So I’m just a little slow on the draw on this – happily that doesn’t make me gunned down.  (AND it means that Seth already did some of the work for me but more on that later.) 

To recap: KL, TheatreBrian, Lecroy24fan and I all headed up to St. Cloud for the TwinsCentric gathering with Sooze!  It was most definitely a good time and I’m pretty sure that the bar manager had a bit of a crush on Sooz-ee.  Can you tell by the signs he made for the event?

But a good time was had by all – lots of prizes given out, lots of baseball watched and lots of brownies eaten.

AND, in an unintentional coordination, I wore my “Chicks Dig Small Ball” Batgirl shirt and Kbro wore this home-designed piece:

BUT THAT WAS ONLY THE FIRST HALF OF THE DAY!

Happily, we won tickets during the TwinsCentric gathering for the Twins Alumni Game hosted by the St. Cloud Riverbats.  We were planning to go anyway but it was really great to be able to go for free!  To best describe the event and all the whos, whats and whys, you should read Seth’s column in the Strib: Saturday in St. Cloud.  It really sounds like they are doing good work with this event and I can’t wait to go back next year.  Really go read that or half what I say here won’t make any sense (if it ever does) because I’m just not going to repeat all the basics.

It was absolutely hilarious to see these guys coming in and playing a really WACKY game of baseball… the game had former players, minor league players, DJ’s, managers and you name it all attempting to play various positions.  The operative word there really is “PLAY” because these guys were having a very good time – including the umps.  You knew in the very first inning when Al Newman stopped mid at bat for a photo op with the pitcher that his competitive side was… not focused on baseball.  Or when he gets fitted with a mic and immediately starts complaining from the dugout that the manager had taken away his one and only shot to bat cleanup at the last second and moved him down to 5th in the batting order.  Yeah, it kep up like that the whole time.  His “Nick Punto” dive head first into 1B had everyone – including the pitcher who was trying to tag him out – dying of laughter.  And then there was the very vocal complaining about a bunt attempt, “oh no he didn’t, I am not coming all the way up here anymore…” as he walked back to his 3B position or the random singing of the Barney theme as a batter walked out…  I’m kind of wishing they had left the mic on him all night.

Of course, the actual baseball itself was pretty hilarious at times.  Like one time, a batter called off the pitcher going for a popup while running to 1B… it worked.  Or a little bit of Riverbat circus because catching and throwing seem to be rusty skills.  Or the inside the park homerun.. or Brian Raabe’s kid (batboy) saying he was probably going to have to hitchhike home because he wouldn’t say his dad was his favorite player…  But as crazy as the baseball was, the “lineups” were worse.  There really was no such thing as a batting order – it was whoever was ready, wanted to hit, wasn’t signing autographs or whatever other reason the manager put someone out there.  Poor KL was actually trying to keep score of this game – yeah, she eventually gave up but here’s the proof!

Brian was very disappointed that we didn’t get to see Ron Davis pitch – he played 1B and then coached 1B – and I think we got the best of both worlds.  We got to see a former player and didn’t have to see him implode on the mound!

With all that, I think the biggest frustrating for KL and I was that neither of us were well-prepared camera-wise.  Of course, we still managed to get quite a few shots but hers were with her phone and my batteries died in the 1st inning.  So we have what we have and that’s it. I hope you enjoy it:

But all that standing in line for autographs during the game was worth it to me – I came away with a great souvenir: a lineup card signed by Newmie, Koskie, Davis and Senor Smoke.