This evening my wife and I took a foreign exchange student, for whom we are the liaisons, to a Minnesota Twins baseball game. Downtown Minneapolis was hopping tonight. On the north end of downtown the LA Lakers were playing the MN Timberwolves in the NBA semi-finals, while on the south end of the loop the Chicago White Sox took on the Twins. The student we hosted for the evening was one of those who was recognized two nights ago at the high school. She was on one of the shorter lists. She is an attractive, friendly, athletic, young lady from Istanbul who is also a valedictorian at Cooper this year. She had a perfect 4.0 because, according to her, Cooper is sooooo easy.

This was the Turkish gal’s first chance to learn about baseball. She had attended a game years ago with her parents on a trip to Los Angeles, but didn’t have a clue what was going on. Suzi and I spent the evening trying to explain the game to her. Baseball is a complicated game. I didn’t realize it until I tried explaining the rules and strategy to her who knew nothing about the game. Let’s see each player gets three strikes and yes a foul counts as a strike unless it is the third strike and then it doesn’t count as a strike and each subsequent foul is also not counted unless it’s a foul tip into the catcher glove then it’s strike three and on and on.

But we had fun even though the Twins got killed 8-2 by the Sox, yeah that’s short for Socks, which used to be Stockings, and at one time they were not White but Black, or something like that. She was gracious and seemed to pick it up pretty quickly. And she made points with me by not saying that soccer was a lot more interesting. For we all know why so many kids play soccer today. It’s so they don’t have to WATCH IT. (Smile, but with sincerity.)

It’s been a while since I’ve been in the dome. The place holds lots of memories: Promise Keepers, struggling Twins’ teams, Billy Graham, D.C. Talk, MWS, Amy Grant, 1987 & 1991 World Series. We sat not far from the large banners which bear the likenesses of Twins’ greats whose numbers have been retired: Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Kirby Puckett, and Kent Hrbek.

That last banner of Hrbeee brought me back to, I think, 1981 or ’82. I was just starting to work full time in drywall and ended up at a job in un-prestigious east Bloomington, a stones throw from what was then the old Metropolitan Stadium, home of the Twins and the Vikings. Some big mall sits there now. The house we were remodeling was a modest two-bedroom bungalow with an expansion, if I remember right. But I remember the young, enthusiastic (not quite obnoxious) girl. “My brother’s a baseball player,” she said. “He’s really good. He’s gonna be a star someday.” I listened politely as this teen-ager bragged on about her brother. Sure kid, I thought to myself.

I wouldn’t have given it much more thought, but I mentioned the conversation later that evening to my brother Jeff. Well, what’s his name, he enquired. I don’t know, some Polish name with the vowels missing, I said. My brother, the ever-avid sports fan with a photographic memory, asked, “was it Kent Hrbek?” That sounds right, I answered. He had read about Hrbek in some scouting report or somewhere on page D17 of the sports section or something. His comment was something to the effect of “yeah that guy really does sound like he’s pretty good.”

Years later I got to watch him and Kirby Puckett lead the Twins to two World Series championships. Fun years. Lots of nail-biting games.

Not like tonight. We got to sit back and relax as the Twins were never remotely in the game. And I can go on with my life tomorrow, not thinking a whole lot about the Twins. And maybe it’s better that way. I’ve got blogs to write.