Listen to Tilly's Playlist

15-3

Tilly handing out All-Star Ballots to the boys in our section.

Gazing down upon her adoring fans.

Sweet spot to see the game.

So tired...but we're home.

So...last night was the 52 week anniversary of the first time I took Tilly to a Twins game. Friday May 22 2009 was the night she first went to the Dome with me, wore those pink earphones, saw (ie, slept through) Michael Cuddyer hitting for the cycle and got up on the scoreboard in the bottom of the 6th inning. The Twins beat up on the Brewers that night, 11-5, and the same thing happened last night.

We were a tiny bit late to the game--we walked in right as Orlando Hudson hit a single to follow Denard Span's lead-off walk. Tilly put her head on my shoulder and snuggled in to me. I thought she was sleeping, but the people around me said she was looking around at everyone and everything. She stayed relaxed and contemplative like that until the end of the third inning.

In the mean time, the Twins scored 7 runs in first inning with only one out. I think Joe Mauer grounded in to a double play to finally end the carnage. The Brewers pitcher, a guy named Bush, lost his cool after his third or fourth walk in the first, and just about got tossed.

I was sitting there remembering trips to County Stadium to see the Twins play there in 1989, 1992, 1995...and it was apparent to me that if the Twins had another 7 run inning in the second, that there would be a greatly enhanced chance that the drunken hoardes--hopped up on friendly Minnesota-Wisconsin rivalry and lots of beer--would quickly break out in a crazy ass hot mess of a shit show. Luckily for the unarmed and underpaid security staff, the Twins didn't score again til they put up 5 in the 4th or something. So by that time, everyone had accepted the inevitable outcome on this night in a more measured way, and all was well.

Our seats were in the limestone overhang in right field. We were sitting behind 40 high school seniors from Baudette-Lake of the Woods High School on their class trip. In 1988, my classmates and I at Arlington-Green Isle also took our senior trip to see the Twins play. They got smoked by Kansas City that day, 14-0 or something like that. That was a day game indoors at the Dome, and at that time there was still a hangover from them winning the World Series the year before.

We stayed at the Normandy Inn downtown Minneapolis, which is still there (under a different name) and which still brings back memories--every time I drive by the building--of going to Shinders to buy baseball cards and playing chicken fights or something in the hotel pool. I think that was the first time I'd ever had a 17 or 18 year old girl sitting on my shoulders in a pool wearing a swimsuit, so it left a lasting impression.

Anyway...I digress. Flash to last night. One of the Baudette girls had a "Circle Me Bert" sign that she kept holding up in between innings. Around the 4th inning, one of the chaperones got a cell phone call that this girl had indeed been circled by Bert for all of FSN viewing land to see. Shortly thereafter, the whole group of kids got a photo of the circled girl--taken from television--texted to them. That really hit home for me about how thoroughly the world has changed since I was in high school, not even a generation ago. What will things be like 20 years from now, or 17 years, if Tilly goes to a Twins game with her high school friends?

Anyway, it was another joyous, memorable night at the ballpark with Tilly. We sat in our seats for another three innings after she lifted her head from my shoulder, and then wandered in our Grand Loop for the last three innings, winding up down the left field line in the second level--the Skyline View Deck I think it's called.

Sitting there, chatting with super friendly people, watching Tilly walk up and down the row of seats between me and some junior high girls who couldn't stop fawning over her, it struck me (as I watched Carlos Gomez make an ass of himself after hitting a monstrous homerun): the Twins did it right.

It is hard to find the superlatives that that ballpark truly deserves, and that it truly represents in a comparative sense with the scene from even one year ago...same two teams, same city, same game, same result, but an intensely more fun, sweeter, grander, and visually more stunning experience. Each time I get to Target Field, I enjoy it more and more. It's just an unbelievably fun place to go watch a game, and hang out with your daughter.

Tilly and I have our first Twins tradition established now: each year from now on when the Brewers come to town, we have to go to the Friday night game. Good things just seem to happen.

Visiting Dusty, Mark, and Crystal

Mister Charming, indeed.

Tilly's going to take Hank for a walk...or the other way around.

Don't mess with Tilly or you get the beat down from the business end of a chain.

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We finally got to meet Dusty on Saturday...he's Mark and Crystal's son (Mark is my cousin).

Mark and Crystal had a baby girl, Jordyn, who was supposed to be born the day before Tilly. She was born way too early in January last year and she only lived about a day. Dusty was a miracle baby, coming along right after his sister had been here for only too short a time.

Next to Tilly, of course, Dusty's about the cutest baby I have ever seen. He's really laid back and he laughs easily. Compare that with Tilly, who's very charming and sweet and smily--and who also laughs easily and has just started doing 'high fives'--but who would just as soon trample over an obstacle as go around it...and who can go from laughing to dramatic, pseudo-tortured screeching in 2.5 seconds.

Tilly and Dusty played a bit, but he's only 6 months old so he's just a tiny bit too young to keep up with her for now. We all drank beers and talked while Mark made steaks and Crystal made some sauteed morel mushrooms.

It was great to see them all. It had been too long. The last time we'd seen Mark and Crystal was at Jordyn's funeral, when Emma was still pregnant. I can't imagine the roller coaster these guys have been through.

I looked at my cousin Mark--who is about 6' 7" and only a few years younger than me, but who I can still remember as a little kid sitting on his mom's kitchen floor--and I thought 'wow, he's lost a child'. I cannot even try to imagine feeling the pit of loss they've been in, but luckily I can share the joy they now feel in Dusty.

Ticklish

Everything Is Right With The World Now

Tonight I got to watch with my daughter as my favorite team played baseball outside. It does not matter that they lost 2-0. It doesn't matter that it rained. It doesn't matter that my ankle was killing me by the time I was walking back to the car.

Tilly charmed the people around us in Section 240, Row 5, Seat 7. She charmed people she saw in the wonderfully wide concourses as she sat on my shoulders, grinning. She hung on tight to me when the guys in the bleachers down the right field line were clamoring for Jim Thome to do anything but strike out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 8th.

There is so much to love about this new ballpark. There are thousands of nooks, perches and spots to watch the game. I love the Metrodome for what it was and what it did...for the place it held in my life and in my process of growing up. But it was so utterly bad for the literal experience of watching a baseball game, in hind sight.

Tonight, I felt like an albino mole coming out of a hole, poking my head into the sunny back yard of the baseball gods. I felt like I was shaking off 29 years of darkness...letting my pupils adjust to the way things should have been all along.

This new field and the experience there...it's kind of like they took the State Fair, wrapped it up in a tea bag, and steeped it in baseball juices. That's going to take quite a while for any novelty to wear off of that experience. This is going to be fun.

PS: Tilly got a pair of Twins slippers.

Mother and Daughter

Sushi Revisited

We took Tilly to Sakura again this past weekend. She liked everything, including the pickled ginger, rice, Mexican roll, deep fried shrimp heads, etc.

The scenes on the street are a perfect summary of Tilly and her personality: (1) sweetest, happiest little baby with the best sense of humor (2) dawning mischief waiting to be loosed and (3) temper tantrum when she can't, say, whimsically run off the sidewalk into the street because her mean parents are keeping too tight a leash--again.