Let It Be

~When I find myself in times of trouble…~

I’m channeling my inner Beatle today, I guess.

I tend to do that when I get stressed, especially over things that are totally out of my control. Like now, for instance.

Everyone is frustrated over the Twins’ lousy start to the 2011 season. Our instinct is to reach for answers… for things that could be done to fix the multitude of problems besetting the team. We lash out at the manager, the GM, the hitters, the pitchers… if only they would do their jobs better, the wins would come. As fans, we can’t DO anything, really… except lament the situation. Of course, different people lament in different ways.

If only there was something we could DO… any little thing… that might at least make us feel better, even if it provided little or no actual value to the team itself.

That is what I have done and I invite you to do so, as well.

Who among us didn’t have a mother who gave us some version of the, “Eat your liver… there are starving children in Africa who would love to have the kind of food we put on your plate,” speech?

Yes, folks, that’s how bad things have become. I’m not only channeling John Lennon, but my mother, as well.

But like the guy who lays down a bunt to break out of a slump, I’ll use whatever means is necessary to come up with a way to make me feel better about these times of trouble and today that means looking around to find someone who is worse off than we, as Twins fans, are.

And believe it or not, things COULD be worse.

Look out west… there’s a team out there that’s not only lost more games than they’ve won, but now they seem to have lost their owner, as well! The Dodger players only got their last paychecks because their owner got a personal loan from FOX and now it looks like they’re going to get Bud Selig’s “representative” running their team. That makes dropping a couple of games to the Orioles seem pretty inconsequential, by comparison.

The Mets and Mariners actually have worse records than the Twins do. But in their cases, their records pretty much reflect what fans’ expectations of those teams are. They aren’t even giving their fans some semblance of early season hope like the Royals are. As bad as things may seem in Twinsville, I wouldn’t change places with a Mets or Mariners fan at the moment.

And, better yet, as if just to make sure his buddy Ron Gardenhire doesn’t become overwrought with depression over the Twins early start, Ozzie Guillen has guided his southside boys to a seven game losing streak. Yes, for all the miserable results the Twins have had, they are still just one game behind the White Sox in the standings. And, unlike the Twins, the Sox haven’t called up half their AAA team just in order to field enough players to avoid a forfeit. Sure, they’d like to see Jake Peavy healthy again (has he ever been healthy since the Sox traded for him?), but that’s nothing compared to the guys who are MIA for the Twins. As Twins fans, we can look forward to the day when Nishioka’s leg heals, Nathan regains his arm strength, Slowey’s arm doesn’t hurt any more, Mauer’s legs regain some strength and Morneau & Young can stay off the toilet long enough to play a baseball game.

If you’re a BitchSox fan, what can you possibly look forward to besides another desperate (and ultimately futile) July trade by your GM?

One thing you notice if you follow teams during spring training like I have the last few years is that every team loses about ¾ of their road games. That’s because teams generally trot out a lineup consisting of 2-3 regulars (none of them “stars”) with the remainder consisting of guys destined to spend most, if not all, of the season at AAA or below.

Check the lineups Gardy is putting out there in Baltimore this week and you’ll see that’s pretty much what he’s stuck with having to do. He’s running spring training road line ups up against the Birds and hoping to win a game or two just by accident.

But at least he can look at the injury report (or in the bathroom) and see that better days are ahead… he will get better players back on the field at some point. Ozzie and all those poor BitchSox fans would love to be able to look ahead and see half a dozen better players returning to the lineup in the future.

And if that’s not enough to give you hope for a better tomorrow, then keep in mind that at least Bud Selig isn’t taking over your team.

So, for now… let’s just chill and let all those negative waves leave our bodies as we sing together…

~Let it be… let it be… let it be, yeah, let it be… whisper words of wisdom… let it beeeee~

– JC