reluctantly.

That doesn't make the routine kicks to your heart smart any less, certainly, but at least we had expectations, and can still find reason to harbor some expectation and hope for the future; which is more, I know, than fans can say in many Major League cities.

As I said, though, as much pity as I might feel for the beleaguered beat writers, I also envy them. At its worst, it's still a decent job, a dream gig for all sorts of people who have absolutely no idea what a grind it can be day in and day out. I don't think people can begin to understand the long hours these characters put in, or the relentless travel schedule and impossible demands --physical, psychological, and logistical-- of the job. Look up there in the press box some night when a big lead has evaporated and a game is headed to extra innings with deadlines looming. What you'll see is a collective nervous breakdown in progress, as the beat writers --with early deadlines looming-- curse, wheedle, and scrap nearly completed game stories to start over wholly from scratch.

I also envy these people the enforced discipline of the job. Every day, come what may, these writers have to find something to say, something to write. They have to try to make sense of what has happened and what is happening, and put it in some larger context of expectations, disappointments, and pennant races. Some days, of course, they just need to find the quickest possible way to get from A to Z (or, if they're really in a hurry, from A to B), to describe the game they have just watched, however brutal it might have been, in the clearest, cleanest possible manner. It's certainly not easy, but it's also nice to have vigilant witnesses for those times when even the most diehard fan's natural inclination is to simply punch out.

I depend on the beat writers more than ever at times like this, those stretches when I find myself drifting away from the television or radio in the middle of the game, or tuning in late. I need them to keep me connected to the game and the dwindling season, however tenuously.

As Shakespeare, I think it was, once wrote, "Some must watch, while others sleep."

I'm grateful for that, grateful for the watchers, still thankful that I know I'm going to get up every morning to game stories and box scores in the newspaper, even as I increasingly find myself thinking, "Better them than me."

I recognize that it's likely ridiculous to hope for anything resembling consistency from the Twins at this point, but that doesn't, of course, stop me from hoping all the same.

And that --the continued, irrational investment of hope-- is what makes a game like yesterday's so damn frustrating. The two steps forward, five steps back routine has grown maddening in the extreme. So I must say that I, for one, was more than happy to hear about Carlos Silva popping off (and only in a place accustomed to relatively benign and even tranquil clubhouse chemistry could such a mild outburst of frustration be regarded as newsworthy, let alone as rocking the boat).

I'm sort of wishing at this point that there'd be a real air-clearing donnybrook to lively up this team (and give us all something truly interesting to write about for a change).

I will admit, though, that Brad Radke --being Brad Radke-- openly pondering thoughts of suicide was pretty damn interesting as far as recent news about this team goes. It was also pretty seriously disturbing, even if you do happen to be familiar with Radke's private headbanger reputation and taste for Metallica.

Which Twins would you most like to see square off and kick the snot out of each other right now? From among the characters in that clubhouse what would be your dream card, and how would you handicap it?

I'll have to think some about that question myself. A couple years ago I would have automatically said Rick Reed and whomever was most likely to severely imperil his career, but right now it's a tough question. I'm not really thinking about a pure mismatch at the moment; I'd much rather see a tough, closely-fought contest in which both combatants walk away with minor contusions and a grudging respect for each other.

Also, can you point to one sustained stretch all season where the Twins played consistently satisfying baseball? I know there were a couple of modest winning streaks, but if I recall correctly even those were marred by inefficient offense and the occasional uninspired effort.

Finally, consider this question, if you would: Is there one player, coach, or member of the organization that you could point to as most directly accountable for the frustrations of this team? Or maybe this one: Is there one game or series you could single out as the moment when you sensed the train starting to come off the tracks?

Certainly in recent years we have had more pleasant, more beneficent moments (i.e. Torii Hunter's collision at home plate against Chicago a couple seasons ago, or Corey Koskie's back-breaking homer versus Cleveland that salvaged the series, and the season, last year), but I'd be hard pressed to pin the malaise of 2005 on any one person or moment.

I'll think about it, though, and I'll make an effort to look. Because I'm sure somewhere back in the summer sprawled now behind us there is a place on the road where the Twins took a disastrous wrong turn.

The Twins, friends, are boring. We must not say so.