The Wake

It seems that Brad Radke’s right arm could shatter as he was warming up before the first inning, and the gritty veteran could refuse to leave the game, begin to pitch a knuckle curve with his left arm and throw a perfect game with 26 strikeouts. Anyone on the streets would hear from the sports media that this is the latest overblown nail in Barry Bonds’ coffin.

Or T.O.’s workout routine. Or how disgraceful USA basketball is to all things American: McDonalds, Dick Cheney, Oprah, the Mexican flag, Bobbleheads and people who bought the Paris Hilton album.

What do the Minnesota Twins have to do to get some fuckin’ national coverage?

Not from you, you’ve given the Twins all the gratitude you can offer and then you give more. You’ve shaved your back hair into that little “TC” logo. You’ve heroically delivered letters beyond enemy lines into Canada to tell imprisoned Twins fans tales of the larger-than-life lumberjack, Justin Morneau. You’ve beaten Red Sox fans with whiffle bats and aluminum bats tied together with your ‘91 Homer Hankey while screaming “We don’t need Ortiz now!” You were even kind enough to add Carlos Silva to your friends on MySpace.

You’ve done more than enough.

It’s ESPN that needs to start giving the Twins some foolish tender love. Fox Sports should fire every reporter who hasn’t raced to the Dome to watch some Minnesota Twins baseball game. Thousands and thousands of reporters from Los Angeles to Tokyo should be flooding into the Twin Cities to catch a game.

Because of a slow start, most baseball watchers have no grasp of what the Twins have been doing this summer.

Sure, bus drivers in Seattle know Joe Mauer because of his note-worthy sideburns. And anyone with a God-fearing and flag-waving soul knows Liriano and Santana. But the names Nathan, Cuddyer, Punto, Bartlett, Neshek, Redmond and Boof are foreign objects to anyone outside of Minnesota.

Instead of giving the Twins their due a little something extra, you know, for the effort, the talking heads that discuss baseball relentlessly chatter about the Red and White Sox. Or they go to great lengths to explain that the Detroit Tigers played horribly the past few years and gee, aren’t they good this year? There is consistent babbling about the flavor of the week in the National League, a league where a sub .500 record will get you a playoff berth, victory parades and your pick from the FBI’s cache of illegal goods. But above all else, the experts explain and diagram and sing about the Yankees.

Gardy, while milling about in his dank basement on a full-moon night looking for his stash, could be bit by a radioactive centipede, gain super strength and a hundred legs and begin to fight crime by day and win baseball games by night. But the Red Sox pulling within 9 games of the Wild-Card is all Fox Sports would be talking about.

But an A-Rod error would still be the lead story on SportsCenter, along with nine minutes of expert analysis on why A-Rod just can’t seem to get the sand out of his jock in Yankee Stadium.

The Twins just can’t get any respect.

Accept that from Tambourine Man. He’s always playing a song for them in the jingle-jangle morning.