Last Friday, Jason and I took off from work early because there was a bobblehead giveaway at the Twins game. It was this bobblehead, specifically. Which, for me personally, is the best bobblehead ever, because I remember watching that game and thinking the Twins got very, very lucky with that call (made nearly 20 years ago, oh my god). (Never mind the sad fact that it has been nearly 20 years since the Twins were in the World Series.)

Anyway, they were only giving away 10,000 bobbleheads, and Target Field holds more than 40,000 people and almost always sells out, and we were playing the White Sox that night so there’d be some Chicagoans honing in on the giveaway action, so we figured we’d get there early.

Like, really early.

We got there at 12:30 p.m. The game started at 7:00. The doors didn’t open until 5:00.

Why yes, we are crazy! How did you know?

A couple of our friends had gotten there before us and were literally 10th in line. There were maybe 20 people total waiting at our gate, so we stopped briefly to chat with our friends, and then, because I’m not morally capable of doing a “chat & cut” ala Curb Your Enthusiasm, I told Jason I wasn’t cutting. So we went to the end of the line.

Which looked like this:

Everything was fine for the first few hours or so. More people arrived and obediently tacked themselves onto the end of the line. But then Jason left to go talk to our friends and take a walk around the stadium. And four guys immediately sidled into the spot he had left, even though there were maybe only 20 people behind me.

So now the line looked like this:

As I sat on the ground staring at them incredulously, thinking, “Are you effing serious?” the four men debated whether this was a good place to stand (no), whether they should move (yes), and whether the fence directly across from the gate entrance is where they should go (definitely not). Right as I opened my mouth to say something, they ambled off in the opposite direction, presumably to be jerks elsewhere.

That’s when I realized that this was going to turn ugly. By 4:00, humanity’s true colors began to show. More people were arriving, and even though they could clearly see the line, dozens and dozens of them decided they would form their own line. How stupid we were, the people standing in line! Ha! Clearly, we could just push in front of others because common decency is no longer an important facet of a functioning society!

Whenever anyone managed to flag down the (always-rushing-in-a-different-direction) ushers or security guards to complain, they were met with vague shrugs.

Meanwhile, I (not surprisingly) was starting to seethe. I wasn’t afraid of not getting a bobblehead – I knew we were still going to be one of the first 75 people, but I am the type of person who would rather die than inconvenience anyone else. (Case in point: if I am driving and cannot get over to an exit in time, I will drive to the next exit rather than cut someone else off. True story.) And yet scores of people were purposely cutting in front of people who had been there for hours. HOURS.

So now the line looked like this:

When the gates opened, our (legitimate) line started moving as fast as possible in the hopes of boxing out the interlopers. But they were a surly bunch and started shoving their way to the front. Right before we got in, Jason put his arm in front of a guy, holding him back, and said, “Hey! You don’t belong up here. Go to the back.” And the guy, whom we watched step off the light rail not even 5 minutes earlier claimed, “I’ve been standing here for hours!” No remorse, no apology, no sheepishly leaving like the 15-year-old kid we all called out earlier and shamed into doing the right thing. Instead this guy acted like we were insane for caring about such a trivial matter. He puffed himself up and denied everything – until about 10 other people behind us started yelling at him. Then he shut up and played dumb by whining, “Where do you expect me to go?” like the whole concept was utterly confusing to him.

To be honest, I was kind of hoping for him to touch me, or try to push me out of the way, or shove Jason, because I was dying for someone who deserved it to get punched, and he seemed like a fine candidate. But I think he felt so chagrined at getting caught and yelled at by numerous people that he just kind of slunk to his seat with his ill-gotten bobblehead. Jerk.

Target Field really needs to fix this problem, which I propose could be solved easily by doing this:

Or, even more effectively, by implementing this:

Or, as a cheaper alternative, just letting me punch people in the face who try to cut in line.

I feel it says a lot about a person if they cut in line. What do you think?

So…the Minnesota Twins seem like they’re not going to win the division this year. I’ll still cheer for them, naturally, but do you guys have any suggestions for other teams I should root for? I’ll take all teams under consideration except for the Yankees and the White Sox.

JASON WAS RIGHT AND I WAS WRONG.

