Area Baseball Satirist 'Completely Flummoxed' By Twins' Competence

Steve Neuman, a Minnesota-based baseball satirist who has spent the last four years poking fun at the foibles and misadventures of the local Major League Baseball team, has a problem.

"The Twins are...good?  What the shit," he grumbled.

Neuman, 44, said he is struggling, while the team he's gently yet firmly mocked for pretty much the entirety of the Obama presidency looks surprisingly competent.

"I am completely flummoxed," said the husband and father of two. "Remember when they brought Jason Bartlett back from spring training for leadership and mentoring and then he just fucking quit?  God that was fun.  I got three weeks worth of material out of that.

"Now they're on pace to win, like, 90 goddamn games this year.  I don't get it."

The St. Cloud resident, who works as a digital producer for American Public Media, said it reminds him of when he first started writing for SB Nation's Minnesota Twins site, Twinkie Town.

"That was the first year at Target Field, and they were on top of the world," said Neuman.  "I'd just started writing for the site, and Jon (Marthaler, the site's former Monday editor), the guy who recruited me, said if I embarrassed him he'd snap my neck like a twig.  He was quick to anger, and strong.  So I played it pretty straight.  But then the team got bad, and, well, I reacted to it.  I asked Jon if it was alright, and he just laughed the laugh of a deeply broken man and did this."  Neuman then made a hand gesture commonly associated with male masturbation.

Neuman made clear that he is thrilled that the team appears to be improved, and is excited for the prospect of meaningful baseball in the summer months.  At the same time, he realizes that it's made his attempts to write about the team more difficult.

"Used to be I could just flip on the game, and there'd be Kevin Correia fooling no one, or Tsuyoshi Nishioka playing second base like he'd watched a YouTube tutorial in between smoke breaks," said Neuman.  "God, I could write and write for days about those dumb, beautiful sons of bitches."  Neuman's voice began to crack as his eyes welled with tears.

"You...you don't know if anyone's signed (Nick) Punto yet, do you?"