Grading the 2020 Twins: Bert Blyleven’s cardboard head cutout

As we did last offseason, Twinkie Town writers are grading players who appeared in a game for the 2020 Minnesota Twins. (Last year’s grades can be found here, this year’s here.) Players will be graded individually on an A-F scale based on their hitting, fielding, and whatever else the author wants to consider. Today, I’m swerving off the road to grade one of the cardboard cutouts in the stands at Target Field this season.

Once it was determined that fans would not be in the stands during the 2020 campaign, clubs took some fun and interesting measures to “fill the stands” and make it look somewhat full for fans watching on the television. The Minnesota Twins were one of many clubs that took the “big head” route and put some cardboard cutouts of famous Twins players, broadcasters, and other personnel behind home plate.

However, there was a certain big head that caused some trouble throughout the season.

“Every time I looked into the stands while coming off of the mound, his eyes would follow me,” said reliever Tyler Duffey. “It was pretty eerie, like one of those creepy dolls, you know?” Other pitchers noted the same thing when talking about the cardboard cutout head of Hall-of-Famer and former Twins pitcher Bert Blyleven.

A cardboard head near Blyleven, the one of Tom Kelly, started smoking after a game. “That was freaky,” said a stadium employee. “We had to get a fire extinguisher out and the whole nine yards. I looked up to the TV booth afterwards and there Bert was, laughing his ass off.”

“There weren’t even any people around the big heads. We had to move him away from the other cutouts,” said Twins president Dave St Peter.

Blyleven’s cutout was moved to near the bullpen area at one point, where pitchers reported some issues as well.

“I was sitting down in the bullpen, getting ready before a start,” said pitcher Rich Hill, “and I hear someone whisper, ‘Downward plane..... downward plane....’ I looked and looked and nobody was around. Just Bert’s head in the stands.”

Reliever Taylor Rogers noted, “Yeah, I heard someone say to me, ‘You gotta do this gotta do this [expletive]ing thing over again because you just [expletive]ed it up,’ the day after I blew a game. I knew nobody was around but that damned head of his.”

Some stadium personnel noted some odd odors coming from near Blyleven’s cutout, no matter where it was placed. “It didn’t make any difference where we put it. It just caused trouble,” said one worker.

Grade: [fart]