(He’s going to cringe that I’m going to try to explain myself further, but since he called me “stupid” during the original fight, too bad.)

My argument throughout the whole argument was while Jason said “you can’t unlose games,” he was operating under the assumption that the Twins play an infinite amount of games. Because by his line of reasoning, if the Twins finished the season with a record of 62-100, he would say they finished 38 games below .500. (Because they would need to win 38 more games to have an even record of 100-100.)

BUT.

Just like “you can’t unlose games,” you also cannot play more games than there are in a season. Do you see? There is a finite amount of games to be played (in this case, 162). A .500 record CANNOT be more than 81-81. So if the Twins finished at 62-100, they would be 19 games below .500. My reasoning is that, had they won 19 more games, because there is a finite amount of games (162), those 19 wins would have meant that 19 of their games WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN LOSSES. So you essentially have a swing of 38 games – but in 19.

(Argh. My brain just melted a little more. After this, it now resembles one of those melty taper candles dripping down a giant wine bottle.)

Anyway, since the majority of you agreed with Jason, I will concede. Once again:

JASON WAS RIGHT AND I WAS WRONG.

(Until I find mathematical proof otherwise – HA.)

So, despite not being able to find solid evidence to prove either of us right, I thought I’d ask the Internet. (I’m hoping both Tess and Swistle can chime in here.)

The crux of our argument is that one of us seems to be thinking in terms of the future; that is, how many games the Twins would need to win to have the same number of wins as losses (because you can’t take away the losses), whereas the other person is thinking in terms of the present; the Twins have played a certain number of games as of a certain point in time, and a .500 record at that point in time would include X number of wins, and you subtract the number of Twins wins from X to determine how many games the Twins are below .500.

So, what do you think? If the Twins have a record of 29-39, how many games below .500 are they? 10 or 5?

(I’ll tell you which answer Jason and I gave later.)

The trip only took 7 hours from our house, including a gas stop and lunch break, so it wasn’t too bad. This was our last roadtrip, since we’ve exhausted all of our within-driving-distance locations (Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago). We’ve already flown to these cities: Denver, St. Louis, Phoenix. After each trip, we frame a photo of the stadium and a photo of us, and hang it in our game room. It’s so cool to see the wall grow. (And amazing that we have yet to duplicate what we’re wearing in each photo. Apparently, we have a closet full of Twins gear.) I can’t wait until we’re retired and we have a whole room decorated with our baseball trips. I really love that we both love baseball so much.

Our hotel faced the stadium, so we had an excellent view of Kauffman Stadium:

There were Twins fans everywhere. It was great. The KC fans were extraordinarily nice, going out of their way to talk to us. The first night, a group of firefighters bought us a beer, and the next night, the KC family next to us amiably talked baseball while Jason taught their kids to cheer, “Let’s go Twins! Let’s go Twins!”

Everyone offered to take our picture. It might’ve had a little something to do with our matching shirts:

What? I love the guy. Too bad he went on the DL the day before. We kind of need him.

We lucked out again with the weather. It was sunny, hot and muggy (Again, Phoenix weather alarmists: Shut UP. Ninety degrees in Arizona is nothing, Nothing, NOTHING compared to 90 degrees in Missouri.) We had seats in the shade, so it was bearable. The three blue margaritas I had at the hotel bar didn’t hurt, either.

One night, the Royals had a promotion where they tossed hotdogs into the crowd. I was mesmerized by the disturbing image of the mascot wielding a giant plastic hotdog that, get this, shot hot dogs out of its tip. Do you get what I’m saying? Foil-wrapped hot dogs came shooting out of the tip of a giant, red hot dog. Is no one else disturbed by this? Jason wasn’t because he was too busy taking a picture of the other hotdog slinger:

For the record, she threw like a girl.

Again, there were fireworks:

And don’t forget the fountains! The best part of the park, in my opinion:

We took a ballpark tour, too. The KC Hall of Fame is the best I’ve seen so far. Here’s George Brett’s pine tar bat next to a sympathetic letter from President Nixon:

How would you like to have been the guy who had to assemble this display?

We enjoyed Kansas City so much, and the drive there was so easy, we decided we’re going to come back every other year or so. The place really gives Target Field a run for its money.