A common thread.

I've always loved baseball. I think I can pinpoint a conversation with my Little League assistant coach, when coaches were still standing in the field with us, as I was playing second base. "Baseball is a thinking man's game, Ryan. You have to think before every pitch, where are you going to throw the ball if it gets hit to you? Do you need to tag up if you are on base? You always have to be thinking." As a kid who possessed no apparent athletic talent, but wore a thick pair of glasses before he could walk, "thinking" sounded just great to me. 

It probably resonated a bit more because the coach was my dad.

Around this time, my active imagination was already world building for sports teams. A distinct memory I had was taking a 64 count box of crayons, pulling out two at random, and inventing a team, location and nickname, to go along with the random combination of colors. I asked my brother which one he liked best, and he picked one that featured two shades of green, and I had named the "Miami Palms". From then on, he and I created a tabletop game, and kept track of the Palms and their statistics. After thinking, "statistics" were the natural track for baseball fascination.

I kept evolving that game, my brother grew disinterested as he actually developed some athletic ability and real human friendships. I didn't stop loving baseball, but by this point, the local team was pretty depressing. The Palms offered an outlet to my baseball enjoyment, the thinking, the statistics, and they sure were better than the Twins. The game was a game of chance, too, with not much decision input from me, it was also an outlet for fandom.

From that initial conversation with my dad, through the development of the Palms, and on to now, one thing has remained true; the Pohlad family has owned the Twins. I've been a Twins fan since I can remember, despite my feelings about the Pohlads. The news that the Twins were going to remain under Pohlad control was a punch to the gut, and definitely ruined the week for me.

But the Pohlads have always been there. I've never been a fan of the Pohlads. I've always been a fan of the Twins. I like the players, the people I see on the field. The game experience is great, and I always root for the front office, and for their decisions to work out. The owners are a condition they are doing their best to work around. The employees of the team are who I imagine my money goes to when I buy tickets or hats or whatever.

The news sucks, because it appeared that a change was coming. There was no guarantee a change would be better, but we all craved a change. Nobody expects things to turn around for the organization now, and if anything, there is a strong belief that things are going to get even worse this offseason. I have to hope Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez won't be sent away, like Kevin Tapani and Scott Erickson before them. But I'll still pull for the guys here to win.

It might be dark times in Target Field in 2026. It could be dark for a long, long time. But I'll still love baseball, and unfortunately, I'll still love the Twins. I'll let you in on a little secret. To get me through the bleaker times, I still mess around with my old game, and my old made up team. I have a feeling I will be spending more time with that team in the near future. Let me know if you want to learn how to play too.